Wood burning nerds please help me. How much to heat with wood VS. oil so I can convince my wife to b

[pastera]

3700 SF Colonial

Used 800 Gal/yr to keep the house at 62 when we were home and 50 otherwise. Tracking summer usage puts water heating at about a gallon a day

Mom moved in this winter - fuel usage went up to a full tank (~230 gallons) every 5 weeks.

Installed the insert and fuel usage went down to 100 gallons every 5 weeks. And this is with the temperature up around 68-72 (78-80+ in the stove room :ahhh: ) Wife and kids now complain if the house is 65 or less.

Burned a little over a cord that I took off of my own land, but I did buy a cheap chainsaw and maul to process it - make it $150 for both

$150 for wood burned
260 gallons of oil saved @ $3.50/g average - $910

$760 saved and much warmer.

Aaron

 

[Loco Gringo]

[How much wood does one good sized tree (30 to 50' high 24" dia. trunk) yield?

A helluva lot and compared to buying oil its hands down the best way to go. Thats why I asked if you had access to wood. Your argument would be won in your favor if you are willing to gather your own fuel. Free heat beats buying heat any day. But to some people it means nothing.

 

[firefighterjake]

Random thoughts . . . from a wood nerd I guess . . .

I've never been very good at maths . . . but I do know that when oil is running at $3.76 a gallon that it's hard to beat heating with wood no matter how you stack it.

Buying wood -- to process it yourself or even CS & D -- is like investing money. Typically the longer you leave the money in the bank or CD or what have you the better off you are as it will earn more interest -- and with time wood gets better as it will be easier to ignite and you get more heat and less creosote. However, you do have to take precautions . . . and you have to plan . . . just like you ned to plan a bit to keep your wood good over time -- namely being get it up off the ground and you may wish to top cover it only . . . although truthfully I don't bother top covering my wood -- just in Year 2 or 3 I stick it under cover of the woodshed. The thing with wood is it is almost always better to buy now . . . and not pay later . . . you'll probably be happier over the long run.

Getting wood now that you cut, split and stack will probably be good to go this Fall . . . a lot depends on the species . . . honestly getting a year or two ahead is much better though . . . unfortunately there's no guarantee that the wood you get in the Fall will be truly seasoned and ready to go.

Woodshed . . . they're nice to have so you don't have to stand in the snow picking up the splits . . . but they're more of a luxury item in my opinion. Nice to have . . . but not crucial. I went through Year 1 with just stacks top covered by tarps.

Hmmm . . . 30 x 40 two story Cape here built in the 1970s . . . when I was heating with oil (no domestic hot water) I went through 580 gallons of oil a year. I haven't bought oil now in two years since I mostly use my oil boiler for back up heat . . . oil tank is still between 1/2 and 3/4.

Lots of folks here still process their wood like they did when their fathers and grandfathers did before them . . . cut the wood in the Spring or Summer and process it . . . stack it right in the woodshed . . . and burn 2-5 months later . . . and thought nothing about having to clean out their cresoote choked chimney every month or even possibly having a chimney fire at least once in the winter.

Trees . . . white ash tend to have composite leaves . . . also they don't retain their leafs in the winter. Oak and beech leafs do retain their leafs in the winter and are single leafs.

This might help you ID the trees you have.

http://www.umext.maine.edu/mainetreeclub/MTC.htm

 

[lukem]

Now that the heating season is over, and the first full year of wood burning in the new house is complete. This year I burned about 180 gallons of propane for the whole season. Last year I was burned double that in January.

 

[Fsappo]

Just do what I do. Tell the wife we are burning wood and thats the end of the conversation. The money you save burning wood will cover the hospital bills and divorce lawyer.

 

[yooperdave]

bill-haven't met a woman yet that doesn't prefer wood heat over any other kind of heat.

be reminded, though, it doesn't come simply. there is quite an investment of time/work involved. but well worth it...thats why sites like this are so successful....(support groups for nerds)