Actual cost of "free wood"...VS pellets

[iceguy4]

I have burned a LOT of wood over the years...mostly free standing wood. It must be cut down$$$ cut up into stove size pieces$$$ loaded ..trucked home$$$, split$$$ stacked and stored$
For those of you who use a chainsaw, power log splitter and a pickup to do this, how much you figure you spend (TIME and $$) doing this?
Heres my list to the best of my recollection..all based on a cord of wood
1) cut down load and move wood home one 8 hour day...labor? (small truck 3 loads) gas$15, oil,$3. chain...$10??
2) split , stack...3 hours...labor?? gas$10


For ease with figures will you concede 1 cord of wood will take 10 hours to get ready to burn? (I'm sure there are young "whipper-snappers" out there who can do it in seconds) Other costs include time to clean up wood trash(from working it) bug spray and listening to mama about bugs. Time when you have to get up and stoke it. This combined with having to tend burner on its schedule ..as apposed to working it around your schedule.
So , its my contention if you apply $10/hr for labors ...my $200/ton pellets are in fact CHEAPER...
correct me if I'm wrong

 

[PassionForFire&Water]

Is that you in avatar picture, .... and what are you looking for?

 

[ewdudley]

Cost of gas, equipment, maintenance, you name it, more than I care to admit, but hey, free exercise!
Depriving the county of $8.00 tax revenue on every $200 worth of pellets I don't buy, priceless!

 

[PassionForFire&Water]

Cost of gas, equipment, maintenance, you name it, more than I care to admit, but hey, free exercise!
Depriving the county of $8.00 tax revenue on every $200 worth of pellets I don't buy, priceless!

That's only 4%, I taught NY had 10% or so on tax

 

[mustash29]

I spend more time and more fuel mowing a 1/2 acre of lawn and sucking up oak leaves than I do C/S/S ing 3-4 cord of wood.

I know for fact it took me 1.5 gal of saw fuel mix and 1.5 gal of splitter gas to do 2.5 cord this summer + three 30 mile round trips with the truck & trailer to get it. So 3 gal gas + about 6 gal diesel, so maybe 50 bucks total including 2 stroke oil & chain sharpening. That's enough to heat me for 12 weeks in the dead of winter.

 

[ewdudley]

That's only 4%, I taught NY had 10% or so on tax

I think the normal maximum for sales tax is 4% state and 4% county. But there's no NY State sale tax for home heating fuels. Nevertheless the counties can charge up a up to a total of 4.75% for residential coal, fuel oil, and wood (for heating), apparently.

http://www.tax.ny.gov/pdf/publications/sales/pub718r.pdf

 

[iceguy4]

I have never paid tax on pellets yet . Now heating oil is a different story. I live in Albany county no tax...Schenectady county...tax

 

[iceguy4]

Is that you in avatar picture, .... and what are you looking for?

Yea its me...how I got the name Iceguy. I was looking for any non Harman owners who actually want to be warm in the winter! LOL

 

[muncybob]

I don't count the labor cost into it as I consider it a hobby and needed exercise. But if you are comparing apples to apples you have to consider the gas used to go get the pellets, the tax paid on the purchase and your time (labor cost) to get and bring home to the storage area.

Before processing wood I paid a gym membership of $35/mo. in the winter just to stay in shape. Last night I commented to my wife that I need to get out and cut some more wood as the jeans were feeling a bit snug

 

[jdonna]

I can speak from both sides since I burn pellets and firewood. I find there are hidden costs with the pellet stove, electricity, parts (Pots, Sensors, bushings ect). I have to move bags of pellets around and truck them just like cord wood. The ash, dust and proper cleaning take time on the pellet stove just as much as the wood stove.

Hard to get a true handle on costs. You have to figure in the cost of the saws, splitter and any other related equipment. I had a blowout on my trailer hauling two cords of wood on the way back from FIL farm a month ago. All my equipment is second hand stuff, so it was pretty low cost.

At the end of the day, the exercise, enjoyment and satisfaction of burning wood on a cold day trumps dumping a bag of pellets in my noisy machine. I had 15 power outages last winter and if i did not have the Fireview, I would be SOL.

Also, when a big storm rolls through and lots of trees are down, I enjoy helping people out since I have the machinery.

 

[MarkW]

I don't count the labor costs because no one is going to be paying me to sit on my butt in the mean time.

 

[jdonna]

Yes, some pay big money for gym memberships. Just think if you charged 20 dollars a weekend when you are in the heart of firewood season to run a boot camp! Give a young man an ax and a pile of wood to split, the anger management therapy is priceless.

 

[McKraut]

Don't know how to put a price tag on the sense of accomplishment I feel after a long day of hard, honest work out in the woods. I enjoy my time in the woods, being alone, getting splinters, bruised shins, poison ivy and I love to beat the cr*p out of the wood with a maul. I spend 12 hours a day dealing with the public, and I often fantasize that I had a maul with me at work....... Splitting wood is very therapeutic for me. A lot of people don't get it (wife, son, daughter) but I can tell you that I will be very sad the last time I will be physically able to split wood. There are times when a bag of pellets looks good, but until the day I can't lift a maul over my head, I'll keep my choice as firewood. Just my 2 cents.

 

[maple1]

Dejavoodoo all over again.

I'll just paste my reply from earlier this morning to another thread, into here:

Strictly on a dollar/time basis, if I take X hours of spare time to make Y cords of fuel, that displaces Z amount of fossil fuels (or pellets) I would have to buy.
If I didn't take that spare time & do that, the Z amount would have to come from somewhere out of our existing income - and we only have so much coming in. So using that spare time like that is pretty equivalent to earning decent wages at a second job. I don't think I'd take a burger-flipping second job [nowhere near $16/hr here] if I had to turn around & hand all the money I earned from that over to a fuel oil company or pellet vendor.

Aside from that, I am getting much needed exercise (spend way too much time in front of a computer during the week), in a way that I really enjoy (I spend my resting moments during the week thinking only of which spot I'll hit next), and improving our property in cleaning up the rubbish & trail-making.

Plus it's a hoot winding the Stihls out & making sawdust fly - on my own time & when I feel like it.

To each their own in their own different circumstances though - I have no doubt that eventually my circumstances will change and I won't be in the woods like I am now. But right now I'm making the most of it and wouldn't trade it for anything. Well, except maybe for a winning loto ticket.

 

[Fred61]

If you're spending 15 bucks on gas to buck up a cord of wood and depreciating the chain to a tune of 10 bucks, I suggest you clean the dirt and mud off the logs before starting.

 

[iceguy4]

I don't count the labor cost into it as I consider it a hobby and needed exercise

I agree. This post made me look for a picture of me working wood. I'm smiling ear to ear cuz I loved it.... and miss it too. Now I think there is a common denominator in people who come to this forum. W e all like to save money on something we need and have to have and we get little or no residual value. We also like to tell ourselves silly things that we start to believe...like free wood.
When I burned wood I use to say it was free and my labor is free. Its not. Now at 56 YO I don't have the energy to gather wood...stand in front of a log splitter for hours (I miss this the most) I use to turn my nose up at pellet burners too.
Now I feel pellets are WAY better. (boiler... mess downstairs)
Now I'm NOT saying burning pellets doesn't have a price. Just look at the pellet forum and see some of the problems you will NEVER have as a wood burner. Is there maintenance. .yep and a lot of it...but almost all of it when you want... not when the stove needs (falling asleep on couch and waking up and not having to stoke a stove...Priceless) Going away for the weekend and not coming home to a cold house (my setup will burn for up to a month un-attended...maybe) ...priceless...
Wood stove...no power, no problem...priceless. exercise outside exactly where I like to be...more then priceless Honestly I would rather spend time in the woods cutting wood rather then just spend time in the woods...miss it terribly.

 

[Fred61]

Now at 56 YO I don't have the energy to gather wood...

Have you mentioned this to your doctor? I'm in my mid seventies and although I've slowed down considerably I can still fell and block a cord on one day and split the next with plenty of time left over.

 

[maple1]

Have you mentioned this to your doctor? I'm in my mid seventies and although I've slowed down considerably I can still fell and block a cord on one day and split the next with plenty of time left over.

I'll be 52 in January (holy crap ).

Get more aches & pains now after a busy weekend, but my teenagers still can't keep up.

No hand splitting for me though.

 

[iceguy4]

If you're spending 15 bucks on gas to buck up a cord of wood and depreciating the chain to a tune of 10 bucks, I suggest you clean the dirt and mud off the logs before starting.

you're splitting hairs...

 

[iceguy4]

Have you mentioned this to your doctor? I'm in my mid seventies and although I've slowed down considerably I can still fell and block a cord on one day and split the next with plenty of time left over.

Holly crap.. impressive never figured on an "old wiper-snapper"

 

[Fred61]

I'll be 52 in January (holy crap ).

Just a pup!!

I have been fortunate in my life and made a lot of the right decisions and can well afford oil or any other fuel to heat my home. I am an independent sort that doesn't like to be trapped and that's the way I feel when using a manufactured or processed fuel. I like the freedom of using fuel that I can harvest from the land and it has also become a hobby for me. Before I started burning wood to heat my home, I burned wood in my hunting camp in the early 50s and couldn't wait to get up there when it was cold and sit by the fire. It's a hobby for me.

Sticking it to the Arabs and their buddies is another benefit that I enjoy. Perhaps I'm a bigot.

 

[MaineGuy]

I must have my operation streamlined because I can normally figure on 40 hours to cut down, drag, cut up, split and stack (well my wife helps me split and stack) about 10 cord of wood. I figure my fuel costs are around $100.00 between the splitter, saw and tractor.

I figure I'm making about $100.00 and hour compared to burning $4000 dollars worth of oil a year.

 

[NateB]

life cycle of a wood burner
teenager = why are we burning wood its a lot easier to just go buy a tank of fuel
20's = I don't know why you guys waste so much time with fire wood when you could be out having fun.
early 30's = Hmm we spent an awful lot of money to heat the house. (Man am I getting fat)
late 30's = man those guys that burn fire wood might be onto something. (buy a stove a chainsaw and a maul)
40's = I really like this fire wood thing
50's = my back hurts (buy a hydraulic splitter, some type of front end loader, and try to get the teenager interested in helping out)
60's = well you know it might be cheaper to burn pellets or coal. yeah I could still burn wood if I wanted to but it is cheaper to burn pellets
70's = I remember back in my day...
80's = ....
and repeat

 

[mass_burner]

Personally, i like bucking/splitting/stacking. Its good exercise and fun. I only collect green logs, like tonight I'm going to look at 7 20' oak logs and offer a small amount to remove it. So the time/labor expense is not a issue for me. A few hours here and there isn't alot of time anyway. Put that against 3.65/gal oil. Plus, I don't have a pellet stove!

 

[Jags]

Built my wood splitter at a cost of $600 with a resale much higher than that.
My MS361 would have a used resale of 80+ percent of what it cost me.
Already owned a truck.
Would have a trailer anyhow.
So really it is my time and a few bucks in fuel. (local wood sources). My firewood is very near free and my other investments really are "investments".

Plus...my wood stove has never "just quit".