Wood Burning Add On Furnance (Price of Wood)

[lrunge]

My house is heated with natural gas. I also have a woodburning insert in a fireplace that helps out in that room. I also have a small pellet stove in another part of the house if it gets real cold. The wood is nice but it's a lot of work. I just built a pole barn (24x40 2 story Gambrel roof)for a workshop. I purchased a corn/pellet stove to heat it. Wood is $80 a pickup truck load, wood pellets were $175 a ton ( now gone up if you can find it) and corn is only $90 a ton. I have thought about changing my gas boiler system to a corn/pellet system in the future. It is cheaper, cleaner, and less work than wood and should always be able to get corn.

 

[billbill1]

I burn a wood furnace 24/7 and try to use only seasoned wood. I think I had 4 to 5 cords starting out this fall. On a side note, I had propane delivered 2 weeks ago and 250 gallons cost me $477. I'm glad I heat with wood!!

 

[PA John]

Guys, Lets go with the details. An Energy King furnace (125,000 BTU) costs around $2,000 less installation. You will need to add a chimney. This cast iron unit feeds into the ducts of your Gas furnace. It has its own blower and thermostat. Installation would be another $2,000 with a metal bestos chimney. I bought seasoned Oak for $55.00 per face cord. $700 dollars worth. A fillup of Propane costs me $550. and last for about 6-7 weeks. I can get about 5 months out of this wood heating 2,200 Sq feet. It's a lot of work. Another thing, watch those chimneys! Creosote build up is dangerous even with seasoned firewood. You need to check your chimney every 8 weeks during the buring season. PA, John

 

[NIXON]

Matthew
Do You have any sawmills in your area ? I go to local sawmills and buy a triaxle logging truck of their cull logs for around $450 (6-8 cords)delivered . Mind, You have to cut it to length and split it .
John

 

[gizmo]

When I bought my current house it had a wood heater and a fireplace with a forced air heat exchanger. It also had a six cord wood storage area, tractor, and hydraulic log splitter. I had enough wood on the property to get me through the first couple years, but then my neighbor started up a tree cutting operation. He begs me to come get fire wood. I have since added a wood stove (a free one) and new chimney (not free) to my shop.

All that leads me to this. If I had not had all of these circumstances dropped in my lap there is no way that I would go with wood heating. The device is expensive. Stainless steel triple wall 8" chimney duct $120/4' stick just for starters. Then there is the work to process the wood and the chimney has to be cleaned. Wood stoves, because of the relatively cool gasses compared to a traditional fire place, deposit loads of soot in the chimney.

Personally, I like playing with fire, so its more than just an economic issue. Further, I am not dependent on wood heat. My house also has two heat pumps. If that is you then go for it, but if it is just for economics then I would reevaluate.

 

[beenthere]

AND you are in GA. Not the need for heat like in the North nor the big expense in the winter.
It's the weeks on end that the temp never gets above freezing during the day and the nights are below zero where the effort to get some alternative heat in return for some slave labor (better than watching TV) sometimes helps make the decision.
At my present age, I wouldn't opt to jump into burning wood, but am pleased with the payoff since I started doing it 30 years ago.
You are very right, that it is expensive. The economics may or may not be there for every one, and its good to know what the outlook is ahead of time. /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif

 

[Donnyj]

Another benefit to wood is the kind of heat you get. A house to me just feels warmer with wood heat. Maybe it is because it is a dry heat. I have a Yukon Wood Furnace with fuel oil backup. It has cut my wood usage in half. About 3 to 4 cords is what I'm hoping for this year. The Hotblast wood furnace I had before would easily use 5 to 6 cords a year. I have a 1900 sq. ft ranch style home. I can easily keep my house at 75 degrees. Even with the temps of the past couple of weeks. We had near zero here a couple of nights. I know I would not be able to afford trying to keep my house at those temps with fuel oil. I had propane for the last 5 years. That would of been even more expensive. I have my own supply of firewood. Coal is next to nothing in price as well. It is alot of work, but I have not found anything that heats like wood. The whole house just feels comfortable. The Yukon is expensive. I hope it pays for itself. Either way, I like the warmth of wood heat.

 

[Farwell]

Not sure what a Yukon stove is. My neighbor heats his 30x40 shop with a double 55 gallon barrel stove and works on race cars all Winter long wearing shorts. I would heat my shop that way as well if my insurance carrier would cover me but they won't. I heat mine with a forced air Hot Dawg natural gas heater. When I go to use my tools the cold metal hurts my hands. the air is warm but everything else is cold. In his shop every thing in the shop is warm from floor to ceiling. Nothing like wood heat even if it costs and is labor intensive.
Farwell

 

[IslandTractor]

I'm interested in why you think coal is more work than wood. For me it was just the opposite. A ton or two of coal in a basement bin was adequate for the season. One delivery, no stacking or hauling. I used a stand alone Vermont Castings stove in the living area but only needed to bring up one bucket of pea coal per day and fed the stove twice a day. No bugs, no putting on coat and boots to go outside etc. I never used pelletized wood but I imagine that would be similar to coal. I never used the newer auger fed automatic furnaces either but those too would seem to favor coal or other pellet like fuel over split wood.

 

[lcisled]

I totally agree with Gizmo.
If your time is worth anything, I think it is cheaper to burn fossil fuels. Right now my wife or I have to stoke the wood burner every couple of hours. Does anyone ever get up to check their gas furnace? Do they worry about the temp in their house when they leave for a couple of hours? We have LP backup but we set it to 52.
I got the wood burner with the house. I purchased the saw, splitter, etc.
I still burn wood (we went through 384 gallons of LP in three years, and we have a gas stove) because I also like the fire and I like to be warm and feel that I am not letting the oil companies get rich on me. I also spend most of my free time cutting, splitting, stacking, sharpening saws, hauling, restacking in the house etc. I could be lounging on the sofa, listening to the furnace.