How much $$$ do you save ?

[Catskill]

I've been tinkering around with my Natural Gas spread sheet and I thought it would be a good idea to show some of the new folks (and maybe some of the old folks) what kind of savings they can expect by making their own heat. I know numbers will vary from ones own set of circumstances to anothers and there maybe a bit of "guesstination" involved here and there but I figured I'd take a cut at it anyway.

My formula went something like the following:

A-B=C
C/A=Percent Savings

A: Net total cost of fuel for heating months 2006/7 (heating system only)
B: Net total cost of fuel for heating months 2007/8 (heating system only)
C: Savings

In my set of circumstances I use natural gas for my hot water as well as my cooking so I needed to seperate out my gross NG usage from my net (heating only) NG usage. I used my summer NG figures as a basis for that calculation.

My circumstances also include the following:

1) I can only realistically heat my first floor "comfortably". Some heat does go upstairs but we keep the thermostat set 64 and let the chips fall where they may. Under normal circumstances NG usage is light to moderate depending on the temps.

2) We often travel to our vacation home during the winter months so we have plenty of weekends where the stove is "off".

3) We have young children who need 72 degree temps (again 2nd floor NG) when they are in the bath tub or when they are sick.

4) We have In-laws from Germany who stay for three weeks each year and who like room temperates in their 2nd floor (NG) bedroom & bathroom in the 80's in the morning but then open the windows claiming that "airing out" the stuffy air for the day is "healthy".
8-/

Given my situation and circumstances wood burning saves me about 47% of my heating fuel costs.
I know some of you are at 100% and some at 0% but much like sizing a PV solar system lots of people will fall somewhere in the middle.

Where are you?

 

[burntime]

My Nat gas bill would be near 300 a month from mid November thru April. I use gas for stove, dryer, and waterheater. It averages 30-50 bucks a month tops so about 250 a month or a little better. 6 times 250 is 1500. Not to mention that gas estimate is for a 67 degree home and I run 72-75 at night! Simple pleasures are better in my opinion. Fire good!

 

[myzamboni]

My Nat gas bill would be near 200 a month from mid November thru April. I use gas for stove, dryer, and waterheater. It averages 50 bucks a months so about 150 a month or a little better. 6 times 150 is 900. Not to mention that gas estimate is for a 67 degree home and I run 72-75 at night! Simple pleasures are better in my opinion. Fire good!

Thanks for the template burntime.

 

[Corey]

Yeah, I tried to break mine down. Figuring I heat roughly October through April and roughly save:

Oct - 50
Nov - 75
Dec - 125
Jan - 200
Feb - 200
Mar - 125
Apr - 75
==========
$ 850 savings / yr

Then I started looking at the input:

Truck to haul wood - $15,000
Tax/tags/license/insurance on truck - $600
Stove - $400
Stainless Liner - $350
Chain Saw - $300
Splitter - $500
Yearly Gas to cut/haul/split wood - $100
========================
$17,250

Ahhh, but having a cozy warm fire when it's freezing outside and telling the gas man to stick it....priceless!!

 

[woodconvert]

Where are you?

Dunno. I use 200gal of propane per year (water heater, cooking stove) but i've never heated with the furnace. If propane was cheap i'd find out just to know.

 

[Henz]

The first year I moved into my house (new oil forced air furnace) I spent $3,300 to heat it. Needless to say I had the Olympic installed the next year. The followign winter burning wood, I spent $500 on oil and $400 on wood. I would call that a savings. This will be the third year that I ahve burned wood and with the savings of the past two winters, my stove and install ahve already been paid for with the savings!

 

[Vic99]

My home was poorly insulated when natural gas was my primary source of heat. When I got the stove, I upgraded to average insulation (mixture of cellulose, polystrene, and fiberglass in walls, floor, ceiling).

Last year I saved $1,500 in fuel heat (not including cost of stove, cost to upgrade insulation, et. al.) I figure my break even point is 4 years from day 1.

When looking at cubic feet of gas used, last year I used ONLY 15% of the gas used the previous year. This year my goal is 10%.

 

[Catskill]

Sounds like you're both saying that you're at ~100% with little to no useage over your off season costs.

My Nat gas bill would be near 300 a month from mid November thru April. I use gas for stove, dryer, and waterheater. It averages 30-50 bucks a month tops so about 250 a month or a little better. 6 times 250 is 1500. Not to mention that gas estimate is for a 67 degree home and I run 72-75 at night! Simple pleasures are better in my opinion. Fire good!

Jan $50 (save 250)
Feb $50 (save 250)
Mar $50 (save 250)
June $50
July $50
Aug $50
Sept $50
Oct $50 (save 250)
Nov $50 (save 250)
Dec $50 (save 250)

Actual yearly costs ~$600 saving ~$1500

My Nat gas bill would be near 200 a month from mid November thru April. I use gas for stove, dryer, and waterheater. It averages 50 bucks a months so about 150 a month or a little better. 6 times 150 is 900. Not to mention that gas estimate is for a 67 degree home and I run 72-75 at night! Simple pleasures are better in my opinion. Fire good!

Thanks for the template burntime.

Jan $50 (save 150)
Feb $50 (save 150)
Mar $50 (save 150)
June $50
July $50
Aug $50
Sept $50
Oct $50 (save 150)
Nov $50 (save 150)
Dec $50 (save 150)

Actual yearly costs ~$600 saving ~$900

 

[savageactor7]

We live in CNY, the cloud graveyard, I figure we save 3k a year heating with wood.

Our house is a civil war era old farmhouse over the years I put blown in insulation in the outside walls and attic and replaced all the windows with energy efficient replacements. My wife will wear a sweater in July...she just can't tolerate the cold at all. So if it wasn't for wood my attitude is the thermostat be damed cause I have to do what I have to do to keep her warm. As for myself I'll wear a T shirt and shorts out to the mailbox not matter how cold it is and I have to make height/weight standards so I'm not naturally insulated.

We last bought oil in '78 and I still have half a tank left that I occasionally put into the tractor but our back up heat is now propane with the thermostat set at 67*...it comes on only occasionally and I'm glad we have it for our pets if we're away.

 

[caber]

Hard to say. We don't have NG or Oil. We have propane for the cooking stove and a couple electric baseboards. If we were not running a wood stove, we'd probably be using oil like everyone else around us.

According to the neighbors, it takes about 2 tanks to make it thru the winter. At $1000 a pop, roughly. $2000

My wood burning costs are low because we have a woodlot and most of the big equipment.

tractor for moving wood, part of farm expenses
Chainsaw, ebay - $180
bars, chains, gas and oil for 1 season - $150
chaps, helmet, wedges, etc - $100
gas for tractor, $100

Some of those expenses are yearly, some were one time. So I figure over the course of 4 years, I will have spent roughly $1280, or $320 a year.

Wood burning mostly costs me time, and I have plenty of that for now.

So this year, I would be saving roughly $1680 in heating costs. Even more next year if oil continues to climb.

 

[Catskill]

Sounds like you're both saying that you're at ~100% with little to no usage over your off season costs.

If you wanted to clean up some of the "fuzzy math" or "guesstimation", your numbers may look a little more like this. More of a smooth curve.

Jan $50 (save 250)
Feb $50 (save 250)
Mar $50 (save 100)
June $50
July $50
Aug $50
Sept $50
Oct $50 (save 50)
Nov $50 (save 100)
Dec $50 (save 250)

~ Savings of $900

The 100% saving is impressive and the $$$ savings speaks for itself what ever the number.

 

[FatttFire]

Saved me in one year, since I installed tankless how water heater, and heat 95% with wood, going with old price of propane at $2.19 ( which is what I paid for propane that is in the tank now ) I have saved myself $4161.23

Take away cost of:

Tankless $1000.00

Log Splitter $1500.00

Hopefully new Stihl 044 pro this fall $800.00

total: $3300.00

total savings of $861.00 .......................... not bad considering that my house is 75 - 78 degrees in the mid of winter

 

[RedRanger]

Even buying most of my wood csd our savings are 40% or better. and like the op not a lot of heat gets to the top two floors, so we still need to run the propane insert and the old boiler as boosters.

wood=5-6 cords 1000
oil =100 gal 500
propane 100 g 350

burning nothing but oil would easily exceed 3k per. season.

This was last years expenditures. every winter is a little different out here on the west coast. Two years ago I believe we burned more than 125 gallons of oil.

 

[Todd]

It's really hard to say for sure how much I've saved if you weigh in all the other hidden costs of wood heat, maybe 500-700 per season, but like others have said my house is warmer than it would be with NG and I get to look at "FIRE"!

 

[Catskill]

I have saved myself $4161.23

:bug: THAT'S what propane costed you to heat for one season? WOW.

My NG used to run me about $1500. /season

 

[JBinKC]

I save roughly 700 gal of propane usage per annum. My original feasibilty was based on $1.50/gal propane with a 3 1/2 year estimated payback. In actuality I eclipsed the payback period by 1 year. Note: This was done without any investment in splitting equipment other than a few wedges and a sledgehammer and new chains on an existing saw that already had its own immediate payback from a previous ice storm.

 

[karl]

My insulation improvement is coming this year. I'm studying what I want to do now, and in another month when the attic is cooler, I'm going to start there.

Some of my friends have asked me how much I hope to save versus how much I'm spending on the insulation. I love the look on there face when I say, "I hope to go from 6 cords to 4 cords of wood this year."

It's almost as good as the look I get when they ask how does that stove save on the gas bill and I say what gas bill.

 

[Hanko]

between natural gas for the house and electric heat in my shop I figure Im saving $500 per month on the cold months, Dec, Jan, Feb, March, so I would assume somewhere in the $3000 range for the whole heating season. My wood has allways been pretty much free on top of that. Ive been heating with wood for 6 years now, so I think my stoves and splitters are just about paid for

 

[beakon20]

I can't say exactly how much I save because this will be the first using the new quadrafire. However, this past year replaced all the appliances in the house to High Eff. including converting over to a tankless water heater vs the storage tank. All the appliances are electric. The furnance is electric with a heat coil and a heat pump. Through the winter months last year the electric bill averaged around $240 with the house set around 65F. Since the new appliances have been coming online over the last year the base KW usage has been dropping every month. Last month without using the A/C (almost) the bill was down to $50. Based on that I'm expecting the bill to stay under $100 through the winter months if wood heat is mainly used.

The only thing which could complicate this is the cost per KW went to over $.15/KW this last month. Hopefully won't need much electric heat this winter, if any. If I remember to I will update after a month of using the stove.

 

[iceman]

1000 gallons of oil at 3.25= 3250
money on wood this year = 420 (6 cords )
splitter rental 75 bucks
savings somewhere between 2000-2500
cords outside 8

 

[Jags]

I have reduced my propain consumption by ~1000 gal (thats about a 66% reduction in normal fuel use). All my equipment has been paid for, for awhile and I probably use about 10-15 gal of fuel for the harvest.

Just called, todays price is $2.19 per gal. Thats $2190 bucks. That will buy alot of premium beers my friends.

 

[FatttFire]

Catskill,

That was one winter here with no improvements! The following year is when I replaced the Furnace with heat pump/ AC , vapor bar the house, replaced windows, new insulation out the ying yang, especially in the attic, and the tankless HW. So alot of improvements over 1 year. I haven't filled the tank since April of 07, and tonight it was at 80% ! I only use propane to heat the HW, and for the 5 % of the time my furnace comes on!

Even with improvements of roughly $11,000 for a more efficent house I will make it up in propane usage in 2 years!

I want to put one of those deer cameras up in front of my propane tank, so when they Gas Man decides to stop to top of my tank b/c its been so long since he has been here it will take a pic of his expression when he looks at my Gauge! ... lol ..... :lol:

 

[JustWood]

Catskill,

That was one winter here with no improvements! The following year is when I replaced the Furnace with heat pump/ AC , vapor bar the house, replaced windows, new insulation out the ying yang, especially in the attic, and the tankless HW. So alot of improvements over 1 year. I haven't filled the tank since April of 07, and tonight it was at 80% ! I only use propane to heat the HW, and for the 5 % of the time my furnace comes on!

Even with improvements of roughly $11,000 for a more efficent house I will make it up in propane usage in 2 years!

I want to put one of those deer cameras up in front of my propane tank, so when they Gas Man decides to stop to top of my tank b/c its been so long since he has been here it will take a pic of his expression when he looks at my Gauge! ... lol ..... :lol:

This is what the pic will look like.

 

[caber]

Don't forget to consider the temperature differences into your calculations. Back when we lived in a house with oil heat and no wood stove, during the winter we kept the house between 68-70 daytime and 61-63 overnight. Sweatshirts, sweaters, moccasins and very cold mornings. Now we keep the house at 78+ during the day and 70+ overnight. So much more comfortable in the winter. I can't imagine how much oil I'd have burned to keep the house at those temps.

 

[Rich M]

Oil use reduced by 90% for the last 2 years, at todays price I'll save about $2500 this season after expenses.

When the oil prices spiked last year all of my equipment quickly paid for itself and then some.

House is much warmer than was possible before.