Oil report on first year with a wood burning stove in a new house

I've got a 1930's built (remodeled) ranch with 1650sqft on main with a 1200sqft walkout basement - upstairs is pretty tight, basement uninsulated - I've gone through about 650 gallons so far this year. Just started burning a month ago.

I think you're doing pretty well.

yeah! Naive back then huh? Not including my full tank I started with this year, I've filled up twice for a grand total of around $1700. Hence my wanting to really take to this wood burning. The way I look at it, the non-renewable oil resource is just going to go up, up, up. I'm going to get some sort of electric/heat pump and have the stove too.

Fuel oil is now a nemesis of mine. The past years I didn't like it, but was still able to budget for it. This year I think I'll still have at least one more fill to get. I'll be cutting wood all spring/summer long.

I have a small single story 1950-1960 ranch with 2/3 basement. Approx 1200 sq ft (not including basement). I have crappy windows, and im pretty sure my walls are not insulated. I work for our oil company so everyone rags on me, but, im saving money. I installed my 110,000 BTU stove in September and started burning in October. I had 140 gallons of oil left from last year to start. What we do is burn in the evenings and weekends. We start a fire when we get home from work and turn the furnace on to get the house up to about 67*. By that time the stove it up and running, then we turn the furnace off. It will hold or increase the house temp by a couple degrees depending on the outside temp, but has never let it drop. So when we go to bed we let the stove burn out and set the furnace at 60* (because of my wife, if it was me it would be lower) When we get up in the morning to go to work we turn the furnace on and let it run till we leave so it puts a little heat in the house for the dog, then turn it down to 55* when we leave, then start the cycle again when we get home. Then on the weekend we pretty much burn all day. So anyway, we started with 140 gallons in October, by christmas i had about 40 gallons left. So i got a fill, about 230 gallons, at around $625. My guage only goes up to 190 then sticks on the tank so its still at 190 gallons, but what it looks like is im at about 33 gallons a month. Which with that one fill i should be good for the rest of the season and into the next. Normally i woud get 3-4 deliveries a season. I would predict that without the stove i would have needed one the middle of November, then middle of January, then middle of March. Each being around the $600 range. So i cut out alot of oil. And i have gone through about a cord and a half so far, and by what i paid for my wood that puts me at about $50 worth of wood. Pretty good trade off, and oh ya, most of my house stays warmer with the stove than we would have kept it with just the furnace anyway.

For that particular stove you're doing FANTASTIC.

That's actually how we manage my kids room. He's in the room furthest from the woodstove and the room also tends to run cold for whatever reason. (Currently blaming ghosts). We have a little space heater which you can set a temp and timer on and it holds it's own against the cold and keeps the bottom up. We typically set it for 65F or so and the room tends a hold the heat enough it hangs out at 68F.

I have an alomost identical set up a little south of you in MD. I estamate using about 150 gal of oil a year give or take. I think you are doing good. A little fine tuning and you'll be doing even better.

filled the tank in July. Got a delivery on 1/31. Used 119 gallons so far this season.

0 gallons of fuel oil for me. That's Z-E-R-O.

And it's been below zero degrees lots of times. Me like zero.

TX-L said:

0 gallons of fuel oil for me. That's Z-E-R-O.

And it's been below zero degrees lots of times. Me like zero.

Click to expand...

I just did a year-over-year comparison since I've installed the wood stove. My comparison isn't exactly apples-to-apples for several reasons.
1.) Last year the upstairs was 3-5 degrees colder.
2.) Last year the basement was 20 degrees colder.
3.) This has been an extremely cold winter (about 15% more heating degree days).
4.) DHW use has gone up (new baby mean another bath every day) but I don't know by how much...factored usage out of heat.

Last year from Nov1 - Jan 30 I burned about 375 gallons of propane for heat. This is about $750. So figure $175 for Nov, $285 for Dec, $285 for Jan, $285 for Feb, and 175$ for March (very unscientific estimates). Total ~ $1,200.

This year from Nov1 - Jan 30 I burned about 65 gallons of propane for heat. This is about $130. So figure $30 for Nov, $50 for Dec, $50 for Jan, $50 for Feb, and $30 for March .

I know I can never get to 0 because I travel a lot for work...and I'd probably need to fire up a second stove for the really cold weather. I can live with heating this joint for $210/year. Beats the hell outta $1,200...if I were more apples to apples comparing I'd be looking at closer to $2,000. So I figure my heating bill is 1/10 what it would be if I didn't have the stove.