Cost of Heat

[stockdoct]

Am I peeved? Yes, just a little, and I need you guys to help tell me where I'm wrong .....

I just purchased a Lopi Freedom Wood insert, hoping to keep my heating bills down this winter and for the next decade. The advertisements say the Freedom puts out 70 BTU of energy each hour, "up to a 12 hr. burn". Now, I take those statistics the same as I take the proported MPG on a car, definately distorted by at least 20-30% from "real world results". I'm going to estimate with suboptimal conditions, with suboptimal wood .....the Freedom stove might generate 50,000 BTU for a 6 hr. burn.

Now, the Freedom holds roughly 3 cu ft of wood, burns at 50,000 BTU/ hr for 6 hours, so :
3 cu ft wood provides 300,000 BTU energy.


Wood delivered in Illinois costs $75 per 75 cu. ft. or $1 per cubic ft.

Therefore every cubic ft. wood costs me $1 and provides 100,000 BTU or 1 "therm", as my gas company designates
1 therm = 100,000 BTU.

What does my gas cost me in Northern Illinois? $1 per therm.

So, the stacking and storing of wood, the hauling of wood and burning it into the stove, the $3000 stove and installation cost, the mini-chainsaw I bought for $100, the risk of home fire and CO poisening gets me ....................nothing.

Unless gas prices rise or I can cut, split and season my own wood from somewhere for free, it appears wood at $150 / cord is precisely the same cost as setting my thermostat on my gas furnace.

Mike

 

[kalevi]

Yes, gas piped directly to your home is cheap. Everything else, electric, oil, liquid propane, costs more than wood for the equivalent BTU if you assume an EPA stove with 70% or more efficiency. Use the calculator on hearth.com to verify.

 

[SteveT]

I think you are underestimating what the stove will do. Even if your estimate of 50,000 Btu/hr is correct, it won't go to zero at the end of 6 hours; it will still produce at a lower rate for a long time afterward. I'd do the calculation a different way:

If you are paying $1.00 per cubic foot you are paying $128 per cord. The amount of heat will vary with type of wood, but I'll assume oak. A cord of oak has 24 million Btu's, so you are buying 187,500 Btu's for each dollar.

There will be efficiency differences from the wood stove to the gas furnace so a direct comparison is difficult. But even with efficiency favoring the gas furnace you are probably getting 60% or 70% more heat for each dollar spent on wood than on gas.

 

[webbie]

If you looked at stove stats like the MPG stats then either:
1. you never read this forum or this site
2. your dealer never educated you

You cannot in any way compare these type of stats. There is NO RULE OF ANY KIND which states how manufacturers rate their stoves in advertising brochures.

Your best bet is to back away from the cubic foot thing and use one or the other of our calculators....
https://www.hearth.com/econtent/index.php/articles/fuel_cost_comparison_calculator/
https://www.hearth.com/econtent/index.php/articles/burn_time_calculator

Using the defaults in the calculator (1.60 for gas, 170 for cord of hardwood), I get almost 1/2 the cost per BTU for wood. There is also savings in space heating over wood heating.

That all said, it sounds...from your post....that you may not want to live the wood burning lifestyle. I'm sure MANY people bought wood and pellet stoves this year with the idea that oil and gas were going to go through the roof - many of these people would not have purchased and installed without this scare and crisis.

In my opinion, it would not be worthwhile for most people to burn wood just to save a few bucks. Most people that burn accept it as part of an active lifestyle. There are other benefits also - your gas furnace may not work in a power failure, etc.

 

[InTheRockies]

Circumstances vary for all of us--pricing varies for various fuels across the country and some of us have more limited choices--no natural gas is available to many of us. Personally, wood heat is cheaper in my region. The other options in my area are propane, oil or electric. In addition we can have power outages, so having redundant heating sources is vital as our winter time temps can really dip. It's also nice to have a redundant heating system so there's more flexibility when fossil fuel prices begin rising. Since a cartel controls most of that market, don't expect low prices to be prevalent for too long.

 

[fossil]

Don't be peeved at us...we're just a bunch of people who really enjoy burning wood, for one reason or another. Be thankful that you have a backup source of heating...whether you consider the woodburning insert the backup, or the NG the backup. You've added a valuable asset to your home, how (or if) you choose to use it is up to you. Instead of getting all wrapped around the (very fuzzy) math, how about getting the thing up and burning and see how you like it? At the risk of sounding unsympathetic, I'll ask why, if you're into this kind of in-depth analysis of the "numbers", you apparently didn't run all this stuff through your calculator before you sprang for the very nice insert? My advice: nice insert, get some wood, learn how to burn it, and learn to love it...it already loves you. Rick

 

[wellbuilt home]

Yes you have to seek out your own wood . I would get a truck or a trailer and set your self up to burn wood for life. When i started burning all i had was a saw & a truck to hall the wood 18 years later i have people paying me to cut there wood I hall the wood in my dump truck & dump trailer I have my own splitter saws skid steer 3 sons . Now the wood game it easy for me . I turned my furnace off years ago and have not even tried to light it in 4 years. I pay 0 for heat now .I only pay for gas , oil , chains Time to cut and split. I think you have to get in the game .

 

[daveswoodhauler]

Don't be peeved at us...we're just a bunch of people who really enjoy burning wood, for one reason or another. Be thankful that you have a backup source of heating...whether you consider the woodburning insert the backup, or the NG the backup. You've added a valuable asset to your home, how (or if) you choose to use it is up to you. Instead of getting all wrapped around the (very fuzzy) math, how about getting the thing up and burning and see how you like it? At the risk of sounding unsympathetic, I'll ask why, if you're into this kind of in-depth analysis of the "numbers", you apparently didn't run all this stuff through your calculator before you sprang for the very nice insert? My advice: nice insert, get some wood, learn how to burn it, and learn to love it...it already loves you. Rick

Was going to type in the same thing, but Fossil beat me to it.
Don't be peeved yet....get some decent wood...give it a year, and like other posters have indicated....most of us burn wood because we "like to" The overall cost for some will differ from user to user. Some posters here are so good at scrounging wood, that they never have to purchase wood each year....still trying to talk the wife into letting me purchase a beater truck for just the sort.

For example, I bought my insert when oil was 4.45/gallon....don't have gas here....now oil is at $2.60 gallon..am I peeved? nope....just looking forward to next year when my wood is even more seasoned, and I don't have to burn as much....will probably burn a little less this year if the price keeps coming down.

Take some time around the site, and stack some wood, get rowdy in the "ash can", and after a year you will be tryng to help out others like yourself. Good luck with the insert, as its a a nice one.

 

[sly22guy]

I would check with your state, i know here in pa you can buy a pass from the state to go in and clear downed trees off state game lands. I dont remember how much it was but it was super cheap for the amount of wood we got. something like $25-40 and we got 4 truck loads.

 

[Hiram Maxim]

Remember the black-out in Summer 2003?

Well I do! No Water, No electricity, and no natural gas for 6 days.

The pumping stations could not pump natural gas without electrical power.

Thank goodness it was Summer because I guarantee you hundreds of people would have died if that happen in the heart of a Northern Winter.

As stated by others having a back-up heat source is good common sense and will pay for itself.

Now figure this, if it costs you the same right now to heat using natural gas then use it. Save the wood for when the natural gas increases past your comfort level ($) or you loose power.

I live in the middle of suburbia and I scrounge wood from neighbor's and tree companies. This last Winter I saved at least $2000 in heating bills. It sure as hell was not $2000 worth of firewood! ;-)

Personally to me there is nothing like the feeling of wood stove heat. Plus our natural gas price increased 21% last month thanks to our socialist Governor.

My Grandfather lived in "The City" during the depression and the family almost ran out of coal. My Grandfather said there were many nights when he couldn't sleep because it was so damn cold in the house. This is just minor details of his experience's but it left a lasting impression on me.

There are way more pro's than cons. Knowing that you can heat your house no matter what, is peace of mind and money well spent.

 

[Famer]

Even if it turns out that you don't enjoy the wood burning life style, consider your insert an investment in your house. When it comes time to sell, who knows, you might have a potential buyer who enjoys wood burning and it might help seal the deal. That might be years down the road (like it is for me), but that's yet another "positive" that I see in my new insert.

 

[pinewoodburner]

One thing to remember, when the Global Economy takes off again, guess what, the price of natural gas and oil will go back up. Be that next year, 3 years or 5 years from now, it will happen. With the price dropping, it gives a good time to learn the best way to burn with the stove. I bought my stove this summer when oil was going up and up. This summer, the payback for the stove was less than a year. Right now oil in Va is $2.90, not as low as up north, but at that cost, payback will be less than 2 years. If oil keeps dropping, I will fill up my 550 gallon tank and have it for when we travel or such, or I may use it some on the colder nights, but I don't regret buying the stove. I did use a wood stove for many years before I got married and bought this house. Burning wood is not for everyone, but I like the work and it keeps me in shape.

 

[Corey]

I don't know if you're trying to troll or what, these are some pretty simple calculations - if you were doing this 'for the money' I'd expect you'd take a minute and run these before plonking down the bucks for a stove. But, anyway...Your initial assumptions are in the ballpark...a slightly more accurate way to look at it may be to simply look at btu fuel consumption and leave the time out of it...

Look at something like a standard cord of red oak - 3700 pounds / 24 million btu. That would run about $150 around here. So $150 / 24MBTU = $6.25 per million BTU. I'm waiting for my latest gas bill, but your $1.00 therm figure seems pretty close (I was thinking around 70 cents or so, but...) $1 / 100,000 BTU = $10 per million BTU.

You also need to consider the efficiency of the appliances. I'm sure a wood stove can spike up to 70-75%, I'd wager average burning would be high 60's to low 70's...maybe 70% average, so $6.25 per MBTU / .70 = $8.93 per million BTU delivered to the house. Gas furnace could run anywhere from 75% for an old model to mid 90's for a newer high efficiency unit - of course the math here is pretty easy, using this example anything below 89%, it's cheaper to burn wood - above is cheaper to burn gas. Assuming a properly installed wood stove and properly installed gas furnace, I'd say the risk of fire/CO poising is roughly equal for both, so that is a wash.

So what does this prove? - basically anything anybody with a calculator knows...natural gas is pretty cheap and buying wood vs buying natural gas is pretty much a wash unless you can find someone selling high BTU wood (hedge, hickory, locust) for very cheap. As already posted, heating oil, electricity (in some parts of the US) can run significantly higher than natural gas. If you get your own wood - either through permits, friends with wood lots, or scrounging publicly available sources, then wood can offer significant savings over gas. Plus be ascetically pleasing and providing back-up heat should power or gas not be available.

PS - I would also add - take a close look at your gas bill. Some of the costs are fixed, while others are not. Many times simply dividing the total by the therms used doesn't give an accurate account as you are including some of the base costs which don't change when you use additional gas. As an example, my water bill normally runs about $50 with all the fees, taxes, adjustments, etc. In the summer months my usage of water probably doubles due to garden watering, etc - but the bill only goes up to about $60. The actual commodity "water" is a very small part of the overall bill.

 

[karl]

You're not getting your gas that cheap. It's about $1.30 a therm around here plus all the hidden fees. Say you get 200 therms out of a cord. That's reasonable for decent wood. So $260 a cord wood be the break even point, assuming similar effiecenies.

 

[Greg Richardson]

Few things to consider..............

Looking at a fire first of all is very relaxing. Have you opened up your furnace door and stared at that for a while?
Doesn't do it now does it?

With wood heat you rely on no one to supply your heat.

Can anyone put a price on wood heat?
The kind that actually warms your whole body unlike all the other types of heat that go on and off.

Isn't it great to open up your windows in the dead of winter to flush germs out of your house not worried about utility cost knowing shortly your home be warm again.

When it comes to heating your home with wood there are factors that money just can't buy!

 

[kenny chaos]

Yes, people with gas should not burn wood for $$.

 

[EatenByLimestone]

I scrounge for my wood so cost isn't the option it is for some, but I look at the stove as a space heater. The room with my stove, and adjoining rooms where my family gathers, is kept much warmer than it would be if I had to pay solely for gas. The gas heats my house into the 50s. The stove takes it up to 80.

My wife is from Houston and likes it warm. The wood stove makes it warm for her.

Matt

 

[bokehman]

This efficiency thing about a gas boiler is BS. It is not looking at the whole picture. Say the boiler is 90% efficient that means it only loses 10% of the fuel energy out of the flue, but there are lots of other inefficiencies in central heating systems, like transmission loss around the rad loop, rad design, electricity costs, etc. With central heating most people aim to create a uniform temperature in all zones, normally about 68ºF. With a woodstove that's not the case. In my house the bedrooms are around 60ºF on the coldest days and the main living space around 75ºF. We don't need to argue about the temperature either; if someone feels cold they just need to move a bit closer to the fire. Also 75ºF doesn't tell the whole story either. A woodstove heats mainly by radiance. The heat feels natural, like the sun. Consider the difference in the perception of the heat between 75ºF on a very cloudy day and 75ºF with a completely clear sky and bright sun.

 

[daleeper]

Am I peeved? Yes, just a little, and I need you guys to help tell me where I'm wrong .....



So, the stacking and storing of wood, the hauling of wood and burning it into the stove, the $3000 stove and installation cost, the mini-chainsaw I bought for $100, the risk of home fire and CO poisening gets me ....................nothing.

Unless gas prices rise or I can cut, split and season my own wood from somewhere for free, it appears wood at $150 / cord is precisely the same cost as setting my thermostat on my gas furnace.

Mike

You should have done the calculations prior to the purchase. I have wood from the farm that needs cut, but have plenty of other things I would rather do than cut wood (firewood is never free). When lp was less than a dollar a gallon, I only burned wood the 3-4 coldest weeks of the year. I burn wood from December to March almost 24-7 now because lp is priced higher than I want to pay.

I will say that just having the ability to heat the house in an emergency with wood is priceless.

 

[Rob From Wisconsin]

I scrounge for my wood so cost isn't the option it is for some, but I look at the stove as a space heater. The room with my stove, and adjoining rooms where my family gathers, is kept much warmer than it would be if I had to pay solely for gas. The gas heats my house into the 50s. The stove takes it up to 80.

My wife is from Houston and likes it warm. The wood stove makes it warm for her.

Matt

Good point! Most of the people I know who use woodstoves/pelletstoves in Natural Gas areas
use it primarily as a space heater in a location where it is impracticle/difficult to direct heat to,
say your basement. Their only viable option is an electric space heater, and we know the price
of electric heat is very high.

 

[savageactor7]

stockdoct there are a lot of trade offs and cost-benefit mysteries of using wood heat. Take heart cause if it wasn't worth the effort most of us wouldn't be doing it. You will eventually feel the same way. The thing with gas heat is that the vast majority keep the temp down so they can afford it and survive winter. With wood you're actually warm...that's a huge plus.

We figure savings using wood at 3k a year not to mention the health benefits from keeping active with this year around pursuit.

If you have the room for log loads that's the least expensive way to buy wood and it's some much easier to process too. After supper go work on for 30-45 minutes or so before ya know it it's gone and there was no drudgery to attending to it.

 

[The Dali Lima]

From what I've read here - and spoken with others about - the main way to make wood burning save your wallet is to find free wood. While in the long run you may save some by simply buying wood versus gas/oil price increases (which WILL happen, whether it is now or in 2 years) the best way to make the entire system efficient is to get free or cheap fuel. I've already staked out 3 trees that need to be cut in my yard and my mother-in-law's yard. Free fuel.

 

[Got Wood]

I'm new to the wood burning for heat life. Actually, waiting for install of a Fireplace Xtrordinaire which is due for delivery this week. I spent a fair amount of time thinking and reading about the variables with this investment. Key point - it is an investment. Things I considered:

Cost vs. Payback period - Oil heat here. I used the calculater on this site, read a bunch of entires in the forums. Went conservative with my numbers and assumed an ave cord = 150 gal of oil. At $3.50/gal 150 gal = $525. I went conservative on how many cords I would burn... reading here most suggest 5 cords as a good estimator to use... I went with 3 cords. So, taking my conservative approach I'm looking at $1,575 savings/yr if I scrounge my wood. (the fuel cost calculator showed a savings of about $1700 with buying wood at $250/cord and heating the whole house).

Wood - First, I have always enjoyed scrounging wood... like being in the woods, cutting, splitting, etc... but I have never done it at the volume required (still TBD how I will feel about it in say 5 years). I figure though the I can scrounge 3 cords over the course of a year by pay attention to opportunities and jumping on them. I have alot of oaks nearby which is a big plus.

My health/ability to do the work. I aint getting younger and what will be it feel like to lug around wood in 5-10-15 years? I figured that sense I really enjoy being outdoors and doing the work ,its safe to say I can put in 10 years of this. By then the investment is long paid for and many savings in the bank.

Benefits of having an alternate source of heat. Nice to have the protection against power outages but more importantly economic changes including the price of fuels and also the family income.

The ability to run my fire place and not have it cost me money. We love the fire place but running it was sucking the heat up the chimney so it ended up being a net heat loss which we would pay for because we liked the fire place. Having it be cost efficient will be awesome.

Having a WARM house. My girls are always complaining because I keep the heat down low to save money.

Another factor - I work at home now, so I am here to tend to the fire throughout the day.

Value it adds to the house. Clearly having it helps the house value. We are also re-doing the whole look and it should be beautiful.

Some things I didn't consider before the decision but am now realizing (duh):

A cord of wood is ALOT of wood. (especially doing the scrounge .... find, cut, split, transport, stack)

Space needed to store multiple cords of wood and what it does to "eye appeal" of your property. Luckily I have a wooded area backing up to my property but if you want to get a season or two ahead (for seasoning of the wood) I should plan on having stacks of up to 10 cords (I have 3.5 cords now and it seems like ALOT).

I am researching log splitters now - to do this the way I want to, scrounge and split, I need my own splitter. I can rent one (around here its running about $90/day) but that would require a huge effort for the day and eventually will cost more than buying/maintaining my own. I would much prefer to do my splitting 30-60 min at a time - I work better that way. There are many threads here about log splitters. I have not made a decision but its looking like something in the $1000 - $1500 range (have my eye on a 27 ton Troy built, honda engine at local Lowes for $1400. One advantage of local is saving delivery cost).

Yesterday I read a few threads about stacking and when/whether or not to cover your stacks. The net net of that research... keep them off the ground (pallets), don't stack too tight, allow air to get to the pile, covering on top seems like a debateable point... to me it makes sense to cover on top and leave sides open. If your willing to baby sit the stack, cover/uncover based on weather as burning season gets closer. Keep snow off.

I have also read alot about burning the fires. Anxiously waiting to get this baby installed so I can fire it up and learn the tricks of this new tool!

I have become consumed with this project. I appreciate the advice from this forum. Looking forward to a WARM house this winter!

 

[MarcM]

Being from a fairly rural area, but very close to suburbs and major metropolitan areas, I have been exposed to several different lifestyles over the course of my child and adulthood.

Burning wood was always just part of our lifestyle. It was something most people did. Now that I've got my own house, my family probably would've thought me a little odd had I not pursued burning wood for heat.

That being said, the more I do on my own, the more I enjoy it. I even enjoyed it under the rule of my parents' thumb. It was never something I had to be forced to do. I'd often take the maul and wedges out on my own volition and start up the stove without being asked.

I love seeing the people around here, especially new people get the same enjoyment out of the process. Don't kill yourself on the economics of it, because you will inevitably leave out many intangible and invaluable benefits of wood heat. If you're still not happy, then burning wood just might not be for you or try scrounging for free wood, as others have said. Burning wood is definitely not for everyone. It takes some sacrifices and some effort, and a strong sense of self reliance. Enjoying the whole process helps a lot too.

I'd also like to point out, as others have said, your risk of CO exposure and structure fire are closely related to how competent a wood burner you are. If you enjoy it you are more likely to do it safely, I'd wager to say. If one does it properly, it's a very, very safe way to heat your home.

Did you ever consider the consequences of a gas leak?

 

[firefighterjake]

Burning wood is most definitely not for everyone . . . in fact everyone gettting into burning wood this year is making it hard for the scroungers!

I will be the first to admit that I bought my woodstove this year mainly in response to the high price of heating oil . . . which at the time was at $4.50 or so per gallon. However, in reality, this was only part of the reason.

I missed having a heat source that was not dependent on having electrical power to the house. Going through 14 days without electricity and relying on a generator jury-rigged to an unreliable oil boiler after a major ice storm was no fun . . . and even in a regular winter we regularly lose power. Having a back-up heat source has always been something I have wanted in my home.

I missed the incomparable heat that comes from a woodstove. Steady, warm air . . . while I have hot water baseboard and I love it . . . there really is something about wood heat that is special . . . and don't get me started about forced hot air (one minute I'm freezing cold, then the heat comes on and I'm sweating, then the heat goes off and in minutes I'm cold again.)

I missed the sensory experiences of heating with wood. I love the smell of woodsmoke on a crisp, fall day. I love hearing the snap and crackle of a roaring fire . . . and now with my new woodstove I have the visual experiences of seeing the fire. Sometimes I find myself turning off the lights, turning off the TV and just watching the fire . . . I can't say as though I've ever wandered off to my boiler room to watch my new boiler run.

I missed being outdoors. I love working outside in the Fall. Cutting and splitting wood outside is one of those "jobs" that I love to do . . . again, the sights, the sounds, the smells, the feeling of doing some "real" work with "real" results is something I relish. Plus, when I'm feeling a bit stressed the ability to toss wood around is a real stress reliever for me.

I love the idea that I am in control of my own destiny when it comes to heating. I don't have to rely on an oil cartel, speculators on Wall Street or an oil company to figure out how much I have to pay to stay warm in the dead of winter. If I work hard and put up enough wood I stay warm . . . if I slack off and don't work hard I will be cold . . . or at least have to pay the price for my laziness by having to pay the oil company.

So for me personally, the tipping point was the fact that for my personal circumstances the price to heat with wood was much cheaper than oil . . . but even now if the price of oil dropped back to 79 cents a gallon I will say that I would still heat with wood for its added benefits.

I will mention a few other points . . . first off, just because you have bought a woodstove, it doesn't mean you have to heat with wood. In fact, I'm only planning on heating in the evenings and weekends . . . I fully expect to use my oil boiler from time to time . . . although I also suspect that as time goes on I may find myself using wood more and more.

Finally, you mention the risk of a fire and CO poisoning with the woodstove. It should be mentioned that the same risk also applies with central heating systems (albeit the rate of problems with central heating decreases in terms of the number of fires with central heating vs. wood heaters). However, I suspect that the facts will bear out my own anecdotal experience with CO . . . I have personally responded to far, far more CO calls involving oil boilers, oil furnaces and propane furnaces (and gasoline powered equipment) than I have ever responded to CO calls involving wood burning appliances (in fact I can only think of one or two involving woodstoves.)