How much money saved?

Now, to be fair you need to calculate what it would have cost to heat with oil to the same temperature as you heat with wood.

I know I do not save money... Although my house is 5000 sqft, I spent a ton of money when it was being built on the best windows, doors and insulation. For instance, on the back side of every piece of sheet rock I have 1/2" foam board insulation. I heat with wood because I can get the house to 74 in a hurry where it takes a solid day with the radiant. Also, there is nothing like coming in from the outside on a winter day and standing next to a roaring wood stove. Lastly, the dogs love it.....

I think heating with wood has been a wise investment for us. I scrounge a lot of wood on my way to and from work and just around town. I remember paying about $500 a month for about 5 months to maintain the house at 70* now my gas bill is much smaller and for the most part I get free wood. I spend more money on fire starters than I do on actual wood. Yes Im lazy so I use the $10 box from the walmat plus I like to make it super easy for the wife to get the fire going. I cant tell you for certain how much we have saved over the past five years of heating with wood and pellets but lets just say I like not supporting foreign governments that hate US so any penny I spend on wood and starters is a penny thats spent in the good U.S of A. Great post Dennis.

don't think of it as saving

just spending less

stove - 500
saw used 300
misc chains / bars and PPE - 150
logs dropped off 400
splitter 1600 for the big one + 300 for the ryobi
cleaning supplies for chimney 30.00
time spend - lots of time

as mentioned still burn oil and i didn't start tracking oil usage until i installed a new burner / superstor tank -

so who knows but i do enjoy the house at 79 degrees

well i am still spending.... but i would have to say i am saving
i buy half of my wood and scrounge when avail.. however, its easier to buy because i can get it when i want it.. (my neighbors cry alot over wood looking unsightly in my back... in their opinion) but overall in the long run it will be cheaper than oil... i burn about 4 cord a year so my cost is never more than 400 unless i buy for more than 1 year! but hey i have a 1/4 tank of oil and at 2.40 a gal would be over 500 to top off the tank ... right now and that wouldnt last a winter
so all in all yes i am saving money

This is my 3rd year heating with the Homestead. I think this year will be the year it has paid for itself. And my house is alot warmer. It was a great investment.

I estimate I save about $600 a heating season, before deducting the costs, which in my case are mostly my time (I charge myselft nothing , occasional chain and maul / wedge replacement, gas for transport, and a little wear abnd tear on the paid-for pickup truck. I inherited an Old Mill stove from the previous owner who was also kind enough to leave a cord or so of hickory (that's how I got hooked into this burning thing in the first place), so I've not had to buy a stove, but I'm sure the day is coming. For me, I estimate no more than 50% of my savings go to costs, so $300 a year savings. Regardless, it's a kind of warm that my all electric heat can't provide.

It would be hard to figure out all the other hidden costs associated with wood heat over 50 years, but I bet if you just considered the cost of fuel oil over your free wood supply you probably saved tens of thousands of dollars?

For me, I scrounge when I can or buy when I see a good deal and when Nat Gas is cheap like this year it's prolly a wash as far as saving money goes but it still feels warmer with wood heat and I also like to see those low gas bills.

Heating my house with fuel I have harvested myself, gives me (and my family), a good feeling that to me is priceless :cheese:

If we figure that we have heated with wood for only 50 years, what would be your best guess on the dollars we have saved? There are costs involved that would have to be deducted from the savings on fuel price.

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My guessdimate is that I'll save about $750 a year over oil. When you figure stoves last about 20 years or more if taken care of, it becomes a nice investment. The hidden cost to me is that oil still serves my water heat. At some point my oil burner is going to die and it'll probably be the cost of the stove to buy another one. Or I may just say F it all and install point of use electric.

Chain saw costs (would always have one anyway but there has to be some cost involved with buying the saw, maintaining it and the gas and oil required, which is very little.

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There's plenty of saws on ebay for $30. last one I bought I got away with just cleaning it out with WD40, seafoam and a new gas line, it fired right up. Lasted two years and some change now going light duty jobs on gramp's farm.

2. It does cost to move the wood from the woodlot to the house.

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Lowest price I've seen is $200/cord for my area. So this is a straight cost. I figure if I ever get this project off the ground I'll end up paying for three cords or so. I figure there may be leftover wood from last season since I'm not sure I'll be able to talk the wife into loading the stove and she'll use oil.

3. I did purchase a hydraulic splitter but there are some circumstances involved which I won't go into but the total cost of the splitter was around $800. I did not have to come up with the $800; only a part of it. There are also costs of fuel, oil and filters but so far that is all.

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I do not plan on purchasing a log splitter. I do plan on losing about 50lbs if I have to process the wood myself.

Really the math for me is I'm buying oil from sunoco currently until I get my situation worked out. I have a teaser rate of $2.70/gal, on a 250 gallon tank. Lets assume they fill it with 200 gallons and I use 3 fills a year. I would have asked the guy I bought the house from but he had personal issues and really wasn't happy about selling it. At 3 fills * 200 gallons * $2.70, that's $1620 a year for heat alone. I've been installing insulation and windows and doing nothing but since we bought the house and ceiling fans to move the air around. It might be less. I might find out my wife really likes hot baths for the baby and thus it'll be a lot more. Who knows?

So we'll go from the other direction. I've budged out $500 for the stove (HAHAHAHAHAH) and then about $1000 for the chimney. In reality my wife really likes the Jotul Oslo ($2500) and doesn't want an "ugly chimney", so figure about $3500 straight to get the project off the ground. Wood, lets just guessdimate I'll use three cords for winter, and at $200 a cord for mixed hardwood in my area, that's $600. For people who want to really get into the nitty gritty, a can of seafoam is $10, the chainsaw was $30, and figure it costs about $5 to fuel for a job. Right there we're at $4145 the first year to make this go. But after that first year (whenever that is), heating costs drop to $600. Figure 100 gallons of oil used and put the price at $3/gallon for Barack HOPE FOR CHANGE Obama, and we get another $300.

After the stove: $900/year for heat
Before the stove: $1620 for heat (closer to $1800 at the moment by my observation).

That's a savings of almost 50%. Assuming I'm saving $900/year, the entire thing pays for itself in four years.

I made the move towards wood last year when heating oil hit $4.50.

$2300 for Lopi Freedom insert
$500 for insulated chimney liner
$300 for Chain saw
$300 for some starter wood
$311 for wood shed.
$40 for hearth utensils
$100 for towing cable (pulling trees over) and chain

All in all about 4 grand into the project. First year I saved an easy 200 gallons, but the house was MUCH warmer.

200 gallons x 2.00 (average price last year) = $400 semolians. If you figure I'm losing 5% in lost TVM on my investment that gives me a grand total savings of $200, which when you figure the work involved is probably less than a dollar per hour. In 20 years I will have broken even, just in time to pay for some reconstructive work on my shoulders.

Another way of looking at it:

About 100 days a year I'm going to fire the stove. By the time I cut, stack split, burn and clean up I've put in about 1 hour a day worth of labor. 100 hours to save $200 bucks.

This isn't too accurate, because 2008 was colder, and longer than 2007, and I added an extra 9" of insulation in the main attic of the house. So who knows what's really going on here. What I know for certain is I'm going to burn wood, and every gallon counts.

1. Chain saw costs: Current saws purchased from a neighbor for $50. I can cut a year's worth of wood with 1 gallon of saw gas.

2. Cost to move the wood from the woodlot to the house: I would be running the ATV around in the woods and on the farm regardless, so I don't count the gas used for hauling. Not more than a few gallons of gas anyway.

3. Splitter: 30 year old maul, handle replaced 25 years ago.

4. Stove costs: Free. It's now a family heirloom, been handed down to me.

5. Cost of wood: $0. On occasion I even get paid for it.

On the cost of fuel: Not sure what LP gas is selling for per gallon now, but this house used to take 2000-2500 gallons per year to heat it before we owned it and put a stove in. At $2.00 per gallon we save up to $5000 every year.

i dont have the figures exactly, but id have to say were in front. one night my wife told me after paying the bills with the check book that its great we have the wood stove, otherwise we wouldnt have money for the heat bill. i must admit if wood did cost more id still do it. i realy enjoy a fire and like the fact that if the power goes down i may be able to get heat so we dont freeze. after considering the splitter and fuel used in processing, saw and chain costs etc. maybe $900 -1200 per heat season. we havent had a realy cold one here in some time so maybe even more. pete

The power went out for 5 days last Winter. The stove kept the house warm. The boiler did not.

The initial cost was kinda a downer. We had a masonary fireplace, and our home layout doesn't have another feasible spot for a stove so we had to go with an insert. I looked for months for a decent insert on craigslist/ ebay, but because of the crazy year we had with energy prices, used was the same price as new. Now that everyone is losing their homes you can pick one up cheap, but I was serious about it then and there. The chimney is an exterior masonry, 15' so I had to insulate the liner. All things that add to the cost of that first "free" BTU. I also bought my first two cords, because all I have is red and white oak, so that poplar was a Godsend in December.

I really can't count the cost of a chainsaw or the time to cut the trees, because i was going to do those things anyway, and I figured I mine as well burn the wood myself instead of hauling it out of here. However, if someone was willing to pay me $300 a cord for it, it would be cheaper for me to sell it and buy oil. If I had to buy the wood to burn it, or had to buy pellets for $300/ton, it would make no sense when oil is $2.50/gallon. I figure every cord of wood I burn is about 100 gallon savings of heating oil, so WHEN the price goes back up to $5.00, I'll be saving $1000-1500/year, and the stove will pay for itself faster.

I tell my friends not to do it for the money-YET!

My heating bill went down from the 170's a month to 77.

Previous owner of our house was consuming between 4 and 5000 gallons of propane a year and not keeping the house warm. Spending $15K on windows and insulation reduced that considerably but I did it myself over time, so not sure how much of a difference it made. We can keep the house warm now no matter how cold it is and how hard the wind is blowing.

We had a couple of learning curve costs. We went through 2 stoves in 4 years before we got the right stove in place. Also tried buying wood year 1 which was a disaster.

Now, going forward.

Fixed Costs:

2 saws, 1 was new and 1 was inherited/rehabbed. $500
Dump trailer. $1200 (this gets used for building debris removal, free mulch, manure, etc.)
3 old splitters, 2 were inherited/rehabbed. $300
incorporated overhangs into renovation of house to accommodate 18 cord...nominal increase in price of trusses and maybe an extra 4 square of plywood/water barrier and shingles.
20' 8" chimney $1500
stove & double wall connector pipe $2500

Annual Variable Costs:

saw maintenance $150
splitter maintenance $50
trailer registration/maintenance $75, but again shared
gas for truck $7/cord, so currently on the order of $70/yr
gas for saw $25, most of scrounged wood is already cut
electricity for splitter...less than 15 amps/220V for 1.5 hours per cord
beer for scrounger...I'm sure its still cheaper than propane or buying wood

I'm sure the biggest savings and going forward require 0 effort were the windows/insulation.

I separate savings from burning from savings from scrounging. The investment of stove and chimney saves us something like (3000*3) for propane - (10*250) for wood or $6500/yr. The house also is warmer.

Scrounging gives the least return and requires the most effort but saves us on the order of $2000/yr after expenses but assuming my time is free.

If we had access to natural gas, it might be a contest.

My numbers are more like Quads. I save THOUSANDS of dollars every year. Yard sale chain saws, used stove, free add on craigslist (dead trees removed for free, gets me hardwood, cut and split, dead oak trees and live ones), almost always a fair amount of wood from the dump, wood shed built from free scrounged wood, splitter built for a hundred bucks, (having your own machine shop and a 30 plus year collection of goodies helps).

Perhaps the key to really saving money by heating with wood is to use no fossil fuels whatsoever. Don't forget, the money you don't spend on fuel is untaxed, adding perhaps a third or more to it's value. This year, for the first time, I will also be deriving my hot water needs from wood. If I get my chit together this winter and build a solar hot water collecter, I will have no cost, fossil fuel free hot water year round.

I'll just about break even after my first year of heating this winter. I have oil heat and we paid about $400+ every 4-6 weeks for 150 gallons to keep the house at a chilly 67*. We ran electric space heaters to pump up the temps a little more. I think we had 4 oil deliveries last winter so we spent anywhere from $1,300-1,600.

I spent $600 on my I3100 (craigslist find)
$850 on liner kit, block off plate, hearth extension material.
$175 on chainsaw (craigslist find)
$60 combined on maul and splitting axe

All my wood is scrounged, my woodshed was built with free pallets and scrap lumber.

Im looking forward to 80* temps in the house and not using much oil or the electric space heaters.

I won't count the cost of the wood stove because then I would also have to count the cost of the gas furnace. Both were put in when I built the house. The chainsaw paid for itself 30 years ago and is something I need anyway for property maintenance. The $800 splitter though was frivolous, I'll give you that as was the $1,000 I spent on the woodshed which will take years for a ROI. I buy logs for $100/cord delivered. I don't have nor need a truck/trailer for hauling.

Last year when gas was expensive, I saved money and was warmer but this year with lower gas cost I'm not so sure. Since I don't keep the house as hot with gas as it is burning wood, it's hard to make a per BTU cost comparison but I do know that I'll be warmer with wood, especially when the power goes out. I did some math last year... paid around $420 for gas heat and burned 8 cord ($800). I think I saved somewhere around $1000 by burning more wood and less gas. Time will tell what savings burning wood this Winter will bring as the wife says she won't keep the stove going through the day while I'm at work.

Bought our place in Nov 2005 (1840's Cape with lot of appendages), called the Oil Co to ask what the previous owner was using per year - for the previous 3yrs it was between 1700-1900 gallons/yrs :ahhh: Ok, she was 102 when she died and dressed the same winter and summer I'm told. Immediately put in the the old cook stove ($450, sandblast $75, new grates $85), so close to winter had to buy split seasoned wood -4-cords at $225.
Since it's in the kitchen L and not in main part of house we froze our butts off upstairs (the radiators up there had been removed and there was no insulation to speak of in the sloped ceilings) but still only used ~ 600 gal. and cooked with it too whenever possible (can get all of Thanksgiving dinner out of it w/out ever touching the electric stove).
Used homemade splitter =$250 + improvements ($100) - been doing fine with it 4yrs now

Next year we happened upon the antique parlor stove and put that in the dining room ($50 + $150 for used metal chimney, cap and stabilizers - the brick chimney had been taken down and terminated in the room above we just extended it back up) - still not in the main part of the house but closer - did this for 3 yr using fans - much better having done alot of insulation and air sealing too. Shut down the furnace all but nighttime and have used ~ 160 gal oil per year.

Now buying 8 cord loads of tree length @ $110 - lasts two years (some scrounged wood). Husband buys and refurbishes chainsaws ($10-50) sells 'em at decent profit so our saws probably end up costing nothing in the end.

This year lined the fireplace chimney (finally in the main part of the house): 25 ft SS liner $200 ebay, $95 cap.
Oslo $2500 - 30% credit = $1750, home made stove board/hearth ext ~ $ 60.

Do we save I dunno yet but we're getting warmer all the time.

Questions: Why do I so often hear that the useful life of a stove is 20ys? - I got two here 100yrs old work fine.
How much less wood have people burned after upgrading from an old stove to modern EPA stove?

Ah, a kineo grand parlor stove. One of those roasted us for a while. The newer stoves have better inlet air controll, easier to get an overnight burn. I don't know anything about this newfangled gassificattion process. When I wear my present boiler/stove out, I will go that route for sure.

LLigetfa said:

Now, to be fair you need to calculate what it would have cost to heat with oil to the same temperature as you heat with wood.

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My thoughts exactly! Before burning, we kept the t-stat at around 68 and suffered from being cold. Some months, the gas bill was $150+. Now we keep the house at at least 72 and feel very comfortable. Most times, it gets much hotter than that, which means that I can also blow some excess heat into the garage and keep that above freezing. With that being said, I am guessing I'll pay off my initial investment this year (furnace, liner, saw, truck).