My house came with an old smoke dragon insert, that was a sunken cost. All I had to recoup was $135 every two years to sweep the chimney. When that insert needed replacing, I had to decide if the cost and benefits were worth spending almost $5k for insert, liner and installation. I have a good job, I can afford to heat my house with propane, I like programming a thermostat and coming in to a warm house, but buying a new insert was still an easy decision:
I live on a wooded lot, I have to pay a tree service to take down trees that are threatening my house, it costs me extra to remove the wood, my wood is not just free, burning it saves me money.
My chainsaw paid for itself the first day I bought it - to remove fallen trees from my driveway.
I need backup heat, to keep us from freezing to death if we get snowed in for several days with no power.
Someone upthread mentioned the satisfaction of being a white collar worker finally seeing something tangible for your labor, that's me chopping wood.
I get to fool myself into thinking burning wood offsets the carbon footprint of unnecessarily large cars.
I get to sit drinking beer in shorts and t-shirt while its snowing outside.
My wild ass guesstimate is that supplementing with wood at weekends saves about $500 every year, and costs me less than $50, plus my time. If I valued my time at my overtime billing rate, it's a massive loss-making hobby.
I can't see the savings from wood ever outweighing the convenience of automatic heat, I would never choose to heat with wood exclusively, but I could never live without it.
TE
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I live on a wooded lot, I have to pay a tree service to take down trees that are threatening my house, it costs me extra to remove the wood, my wood is not just free, burning it saves me money.
My chainsaw paid for itself the first day I bought it - to remove fallen trees from my driveway.
I need backup heat, to keep us from freezing to death if we get snowed in for several days with no power.
Someone upthread mentioned the satisfaction of being a white collar worker finally seeing something tangible for your labor, that's me chopping wood.
I get to fool myself into thinking burning wood offsets the carbon footprint of unnecessarily large cars.
I get to sit drinking beer in shorts and t-shirt while its snowing outside.
My wild ass guesstimate is that supplementing with wood at weekends saves about $500 every year, and costs me less than $50, plus my time. If I valued my time at my overtime billing rate, it's a massive loss-making hobby.
I can't see the savings from wood ever outweighing the convenience of automatic heat, I would never choose to heat with wood exclusively, but I could never live without it.
TE
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