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$ per BTU: oil vs wood

Started by rank, January 27, 2018, 09:39:19 AM

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Crusarius

Quote from: JJ on February 07, 2018, 05:07:05 PM
No, Baseboard hot water with radiant heat in slab for 1/2 of the lower floors.
My home had several additions, with quite different r-ratings for each build.  Older walls were 2x4, newer walls 2x6 with higher grade insulation.
Sounds like your house is considerably better built (tighter), or smaller (I had 3500 sq ft to heat), and a has a very efficient heating system.
In Maine, I was not that much further north than Canadice, so climate should have been similar.

Each home and heat system will have differences, so going by pure BTUs will not give the answer if it is saving money to heat by wood, or oil.   I think end result is what matters most.

         JJ

I am 2200 sq ft. concrete slab downstairs with radiant heat. No heat upstairs living room is clearstory to the roof so I have a lot of volume to heat which is where the wood stove comes in great.


Kwill

Quote from: Dave Shepard on February 07, 2018, 09:47:13 PM
I'm not using slabwood when I'm talking about dry hardwood, I'm talking about cut, split and seasoned ash, hard maple, cherry, and red oak. Most of my slabs are pine. It takes almost two cords of slabs a week when its really cold.

Couple days wood when it's near zero. No ash from the softwood, which is nice.




do you hire a neighbor kid to set by the stove and throw wood in every little bit.
Built my own hydraulic splitter
Built my own outdoor wood stove
Built my own log arch
built my own bandsaw sawmill
Built my own atv log arch.
Built my own FEL grapple

Al_Smith

Like it or not it's just a fact an outside burner uses a lot of wood as compared to an inside stove .Then you have to factor ,the mess isn't inside the house .they can take not only huge amounts per load but also larger pieces .Plus they will burn anything that fits through the door .Hickory to swamp willow ,dirty diapers you name it .
I know a guy in Ohio who heats two rental trailers plus about 4000 sq feet of house and shop .He claims he burns 24 cords a year .He loads it up with a skid loader .They aren't for everybody .

Dave Shepard

Quote from: Kwill on February 08, 2018, 07:17:25 PM
Quote from: Dave Shepard on February 07, 2018, 09:47:13 PM
I'm not using slabwood when I'm talking about dry hardwood, I'm talking about cut, split and seasoned ash, hard maple, cherry, and red oak. Most of my slabs are pine. It takes almost two cords of slabs a week when its really cold.

Couple days wood when it's near zero. No ash from the softwood, which is nice.




do you hire a neighbor kid to set by the stove and throw wood in every little bit.

I fill twice a day. In cold weather, -10 at night,  teens during the day, 12 hours is about as far as I want to go. If I'm burning softwood slabs, a fill means 42" long wood completely filling the box.
Wood-Mizer LT40HDD51-WR Wireless, Kubota L48, Honda Rincon 650, TJ208 G-S, and a 60"LogRite!

Klunker

Quote from: Dave Shepard on February 07, 2018, 08:39:53 PM
No, my owb isn't the greatest choice, but it is what I have. I have $2500 and three days of letting my plumbers dog out while he was on vacation invested in  it.  :D I only burn sawmill byproducts and hazard trees removed by my town. No trees have been taken down solely for the purpose of heating my house.

If one was building a new house, I would suggest putting every available penny into insulation and high R windows. Netzero would be my goal at a minimum.

$15,000 for a gasifier installed with Pex and a heat exchanger.
$15,000 for a hydronic primary system to tie into.
$40,000 for 25 years worth of wood @ 8 cords per year (Remember, you spent all your money on an owb, you couldn't afford the good windows or extra insulation, and let's assume the boiler actually survives the 25 year warranty :D).
$ for your time to feed the boiler, and clean up the mess.

That's $70,000 That could be spent on net metered solar, high R insulation, good windows, and a little electric heat for the days that the planned for solar gain isn't available.

Sure, my numbers are generalizations, but it is food for thought. At the end of either plan is the replacement of the boiler or pv system. In 25 years boilers will probably be illegal and a new pv system will probably just roll out as the new roof you needed anyway for a fraction of what either a roof or pv system cost in the beginning.

I have a new house, lots of insulation (8 1/4" insulation on the walls for R33), 6" on foundation. I have the most glass on the south side, triple pane windows and a PV system. I heat with a masonry heater that burns wood. So far this year I have not hit 2 cords yet. Maybe around end of Feb I'll be there. Oh, and house is 2800sq ft story and a half not including 1900 some sqft basement. Basement is not heated at all, its approx 58-60deg usually. House is ALL electric.

So my house is efficient and my wood use is as good as it gets. Lets say 2 1/2 cords/year to be generous.
I have electric air source heat pump for back up heat if I don't want to mess with firewood. I don't want to guess what it would take using electric to heat the place. $200-$300/month? Probably more.
Going price for fire wood around here is $250/cord. So I use about $625/yr if I purchased wood. I cut my own. I'm retired, I have the time, the out of pocket cost is less than $100. Heating season runs from Oct to April generally, figure 6 months. No way electric is going to be $100/month to heat my house. Oh, and with the wood main floor is 72-74 and upstairs is 75-80. Try that with electric.

solar gain, yes I see it. On a sunny day my heat will go up a couple of degrees. Too bad sun does not shine at night.

Problem with solar is not enough sunlight in winter. I have electric bill of approx $150/month in Dec and Jan so far. No way I could heat my house with solar in winter. We had snow covered panels for a day here and there, no solar. Lots of cloudy days, very little solar. Oh and around here, if you don't have any storage (batteries) when the power goes out, your PV shuts down too. I would need to double my system I'll bet to live off grid here.

Summer time I'm in fat city, getting paid by the power co.

Smaller house, 1500 sq ft or less, more insulation then maybe I could do it. I'm sure it can be done. Now I'm at $14/sqft of solar cost. does not include insulation, better windows.

thecfarm

Dave, I better not say what I feed my OWB with.   ;D Dead cedar, I mean the kind that don't even have any limbs on it. Been leaning against another tree for many, many years. No limbs at all. Then I suppose the dead standing fir would not sound good. I won't mention the stuff that has fell on the ground either. I have a tractor and driving across a dead tree on the ground 8 inches through is hard on the tractor. Might just as well burn it. I burn a lot of dead white pine too. My OWB will take a 54 inch stick, but very seldom it it really filled. With crooked wood and maybe a limb that is sticking out, makes it next to impossible to fill it to the max. I had my logged about 4 years ago, I'm still picking stuff up.
I need a  way to get rid of this wood and a OWB is the answer. Been a few times when I had a water temp of 140°,but throw in some more wood and those blowers come on and in less than an hour, I have it back up to 180°.
I has a lot of dead standing white pine. Still have some left to cut. Like one of my friends tells me, I'm just giving it more drying time.  :D
Model 6020-20hp Manual Thomas bandsaw,TC40A 4wd 40 hp New Holland tractor, 450 Norse Winch, Heatmor 400 OWB,YCC 1978-79

Al_Smith

--Like I said they don't care what they burn no fuss about who has the best wood .Just throw it in there .Forced air draft it just does it's thing .They aren't for me but would work well for others .
Although good ole Dave mentioned cast iron radiators he didn't specify .If they are the ones made about 1930 they weigh about 300 pounds a piece and aren't nearly as efficient as modern hydronic units used on modern hot water heating  .Ya gotta do what you gotta do at times which I can certainly relate to .
Now these prices on firewood seem a tad bit high if one were to heat that way .I'm 70 years old and grew up with at least some form of wood heat all my life  and I've never ever paid for firewood .I wouldn't bother with if I had to buy it .

starmac

Outdoor boilers being able to burn junk is what got wood outlawed up here. They tried several years to just outlaw the outdoor boilers, but never could get it done, finally added wood stoves, pellet stoves, coal and waste oil and got her done.
Old LT40HD, old log truck, old MM forklift, and several huskies.

Al_Smith

-so much for the story Alaska is the last frontier ---

thecfarm

junk wood ???   :D New word for me. I don't want to turn this thread into a junk wood debate.
I burn ALOT of dead standing wood. Did I all ready say ALOT?  ;D I know when a tree falls over and lays on the ground it starts to rot and adds all that good stuff back into the ground. But I'm not about to walk by 30-40 dead fir and start cutting 30-40 good hard wood trees. Those are my money trees. Last I knew I can't sell dead fir,cedar,hemlock,and pine. But it will and does make heat for me. Again,the reason I bought a OWB.
Just so others know,my type of OWB will smother the fire out when it's not needed to heat the water. So,when I open the door,there appears not to even be a fire in the firebox. When I went and looked at the Heatmor,the dealer did that. He left the feed door open and we talked about the OWB for a few minutes and with the door being open there was air getting to the wood and it started to burn.
I have burned all types of wood off my land.Good seasoned hardwood. Green hardwood and pine. I do mean green,cut it and a ½ hour later burn it. No more green for me. First off the smoke, there was a thread on here,or is it steam? All I know for sure is it took ALOT more wood. Won't do that again.
Now I have nothing to back this up,no fancy graphs or power point.  ;D  Just 10 years of burn time. I feel I don't burn much more dead wood than hardwood. Yes,I know I burn more,but it's a way to get rid of something that is not worth anything. And as far as smoke,I don't see that much of a diffeance. There again,I have no way to check out the particles in the air. Now if I am burning some of that wood dead wood that has been on the ground,now that will smoke,due to it not being dry. I do noticed I burn more with that wood.
And I burn what slabs I have. I only saw for me, I don't get 10 cord a year.In my area I can still burn my slabs.So on matter what,my slabs will make smoke.
OWB does have a bad name for smoke. The gasser are much better. I have an old cook stove that we use to use. That thing will smoke. But that's OK,because it's not a OWB.
Model 6020-20hp Manual Thomas bandsaw,TC40A 4wd 40 hp New Holland tractor, 450 Norse Winch, Heatmor 400 OWB,YCC 1978-79

Grizzly

So most of us use an OWB for waste recovery and not so much for a calculated cost of btu. Makes sense. I used to go through about $1700.00 worth of coal each winter and now I use up some chainsaw hours and extra wheaties for the boys to cut it all and keep it fed. I'm happy with my waste recovery program and I haven't wasted a minute counting how much wood goes in cause its already been paid for by my sawmill and dumped as waste. But I'd sure like a better boiler for wood. One designed for coal does not do as well with wood.
2011 - Logmaster LM-2 / Chinese wheel loader
Jonsered saws - 2149 - 111S - 90?
2000 Miners 3-31 Board Edger

Kwill

The water type owb seem to smoke more or worse than the force air units. I would guess because they spend more time smoldering than the force air.
Built my own hydraulic splitter
Built my own outdoor wood stove
Built my own log arch
built my own bandsaw sawmill
Built my own atv log arch.
Built my own FEL grapple

rjwoelk

Quote from: starmac on January 29, 2018, 10:18:19 PM
Quote from: Kwill on January 29, 2018, 08:29:48 PM
What is a bush cord?


You too huh.
Thats when you have cut a pile of wood in the bush, and your now totally "bushed." :D
Lt15 palax wood processor,3020 JD 7120 CIH 36x72 hay shed for workshop coop tractor with a duetz for power plant

petefrom bearswamp

As you can see by my profile I am pretty old but still feed my 13 year old classic OWB twice a day, usually 10 pieces of medium size split and DRY (2 years) wood, more if really cold.
My house is well insulated, about 3200 sq feet heated to 73 degrees.
I still cut some but my son and grandson now do most of  the heavy lifting.
My 65 acres of Northern Hardwood forest has supported 2 households for 25 years now, burning tops from 2 timber sales and doing TSI work.
Regarding green wood cfarms comment is right on.
When I sold standing firewood in my forestry career, I would tell the green burning proponents to take 2 paper towels soak one, wring as much water out as possible, light, or try to light both and see which burns better.
Seemed to open their eyes.
My classic is not forced draft and burns fairly clean, smoke for a few minutes and then pretty clean.
I had a Taylor in the 90's forced draft that ate wood almost as fast as I could carry it to the unit.
Dont know if they are still made.
Kubota 8540 tractor, FEL bucket and forks, Farmi winch
Kubota 900 RTV
Polaris 570 Sportsman ATV
3 Huskies 1 gas Echo 1 cordless Echo vintage Homelite super xl12
57 acres of woodland

brianJ

Seems this old thread is a good place to ask a fire wood question.    Does limb wood have as many BTUs as the main stem?    By limb wood I mean smaller stuff that doesn't need to be split but other conditions are the same.

SwampDonkey

Same as far as I'm concerned. I bring home wood as small as 2", sometimes. The smaller the pieces the quicker it burns though. I mix it in, stuffing the corners of the stove box. ;D

I cut my own firewood, factoring lost opportunity costs, it costs me three times as much to buy firewood versus me cutting my own. It costs 2 days pay to buy whereas I can cut and split 3 cords in 2 days and stack it in the spot it will dry and be transferred to the stove box. ;D Convenience always costs more, no matter how you dice it. Besides that, I draw regular pay all week, and doing the firewood on the side. Piece work has advantages, build up a bank so the regular pay keeps flowing. Money I earned, not welfare. ;D
"No amount of belief makes something a fact." James Randi

1 Thessalonians 5:21

2020 Polaris Ranger 570 to forward firewood, Husqvarna 555 XT Pro, Stihl FS560 clearing saw and continuously thinning my ground, on the side. Grow them trees. (((o)))

KEC

I've seen people cut trees and take mostly just the main stem. What's not to like about limb wood that you don't have to split; it's all good.

gspren

Since it's oil vs wood in the subject line I'll add that this week oil is $2.249 US Gal. I still cut wood and burn my OWB but at these costs I wouldn't replace it if it died. This is in south central PA.
Stihl 041, 044 & 261, Kubota 400 RTV, Kubota BX 2670, Ferris Zero turn

SwampDonkey

Let's see, stove oil up here is $1/litre, a 900 L tank costs $900. That'll last 2 months in a winter as mild as we have this year. 2 months will burn 1-1/2 cord @ $300/cord if I buy it. Nope, doesn't even come close to cutting my own for savings. If I had to buy wood, I would still be way ahead if my other choice was oil, propane is worse and natural gas doesn't exist. ;D I've been through that math in real life, like fools gold. :D An electric furnace heat would be half what oil is, and no chance of something leaking, plus insurance won't allow a barrel older than 10 years. I have no incentive to change. :D I got electric backup if I decide to sleep in, haven't used more than $20 worth a year. ;D Cost's $50 a month for dehumidifier in summer. That right there is inefficient, more than air conditioning. :D
"No amount of belief makes something a fact." James Randi

1 Thessalonians 5:21

2020 Polaris Ranger 570 to forward firewood, Husqvarna 555 XT Pro, Stihl FS560 clearing saw and continuously thinning my ground, on the side. Grow them trees. (((o)))

uplander

  I read a lot of the thread but might have missed some of it. If it hasn't 
Already been said, what it comes down to for me is wood fuel doesn't  cost me anything. No money out of my pocket. Gas, or oil would.

I am retired, need the exercise and my timber stand needs the improvement. I also like setting the thermostat at whatever temperature
I like without thinking about what it costs.

Everyone has different reasons  for their heating decisions.
Woodmizer lt40G28.  A kubota L4600 with loader and forks.
Various Stihl saws and not enough time to use them!
Finished my house finally. Completely sawn out on by band mill. It took me 7 years but was worth it. Hardest thing I have ever done.

Nathan4104

Here's an online calculator 
https://coalpail.com/fuel-comparison-calculator-home-heating

Around here propane is the new fad. Except when it gets to -40 it stops flowing, so you need an electric blanket/heater on the tank to make it flow.  Our hydro is ridiculous in price (over 20c/kWh) depending on time of day..... 

mike_belben

Quote from: Kwill on February 07, 2018, 03:51:27 PM
200- 250 range around here that split stacked and your car washed for a year
:D :D :D
Praise The Lord

hedgerow

Quote from: brianJ on January 14, 2021, 02:03:10 PM
Seems this old thread is a good place to ask a fire wood question.    Does limb wood have as many BTUs as the main stem?    By limb wood I mean smaller stuff that doesn't need to be split but other conditions are the same.
I guess for me I think it does. I burn a lot of smaller size hedge {Osage Orange} in my Garn that I don't split. It burns as well and long as the bigger hedge pieces that I have split. I seem to raise my water temp the same amount on a full load of limb size hedge as I do with a full load of split hedge. 

Ianab

[quote author=brianJ link=topic=99807.msg1786

All woods should have approximately the same BTUs per dry pound (there is slight variations), and they may burn at different speeds or characteristics. 

But I've always collected and burnt anything that was worth picking up and stacking. If I have to haul limbs to a burn pile anyway, I may as well lop off the heavier parts to process into firewood, then just burn the light brush. It's easy work as no heavy blocks or splitting required, just throw limbs on a firewood buck and zip-zip with the chainsaw. Time consuming, but not hard work. 

A popular firewood here is Manuka, which is only a small and spindly tree (what Manuka Honey comes from). It might max out at ~6" dia, but is a very hard dense wood, so basically it's like burning Osage Orange limb wood. Harder to get now because of the value of the honey, no farmers want to cut it down now as it's more profitable and less work to lease out beehive sites, rather than chasing sheep up and down steep hills. :D
Weekend warrior, Peterson JP test pilot, Dolmar 7900 and Stihl MS310 saws and  the usual collection of power tools :)

PoginyHill

Quote from: Ianab on January 15, 2021, 05:18:17 PMAll woods should have approximately the same BTUs per dry pound (there is slight variations), and they may burn at different speeds or characteristics.
Which is why wood pellets have about the same BTU content regardless of the species they are made from. In raw form, the difference is only wood density. For the same BTU, softwood takes up a lot more room in the shed.
Kubota M7060 & B2401, Metavic log trailer, Cat E70B, Cat D5C, 750 Grizzly ATV, Wallenstein FX110, 84" Landpride rotary hog, Classic Edge 750, Stihl 170, 261, 462

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