Break even point of burning wood vs burning oil

[muncybob]

I'm sure I will be burning wood this winter but due to my late start in wood gathering a lot of our wood pile may not be as dry as we would have liked. So I'm playing with the idea of perhaps burning oil for part of the heating season(to give the wood as much time as possible to dry{a lot of it is cherry} to the point of breaking even on my costs of the wood versus the oil. I would imagine to say how many btu's are in a cord of wood vs. 100 gallons of oil really depends on what your burning the wood in (efficiency) and what type of wood you are burning. I would like to set up an excel spreadsheet that uses the btu rating of a type of wood to show how many gallons of oil a cord of that type of wood "replaces". The spreadsheet will assume the efficiency to be about the same between the wood burner and the oil burner. I have a chart showing the btu of many species of wood. Can anybody help me out here...or perhaps this has already been done? Or am I getting too specific and maybe just use a rule of thumb formula for wood versus oil?

edit: just noticed I put this in the Hearth Room...maybe needs to be moved?

 

[Summertime]

http://www.pelletheat.org/3/residential/compareFuel.cfm

Here is a way to calculate costs per btu

 

[stejus]

I'm not going to sweat this but here's an easy look at it. On average, 150 gallons of oil in a 81% efficient burner = about 1 cord of seasoned wood burned in an EPA stove (about 80% efficient). These are just avg numbers. Even with just avg numbers, the price of oil has to come down to less than to the price of cord wood, $130 in my case. My last delivery was $2.36 a gallon.

Total wood investment to heat house not including hot water - $520. The same amount of oil to heat the house is $1416 in today's market. If it's a cold winter, my cost of wood is fixed where the price of oil could go higher due to supply and demand. Oil would have to be priced around .85/gallon to be equal to seasoned hard wood, $130/cord in my example.

If you are burning all hard wood, the numbers work in your favor. If you burn all soft woods, you'll get less savings, but still beat the cost of oil.

Here's a simple look at yields for different types of wood.

http://www.offroaders.com/tech/firewood-BTU.htm

Wood Heat Yield Amount of Wood BTU Production Oil Equivalent Natural Gas Equivalent
High or Very high 1 cord 21,000,000 - 24,000,000 BTU 200-250 gal. of fuel oil 250-300 cu. ft. of natural gas
Medium 1 cord 17,000,000 - 20,000,000 BTU 150-200 gal. of fuel oil 200-250 cu. ft. of natural gas
Low 1 cord 12,000,000 -17,000,000 BTU 100-150 gal. of fuel oil 200-250 cu. ft. of natural gas

 

[BucksCoBernie]

Who cares? its less $$$ going to those damn oil companies. I wish i did this sooner.

 

[muncybob]

OK...that helps a lot! Looks like at my costs in this market area I need oil at $0.94/gallon...not likely!!
Thanx!...have to go cut more wood now!

 

[daveswoodhauler]

This is the way I look at....if oil stays right where is is for a while.....and your wood is not seasoned where you want it to be, just burn the oil and that leaves more time for the wood to season which will help out even more when oil pricing begins to climb.
Right now I am itching to burn as I have about 6 1/2 cords ready to go, but the moisture is right around 22-23% or so for the larger splits.....hopin things will pay off when I can get it down to below 20%

 

[keydiver]

You have forgotten to factor in the electricity costs to power the ventilation system to move the heated air around from the oil furnance. Buy a the cords you need to and leave the stuf you have for this year for next year.

Are the east coast oil and natural gas suppliers still touting radio ads switch to oil its cheaper, switch to NG its cheaper?

 

[Corners]

You have forgotten to factor in the electricity costs to power the ventilation system to move the heated air around from the oil furnance. Buy a the cords you need to and leave the stuf you have for this year for next year.

Are the east coast oil and natural gas suppliers still touting radio ads switch to oil its cheaper, switch to NG its cheaper?

Yeah, technically, gas is cheaper this year. HOWEVER, it's not just the price of gas you're paying for. You have a flat fee service charge, delivery charge, sales tax, and other taxes. Factoring in EVERYTHING, wood is still cheaper. But this year, it is a lot closer. Watch and see what happens when the global warming bill is passed early next year and utilities start building an ass load of combined cycle natural gas fired power plants to replace the coal base load. BTW, I design and build power plants for a living, and I just put in a stove/fireplace today even though natural gas is just slightly more expensive than wood this year if that tells you anything.