How much money have you spent to save on oil???

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There are a lot of great examples of cost savings in this thread. At the end of the day, for me, it comes down to whether or not you like processing wood. Going out and paying for 3-4 cords of wood a year likely isn't going to prove to be cost effective (using propane as my comparison). If you enjoy processing wood, enjoy being out in the woods, enjoy running a saw, enjoy hauling wood up to the house each fall, enjoy felling trees, enjoy making your woodlot more productive, enjoy scrounging for wood, etc, you're going to see cost savings. I happen to enjoy all of those things I listed so, for me personally, supplementing with wood heat is completely worth it. I don't need to hard cruch the numbers to justify it.. My $.03!
 
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It's funny. I was sitting here thinking about how much I've spent on woodstoves, firewood, chainsaws , wood splitter. Axes, mauls, saftey equipment ropes, Chains, woodshed's etc. just to save a few bucks on oil do you think it's worth it in the end?

I bet I'm in for at least $15,000. I guess I'm just feeling it because I'm on the front end looking uphill.


I figure I save about $200.00 per month during the heating season, so, yes it's worth it.

How many woodstoves and chainsaws have you bought? That gets expensive in a hurry.
 
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I've spent a lot on saws, a splitter, a good trailer, etc., but:

1. I keep the house warmer with wood than I would with anything else,
2. Prolonged ice-storm outages are no problem.

As stated above - I enjoy most aspects of wood processing, so it's not a burden.
 
After 7 years of burning for next to nothing, I replaced my stove. Just under $1500 for the stove and liner kit. The stove should pay for itself in one season. The oil tank is full and it should stay that way. I may get tired of burning and use maybe a quarter tank in March, have to wait and see what the price of oil is at that time. I try to go out of my way to keep from spending money on anything stove related. I make all of my fire starters, wood racks, carts, etc. If I need a specific fireplace tool, I'll make it from fireplace tools that I've picked up cheap at auctions. Don't need a moisture meter, my stove will tell me how dry my wood is. The one thing I've bought for the stove that has proved to be invaluable though is an ir temp gun.
 
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I'm probably in it over $7k for the stove, pipe, saw, splitter, etc.. all to save at most $1000/yr on heating.. but my house temps are in the mid 70's vs low 60's (don't like hearing the heat pump run). Enjoy doing the processing and so far have been getting all the wood I need. Also the wife is much happier with the better heat quality, can't put a price on that.
 
Up here if you don't like to or don't have the time to scrounge you can buy a truck load of wood at $80 a cord and still save quite a bit.
 
Up here if you don't like to or don't have the time to scrounge you can buy a truck load of wood at $80 a cord and still save quite a bit.

Damn, send some of that down here! $300/cord is the going rate around here for marginally seasoned wood, at best.

I've been emailing with a guy down here who owns a tree service. I asked him how seasoned his wood was and he replied back with a long email about how he was just getting into selling wood and that most of his wood has been laying in logs in a pile. He was also telling me he was looking at ideas for storing the wood, etc. I replied back with a nice long email of my own giving him some ideas on how to properly stack wood and some things he could do to get it seasoned in a decent amount of time (single rows, out in the wind and sun). I'm on a mission to reverse the trend of people selling less than ideal wood! Tall order, I know....
 
Last year I spent 3500.00 on oil to heat my house. This year we spent 3400.00 on a wood insert Napoleon 1402. My wood is free, a neighbor let me have it from a tree he took down. Ist oil bill this year had a 30% savings from last year. I figure my return on investment to be about 3 years. The best thing I realized is the comfort of wood heat. It is so much better than oil, wood heat gets into everything the walls floor all feel good. It has become a hobby that I will continue forever.
 
Payback on heating with wood was a little over a year for ROI. Now that money that was budgeted monthly for heat and hot H2o goes straight to principle on the mortgage. So that's another 5% of compounding savings. Wish I had done this from the beginning, I wasted the 1st 15 yrs burning oil.
What a great idea. I learn something every day on this sight. I'm looking at a 30% savings on my oil bill this year. I have 9 years on my mortgage so I'll put that savings into the principle. Thanks for the tip.
 
Damn, send some of that down here! $300/cord is the going rate around here for marginally seasoned wood, at best.

I've been emailing with a guy down here who owns a tree service. I asked him how seasoned his wood was and he replied back with a long email about how he was just getting into selling wood and that most of his wood has been laying in logs in a pile. He was also telling me he was looking at ideas for storing the wood, etc. I replied back with a nice long email of my own giving him some ideas on how to properly stack wood and some things he could do to get it seasoned in a decent amount of time (single rows, out in the wind and sun). I'm on a mission to reverse the trend of people selling less than ideal wood! Tall order, I know....
That's for logger poles... You still need to buck and split it but it's in your yard with no limbs to deal with. A neighbor bought the truck load of ten cords and he can heat for nearly three winters with it,
 
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I figure I save about $200.00 per month during the heating season, so, yes it's worth it.

How many woodstoves and chainsaws have you bought? That gets expensive in a hurry.
I figure my 390XP and 576XP will last longer than I will with myself being 52 now.
 
That's for logger poles... You still need to buck and split it but it's in your yard with no limbs to deal with. A neighbor bought the truck load of ten cords and it he can heat for nearly three winters with it,

Ahhh, ok. Haven't had any luck finding logger poles down here. I would love to socre some though as I don't mind processing the wood.
 
Well, let's see - early in the game here with my first year heating with wood (was in NC previously) but here goes:
  • Regency i2400 for $2400 ("free" blower), liner kit and tax brought it up to about $3000
  • $600 to have an independent stove guy install, top plate, cap and insulate
  • $150 on a mint Stihl 041-AV Farm Boss saw from a local guy
  • $120 for a hitch on my old Jeep Cherokee, then $200 more for a frame rail cut, replace and /re-weld but, hey, I'm driving that old car until it dies or I do, whichever comes first
  • Various files, bar oil, gas and mix probably come to another $100
So, I'm looking at a $4000+ investment year one but I could (easily) spend twice that on heating oil in one year without the wood. I've made some trips out to a friend's "wood lot" and to my folks for tree removal that are each 40 mile round trips but those were both enjoyable times as well as productive. An ATV is probably in my future for getting back into the woods on our own 5 acres but that has many, many non-firewood collecting uses as well.

To quote my buddy with the 20 acres of wood lot (who is also a lumberjack by trade), "it would really suck to heat with wood if you didn't like trucks, chainsaws and axes - luckily, those are three of my favorite things!"

I couldn't agree more...
 
At the end of the day I probably save between $1500 & $2,000 a year, I only use oil for hot water and when Im not home. As the price of oil keeps dropping I don't get upset, wood burning for me is a life style choice and if oil was free I would probably still burn wood for heat, it keeps me warmer.
 
It's funny. I was sitting here thinking about how much I've spent on woodstoves, firewood, chainsaws , wood splitter. Axes, mauls, saftey equipment ropes, Chains, woodshed's etc. just to save a few bucks on oil do you think it's worth it in the end?

I bet I'm in for at least $15,000. I guess I'm just feeling it because I'm on the front end looking uphill.
This month marks 6 years here. Have a wood stove in the barn (workshop) and had a stove put in the house Nov 2012. Fuel oil $0, none since 2012. Last year propane $400, so far this year $80. Chainsaws, spliter etc. I don't count the cost, Love cutting wood and its free. Fuel oil can't compare to wood heat. And thankful from all IM learning from the people on this web site. Thanks to everyone
 
Ok so I added it up 3 years of burning, house didn't have a stove so I had to start from scratch.. Season 1 - tractor supply stove $800.00, all fuel chimney $600.00 ceiling support kit w/ roof flashing $200.00, hearth pad $200.00, misc stove tools and other items $100.00 more or less 2grand start up. yearly oil bill close to $2,500.00, got approved for energy rebate (feds) I think I got back $800.00. Second season - log splitter - $2,600.00, log length delivery $300.00 (8.5 cords, prob cost $75.00 to saw and split between fuel, bar oil, and chainsaw chains. Third season - Blaze king princess $2,800.00, new ceiling support box kit $200.00 (relocated stove to basement) so for three years I'm at the grand total of $7,175.00 invested so far, I have three years of wood ready to go, and have plenty of down tree's in the woods behind my house. I figured if I was just on oil my bill would have been in the ball park of $8,000 the last three years. So I think I'm ahead, if I'm not oh well its fun for me.
 
Remember to add into your boughten fuel equation the amount of taxes you pay to earn the money to buy the oil/gas/wood or whatever if not scrounged or cut on your own lot.
 
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I have bought two chainsaws in 25 years. The first saw spent a lot of its life clearing my lot and dealing with the results of the ice storm in 1998 that wiped out 1/3 of my trees and caused the early demise of about another 1/3. I expect I woudl own a saw even if I didn't burn wood. My approach on stoves and boilers has been to buy used letting someone else eat the initial depreciation. My boiler was free for the taking. I had gotten my oil usage down to about 300 gallons a year after installing solar hot water. I did buy my storage tank new and that allowed me to stop buying oil. I have two oil tanks and haven't filled them for 2.5 years and there is still about 1/3 in each tank.

The biggest issue I am looking at is the amount of time it takes to cut haul and split wood (by hand). I really need to buy a trailer to reduce trips to where I cut wood and would love to find a deal on used splitter or set up a shared ownership on splitter as its hard to justify owning a splitter for 3 to 4 cords a year.
 
it would really suck to heat with wood if you didn't like trucks, chainsaws and axes - luckily, those are three of my favorite things!"

Like.
 
If your time has zero value, there's ROI. If you work for more than minimum wage, it's a loss. Just burn oil or gas.
 
9 years in, the insert paid for itself, liner, the saw, 2 log splitters & everything else involved in between 2-3 years. Now it costs between $300.00 and $350.00 per year in firewood costs, plus labor of course, as opposed to last 100g of oil I bought a few years back that cost $340.00. One season of wood, vs one 100g oil delivery alone, which ain't going to go very long through a winter. No more math needed.
 
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I have spent enough on processing equipment that it'd surely have been cheaper to just have cordwood delivered, in the short run. However, I enjoy the exercise, and would surely be spending that money on something else, if I weren't so damn busy processing wood.

If your time has zero value, there's ROI. If you work for more than minimum wage, it's a loss. Just burn oil or gas.
Not sure what minimum wage might be, these days, but I am sure I'm clearing it comfortably. However, there's only so many hours per week I want to spend doing that, and splitting far'wood is cheap therapy.
 
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