If it's cold where you live, what are you heating with and what is it costing?

[Willman]

Myself, we heat with biomass (pellet and corn stove) with propane as the backup fuel. Processed wood pellets and dried corn is much less expensive per realized BTU than propane or NG and especially less expensive than electric heating, but it comes with a price and that price is, the units have to be maintained as in cleaning and ash removal on a regular basis.

With fuel costs climbing almost every month and being cheap, I'm always cognizant of heating costs, how about you?

Paid $5.09 gal. Heating oil today in PA, almost twice from a year ago

 

[MAX-24-Dean]

But what make me happy is a warm house when it is cold….

Good Post!

I use a heat pump until it gets to 35 f degrees and below. Today we switched to Oak in the wood stove, the forecast for the next week is below freezing most of the time.

Having a "warm house when it is cold" outside is what I like too!

Heat Pump Costs, .35/kWh

Wood radiant heat, priceless.
Ave about 4 to 6 cords of oak in storage every year, just from yearly thinning or standing dead oaks.
I guestimate cost per cord to be around $15.00 for chainsaw fuel and tractor fuel.

 

[MAX-24-Dean]

It's not that at all actually. It's more like the tool bar comes partially out of the ground because of uneven terrain and if the wind is blowing the wrong way...Bam, you get in the vapor. Happened to the farmer down the road and now he has to have an oxygen bottle and mask with him constantly.

Started Applying AN when I was 12 years old. We were trained to apply only in the direction the wind was coming from. Wasted a lot of time and fuel doing it this way, but my dad cared about our safety. If it was a real still day we would not work it in. My dad also had us do some endurance training to build up our lungs. If we couldn't hold our breath for 1:30 he would not let us apply the ammonia. All this was done with an open cab John Deere 70.
Yes, got that burning sensation in my eyes a couple times and had to hold my breath long enough to turn into the new wind direction to get out of the cloud. It was good times though.

 

[MossRoad]

I learned years ago to not assume cause it's done here, it's done everywhere. Here in God's country it even varies farm to farm.

yes. I was reading that they suggested only doing 1/4 of the total acreage in the fall as a hedge against failure/excess. All kinds of good interesting info in the one for Missouri that I read as to best practices. More reasons I'd never be a grain farmer.... it always seems to be an educated gamble.

Technically, I'm a farmer.
I have a farm number.
I wear a farmer's hat.
I wear a farmer's raincoat
I wear a farmer's shoes
And every Saturday evening I read the farmer's news.

(my apologies to the Smothers Brothers)

I have a small tree farm. Crop should be ready in about 20-30 more years.

 

[MossRoad]

I know we had a lot of incidents of meth makers stealing anhydrous ammonia about 10-15 years ago. Don't know what they put it into, but they'd end up leaving the leaking tanks on wheels out in the fields. Caused a lot of damage from what I recall. Haven't heard much about it lately.

 

[stumblinhorse]

To each his own, and no one is trying to change anyone's mind.

But you feel good about only spending $500/yr plus 100hrs, and not spending thousands on propane....

But I'd simply ask, how much is 10-12 cord of wood worth in your area? Cause add that to the $500 +100 hrs.

And how much $$$ wouldn't really take if you decided to heat a whole winter with propane?

Only then can you know the true cost or savings of heating with wood

Not sure what you are saying. What is 10-12 cords of wood worth? Depends on how you buy it I guess. No one that burns 10-12 cords of wood buys it by the cord. So is the same with propane. Around here my 300 tank doesn’t get the same discount that a 1000 gallon gets. But if I heat my house with propane it will take a full 250 gallon refill a month at last price about 2.70 a gallon or $675 a month. If I have 12 cords individually delivered it would be maybe $3000 or maybe $425 a month. But that math doesn’t add up for anyone really.

 

[MossRoad]

What I gather he's saying is that you could:

Make yourself 10-12 cords of wood and burn it to save X amount on your furnace fuel bill.
or
Make yourself 10-12 cords of wood and sell it, then use that money to buy fuel for your furnace and not have the hassle of loading/maintaining a wood burner.

I tend to agree with him. We've been burning wood for a bit over 10 years now. We do not save any money if I put a value on my time and a value on the wood that I burn. I ran the numbers several times.

Cost of stove, chimney, installation, saws, chains, splitter, fuel, etc.
Value of my time splitting wood VS taking a part time paying job.
Value of the wood I produce if I sold it.

I'd never break even, let alone save any money.

However, I enjoy the process and it gets me outside. I also enjoy the warmth of the fire. I get free wood off of our property and I get a lot of wind fall on our trails. I have to clear locust from our forest, and I might as well use it.

 

[stumblinhorse]

What I gather he's saying is that you could:

Make yourself 10-12 cords of wood and burn it to save X amount on your furnace fuel bill.
or
Make yourself 10-12 cords of wood and sell it, then use that money to buy fuel for your furnace and not have the hassle of loading/maintaining a wood burner.

I tend to agree with him. We've been burning wood for a bit over 10 years now. We do not save any money if I put a value on my time and a value on the wood that I burn. I ran the numbers several times.

Cost of stove, chimney, installation, saws, chains, splitter, fuel, etc.
Value of my time splitting wood VS taking a part time paying job.
Value of the wood I produce if I sold it.

I'd never break even, let alone save any money.

However, I enjoy the process and it gets me outside. I also enjoy the warmth of the fire. I get free wood off of our property and I get a lot of wind fall on our trails. I have to clear locust from our forest, and I might as well use it.

I have to buy my wood. I don’t make it, I buy semi loads of logs. I cut it and split it which doesn’t take that much time really. But I do everything at my place myself. So not sure what my time is worth. When I am mowing pasture it is worth a lot, when am shoveling manure 2x a day it is worth very little.

 

[LD1]

Moss is correct on what I am saying.


You are burning wood so you don't have to spend $675/month on propane.

Your only input cost is $500 stated earlier plus your time. So under $100/mo.

If you are looking at this like you are saving $600 per month and that's why you cut wood.....that's incorrect thinking.

You are burning $425/mo worth of wood. So your savings would only be $250/mo. Still a pretty good saving.

Again, not trying to argue or debate anything or change anyone's mind. Simply pointing out that "cheap" or "free" firewood has real value.

 

[LD1]

How does one get 300% efficiency? Either there's some smoke & mirrors here or someone has invented the perpetual motion machine.

Others have mentioned it, but no smoke and mirrors.

Dont confuse efficiencies of various heating methods with cost.

Wood, propane, and fuel oils are never 100% because they exhaust. That exhaust is wasted heat.

Electric resistance is no waste. Dont matter if its ceramic, quartz, infared, your oven, a blow dryer, or a light bulb. With electricity, one watt produces 3.414 btu's of heat.

With refrigerant and a compressor, we can generate 9 or 10 btu's of heat for watt of input. So hence 300% eff. Its a simple way of saying its can produce 3x the heat on the same electric usage (or the same heat on 1/3 the usage).