What fuel source are you coming FROM

Reduced my dependence on earl by 85% the past 5 years. And thrilled by it!

Burned 1600 gallons of the old #2 oil last year and that was with a fireplace and the thermostat on 60 all winter. Family froze and hated it. Hope to reduce that to less than half this year with the stove and raise that temp to at least 68 which is comfortable to me.

The last thing we used before this time with wood heat was fuel oil. That was during the winter of 78-79. Before and after we've burned tons of firewood, and loved it.

Here in the midwest, it's almost exclusively natural gas or electric. Every place I've lived for the past 20-ish years has been natural gas. I was lucky enough to rent a place for a couple years that had a freestanding fireplace which actually put out heat - and had a hardwood furniture place giving out free scraps right along my work-home commute. When I bought my current house, the stove went in for the first winter and I've been on wood heat most of the time ever since. Gas only kicks in to keep the house above freezing if wife and I happen to be gone for an extended period.

After having read what some folks have been using for heating oil I consider myself fortunate as my wife and I only used 580 gallons of heating oil last year -- a reduction of about 100 gallons when we replaced the older (not trustworthy) boiler with a new one. However, with prices that were hovering around $4.50 a gallon I'm hoping to cut down on that amount even more . . . plus I have to admit . . . back when I was heating with wood I really found it therapeutic (i.e. hucking wood when ticked off, splitting wood to burn off excess energy, finding inner peace by stacking a pile well, etc.)

Oil last year. We kept the thermostat at 62, burned too much oil, and the only place I was ever really warm was in my car. This year, we'll have at least one room that is warm!

Got no gas, got no oil, got no propane...got nothing but electricity that costs me about 6 cents and change per KWH plus about a $10/mo. facilities charge. Electric DHW & kitchen & the other amenities, but we don't turn on the electric central forced air furnace in our home unless we're going to be away during winter. Other than that, it's all wood, in two stoves in separate buildings. Rick

I average just under 900 US gallons the last 3 yrs and have tracked consumption and price( today's price is still at $5.00 a US gallon in Ontario) on a spreadsheet as well, this includes my hot water. Will be able to identify savings quickly I hope.
The water heater recently crapped out and I replaced with electric so will see a drop on that front right away. I have read here that a oil fired water heater uses between 100-150 gallons/yr, is that accurate? At that price my hot water costs around $700.00/yr.
Have finished my install of an Enviro Empress and have 3 tons of Lakewood premium ordered at $265.00/ ton, has anybody used or heard of these pellet's.
Take care
Thanks

N.G but not much for the last three years and loving it.

After reading some of these posts I guess I shouldn`t groan about our oil consumption=varies between 75-125 gallons per year. Oh,and another 100 gallons of propane. :smirk:

Last year was are first year with the Homestead. The house was nice and cozy. Not to mention We averaged about a thousand gallons of propane per year. We used 250 gallons in the last year. We use propane for cooking, hot water, and back-up heat now.
I don't think we could go back to freezing.

Big house with a big big fireplace and a wife who has a love of really big fires - leads to really big propane bills almost 1800 gallons last year (much of it I suspect sucked up that 42 inch squaure hole previously called a fireplace as this house is pretty well insulated except for the big windows :gulp: ) This was inlcuding hot water and cooking for a family. The kicker is that programmable thermstats was set to kick down to 58 at night, never over 65 when home - we were not living the cozy life. This led to the purchase of a big stove sitting in that fireplace. Hopefully this will lead to big heat, big savings and big payback overtime. If not at least it forces me to get some excercise and like some said enjoy the Zen like quality of heating with wood which I have missed since moving here six years ago.

I used NG now the gas is for hot water and cooking only .Ive gone for years with no other heat then wood .

Catskill said:

OK wood and pellet heads. I'm interested to hear what source of fuel you're using (in tandem with or replacing) by using wood or pellets. Remember we're talking heating needs only.

Click to expand...

Winter of '06-07 was solely #2 fuel oil, 500 gal. in a 960 sq. ft. ranch home, thermostat set at 66F. We had to wear sweaters and long pants, and sat on the couch with blankets on us when watching TV. :shut:
Winter of '07-08 we burned ~375 of oil, thermostat at 66F. Installed a V.C. Resolute III in Jan. '08. Temp. went to ~80F in living room, ~72F in back bedrooms, furnace rarely came on, . Ran around in underwear, no blankets required. :cheese: Once, got the temp up to 92F. :coolsmile: I think I've got the hang of the stove now, hope to keep the temp around ~75F this season. :gulp: The only reason I'll run the furnace this year is to occasionally open the vents in the basement to keep the pipes flowing. :roll: Lovin' that wood heat!!

We have been in this house (double wide) for about 5 years. I'm not sure how much propane we used but it seemed silly to be using that instead of the fireplace that was factory installed. In fact we never used the fireplace until an ice storm shut off the electric for six days in January 2007.

For the winter of 2007-2008 we shut off the propane and used the fireplace only and a few electric room heaters. In January 2008 I discovered that a few electric room heaters used more energy than running the AC in August.

This year I have the wood stove on my side of the living room and Deb still has her fireplace on her side of the living room.

I have enjoyed 80+ degree temps in Feb. while burning our wood insert. I would lounge around in shorts while it was snowing outside. Then we moved into a place with a wood wasting fireplace. The darn thing just wouldn't throw any heat out even with a blower. This was bad. I was so used to finding free wood and using oil as a backup. Oil shoved it's way back into the number one position. I have taken many steps this year to take back control and push oil to the wayside once and for all.

Like Buono fuoco above... big house, big windows. Heat sucking fireplace that never gets used.


Been averaging 1400 gallons of LP for the past several years for forced air heat and hot water heater. It was manageable when both of us were working good jobs, but now that I am part of Michigan's ranks of the gainfully unemployed for nearly a year now and LP prices spiking to 2.49 gal for this coming year it's time to make a change...


Considering the Hearthstone Equinox and actually looked at one yesterday... what a beauty!

We are coming off oil. 2005 we used about 1300 gal, then new windows, doors and insulate and that dropped to 900 gal with the thermostat at 66. This is our first year with wood, so we arent sure how much we are going to use, but we are assuming about 7 cords. My in laws used to heat with wood, and their house was about 400sq ft bigger and not nearly as insulated and thats what they went though (with a 25 year old wood boiler to boot).