Heating Costs

[ultrarunner]

Yep... the burn bans are blanket bans even for those with permit installed EPA CAT stoves...

I attended the public comment hearings and the Air Quality Management District said allowing some to burn and others not to would be an enforcement nightmare.

Not related but coming to work today the ARCO gas stations had regular at $3.99 a gallon and Diesel 50 cents more a gallon!!!

So if you are heating with wood and using your tractor for processing... your operating costs would also be higher in my West Coast region.

 

[goeduck]

I don't believe you read my post above. I feed my stove twice a day, once in the morning when I get up and once in the evening before going to bed (and at my age I go to bed early!).

Most people don't understand how a good airtight catalytic converter stove works. Once the fire is going, good and hot to activate the catalytic converter, you turn the air down and the fire in the stove appears to go out........

The other thing that helps with long burn times is to not use small pieces of wood. Bigger the better.

While I have a CAT wood insert, I have not been doing such long burn cycles often. The glass smokes up which I do not care for. In my mind I equate blackening glass to creosote buildup and I cannot break that thought process. I do try to extend my burns but I am loading more often than you. I do get up during the night and load the insert, that does not bother me. I tend to burn hot with the CAT glowing and overheat the house a little before going to bed, then keep a smaller fire going through the night.

 

[radios1]

I don't burn wood even though I have a lot available.
When I was working I didn't really have the time to stay ahead of wood.
I grew up heating with wood, a couple of my brothers still heat with wood.
When oil got so outrageous a few (10) years ago I installed a coal insert in my fireplace.
As others have said a fire is a different and some think a nicer heat, also with a fire I keep the
house warmer then I would with a furnace,because it makes my wife happier.
3 tons of bagged coal, about $600 to $750 saves me over 500 gallons of fuel oil a year,
with the living half of the house warmer then it was kept with oil.
Coal (hard coal)has a learning curve but I like it much better then wood, it's harder to get lite,
but it's easy to have a setup that only needs attention once every 12 or 24 hours. And a huge
amount less work, store it outside in the snow and rain it doesn't care, I pick up a pallet of bags
bring it up to the house garage, dump a bag into a bucket to take in and pour in the heater, shake the ashes down
carry the ash pan out to the steel trash can, done for the day.
Even with a replacement knee, copd and a bit of a heart issue coal is easy, wood would be rough.

coal is the cheapest, and will last the night. I'm surprised people like wood, it costs more, and you have to constantly feed it!..

 

[Oaktree]

II have burned wood for heat all my life. There is simply no comparison between the stoves of years ago and a modern airtight stove with a catalytic converter. No smoke comes out of the chimney - the catalytic converter burns it all up just as it does in your car. Stoves not designed this way waste most of their heat up the chimney with the wood burning up much too fast. I would love to burn hardwood but since it is not available around here I make do with juniper and pine. The other thing that helps with long burn times is to not use small pieces of wood. Bigger the better.

I've heated with wood for the almost 45 years I've been a homeowner myself. I agree that modern stoves are much more efficient than the older ones. The stove I have now was purchased in the mid 00s, It's not a catalytic (I didn't really want one), but it does have some sort of afterburner that the smoke goes thru.
Aren't cat stoves really finicky about what you can burn without damaging the cat?

What kind of low temperatures do you get where you live? Not uncommon here for it to dip into the -20s, and even occasionally -30s, though -single #s are more typical.
I'll burn softwood in the old Fisher I have in my shop, but not in the house. Burns hot & fast, but doesn't last long...just what I want there.

 

[ultrarunner]

coal is the cheapest, and will last the night. I'm surprised people like wood, it costs more, and you have to constantly feed it!..

Coal isn't really viable here... just not readily available unless you are doing a BBQ

My East Coast friends love coal when they can buy it right.

 

[deserteagle71]

While I have a CAT wood insert, I have not been doing such long burn cycles often. The glass smokes up which I do not care for. In my mind I equate blackening glass to creosote buildup and I cannot break that thought process. I do try to extend my burns but I am loading more often than you. I do get up during the night and load the insert, that does not bother me. I tend to burn hot with the CAT glowing and overheat the house a little before going to bed, then keep a smaller fire going through the night.

The door glass on the stove does get black - but I don't have any problem with creosote buildup. I'm thinking the catalytic converter burns it all up because I never have any buildup in the chimney pipe. I clean it only once per season and all there is is a little buildup right at the end of the pipe where it meets the cold air.

 

[deserteagle71]

coal is the cheapest, and will last the night. I'm surprised people like wood, it costs more, and you have to constantly feed it!..

As Ultrarunner said, no coal available around here. I've checked. I see trainloads of coal heading across Nevada to feed the generating plants and that's it. I agree it makes for great heat - grew up in northeastern Pennsylvania (good hard anthracite coal!) and that's what we dumped in the stove to last all night.

 

[kenmac]

the PO folks around here walk the train tracks picking up coal where it has fallen off the coal cars to burn for heat.
We still have those coal fired steam power plants here

 

[deserteagle71]

I've heated with wood for the almost 45 years I've been a homeowner myself. I agree that modern stoves are much more efficient than the older ones. The stove I have now was purchased in the mid 00s, It's not a catalytic (I didn't really want one), but it does have some sort of afterburner that the smoke goes thru.
Aren't cat stoves really finicky about what you can burn without damaging the cat?

What kind of low temperatures do you get where you live? Not uncommon here for it to dip into the -20s, and even occasionally -30s, though -single #s are more typical.
I'll burn softwood in the old Fisher I have in my shop, but not in the house. Burns hot & fast, but doesn't last long...just what I want there.

You are absolutely correct! Can't be burning trash in a stove with a catalytic converter. Wood only.

Our low temps are about the same as yours. Seems like every winter the mercury will drop to 20 below and stay there for a week or two. And there's a time or two it has really tanked - I have a photo somewhere of my thermometer at 38 below.

 

[LouNY]

coal is the cheapest, and will last the night. I'm surprised people like wood, it costs more, and you have to constantly feed it!..

Most days I tend mine once a day, sub zero and a wind blowing it does need twice a day or about every 18-20 hours, so I do a light shake and fill mid morning and shake and fill in the evening after supper. The normal once a day is 40 pounds or less of coal, when it starts getting 45-50 in the day 40 pounds does most of two days.
This year I paid $256 a ton which is $5.12 a 40 pound bag.
Hard to beat that.