I just put in an order for a logging load of paper birch (which is as good as firewood gets around here) to be delivered in June. The trees were cut a year ago. Gas prices just jumped 40 cents a gallon here last week, and that means the price of everything is going to hurtle skywards. I figured I'd better pull the trigger, and only found one person selling logging loads now. It's a 9+ cord load, and I'm paying a base price of 1700, plus whatever damage the gas prices do to it. Then I've got to get a saw, and build a woodshed. That will be a bad time of the year for hand-splitting, so I may have to rent a splitter.
The driver told me it's a load that's 48' long and 30' wide when it's dumped. That means it goes in my driveway, which means until we've got that wood processed, the circular drive won't be. I can leave enough room at one end to manuver into the garage, which means we have to get a water delivery first, and then work with concentration to get that done.
While some of you may have choked on their morning coffee reading the above, for me it's a sweet deal. I figure I'll burn four to five cords a winter. If I budget out three cords of birch, and supplement with two cords of standing dead poplar from my property each year, I've got three years of warm there, and breathing room for getting more wood at a more leisurely pace, and maybe to wait and see if oil prices will drop.
My 30 y.o. Toy p.u. still has enough life left in it to wander the property gathering what's here to harvest. It doesn't have enough umph left to make 40 mile trips for 9 cords of runs.
If I replace my boiler, and fill the fuel tanks, I'd have at least four years of warm there, maybe five, just using the fuel oil to fill in around the edges. I calculate that would cost me about $1100 a year to heat this house. I'm calculating $4 a gallon for fuel oil, which I think is conservative over the next four years. If I just went with fuel oil, it would be about $3400 a year to heat the house.
I have the month of June off, and a light schedule in July. My kids will be out of school then. It'll be a tough week or two of work, but then it's over, and barring theft or wildfire, I'm set.
Many years ago, I worked construction in the oilfields of Prudhoe Bay. I remember a man from New Orleans saying to me, "Life's easy, isn't it? Except for this?" and he swirled his hand around taking in the Atco unit cafeteria, the tired workers, the swirling storm outsdie. He had family and friends in NO, and married the daughter of a wealthy man--he came north to work because it was sport and fun and easy money for him. I smiled and looked at the abundent shelter, food, warmth that only required our going outside and working hard for 10 hours or so a day, seven days a week and said, "This is as easy as it gets for me." Each of our worlds were unfathomable to one another. All things are relative.
Those of you who have access to oak (to burn! fancy that!) and live in more forgiving climates, use a different set of numbers to make these decisions. If I had a shot at that logging truck load of oak, I'd jump on it, and 100 people would be standing in line in front of me. Should you? Weigh, balance, calculate. I get such a kick out of learning how other people, near and far, live with fire, heat with wood. Armchair travelling.
Wood-fan-atic, congratulations on the upgrade in domestic arrangements! Perhaps ex- will return the favor and take in the 13 y.o. until he turns 15.
