smokinjay said:
fabsroman said:
KarlP" date="1312479071 said:
fabsroman" date="1312471725 said:
it replaces the current heating oil furnace that is located in the basement
Very important consideration. If you run out of wood you can't just call up for an extra oil delivery. If you call up for a wood delivery, it will probably fairly wet wood and will take a lot of fussing to keep the house warm. Is your AC also a heat pump or would you have to resort to very expensive resistive electric heat 24/7 without wood?
I would advise getting SIX cords. If you only burn three you have enough for next year. No big deal. However I think you'll use at least five...
The furnace is a Yukon Polar with natural gas backup. So, if I run out of wood I can heat the house with natural gas. If it ends up taking more than 4 cords of wood to heat the house for the season, I might have to seriously think about using natural gas instead of wood. That way I won't have to spend a week out of the year cutting and stacking wood for heat. I guess I'll have this all figured out after this winter. Then again, I am thinking about going with natural gas this winter to see what it will cost, letting 8 cords of wood properly season, and then trying to wood for the winter of 2012/2013. That way, I can get a really good idea of what it will cost natural gas wise and wood wise.
We just moved into the house in February and all I know is that we went through 100 gallons of heating oil from February 14th to March 8th with the thermostat set at 68 degrees. That ran us about $450. After that, we used space heaters in the rooms we were using because I wanted to keep the oil tank as dry as possible. I think Yukon's website and literature have the BTU conversion for heating oil versus wood. I guess I need to look at the conversion, see how much 100 gallons of heating oil is in cords of wood, and then figure out how many weeks are in our heating season. That should give me a good idea. I am alright with 4 cords. Anything more than that and I will have to seriously think about this. A cord of wood goes for around $200 here.
4 cords on a wood furnace (and thats a good furnace) is a very low number...If you dont want to spend a week in the woods you sure are not going to like loading that furnace...This is work hard work! Run Forest Run..........
I spend way more than a week in the woods, marsh, and field, but usually with a bow, shotgun, or rifle, not a chainsaw and splitter. Loading the furnace will be a joke as far as "hard work" is concerned. Plus, once my two kids get a little older they can start hauling wood around. Ultimately, it comes down to the cost benefit of this. My time is worth something. If it takes more than 4 cords of wood to heat the house, then it will not cost very much more to heat it with natural gas if I have to pay for wood. Right now, I have a couple of places to get wood from, so it isn't too terrible. Ran into a local developer the other day and am going to ask him if he can drop truckloads of wood off at my place when his company clears land for a development. He develops areas all around me.
A week in the woods cutting wood I can handle, and that will probably get me around 5 cords, maybe a little more. Two weeks to a month cutting, splitting, and stacking wood will be insane. If I can have trees delivered to my place, everything gets a lot easier.