Firewood

[GreeneHunter]

Just wondering everyone's thoughts on Firewood ... as in : cost of a cord in your area , cheaper to do it yourself , how long do you let it dry for , is it your prime source of heat , have a woodstove or insert or wood boiler ? 

[Deerthug]

I've had a woodstove in my den since 1994 which I've used as a secondary but sometimes primary source of heat. My Vermont Castings Resolute Acclaim is now too old and needs repairs. I've been looking at some new stoves - Hearthstone with soapstone sides.

I burn seasoned wood which I normally get for free from my BIL since he is a lanscaper. Usually oak or cherry wood well seasoned. Problem is I can't put any piece larger than 12-14 inches and I always have to cut them down to size. The new one im looking at takes 21" logs.

I had so much left over from last year which now I'm down to maybe 2 weeks worth so today i'm expecting a delivery which I am purchasing 1/2 cord for $125 just to get me through the winter. Hope to be getting the new one in April or May.

[gastrodoc]

Here outside of Rochester you are looking at around $75-80/face cord, sometimes including delivery.  It is much cheaper to cut yourself but takes up quite a bit of time.  I personally find it enjoyable to cut it myself if I have the time.  I have found that to get a really nice burn it needs to be seasoned around one year.  6 months will do but a year is much better. You also have to be very careful when buying wood from someone unknown as they can bring you really junky stuff.

I have a Lopi woodstove at our cottage in Honeoye and it will heat the entire house.  I replaced an older Vermont Castings with this.  The blower option has made all the difference in the world. 

[Lawdwaz]

The beauty of cutting, splitting, stacking and lugging fire wood is it burns more than once.............

 

Not much better IMO than a few hours of that stuff & I wish I did more of it.

[growalot]

here ya go....I think it's going for 60-80 a face cord around here...I actually enjoy being out cutting wood...

 

http://forestry.usu.edu/htm/forest-products/wood-heating

 

 

PS....the truck load info...They fail to mention it needs to be a t least a 1/2 ton to 1 ton heavy duty pick up to handle the weight of the wood...

Edited January 3, 2015 by growalot

[Doewhacker]

We moved in late summer so this is our first year with a wood stove since we were both kids. We have a Hearthstone with the soap stone and love it.

We payed $220 a cord for green split, log legnth go for @$100-120 a cord around me. I did find a old guy selling off his seasoned wood for $200 a healthy cord. Still cheaper than oil and I like it better to boot.

This year I am going to take a few cord off my property and next year I will be looking for logs.

[GreeneHunter]

We have a woodstove in the basement which is not our prime source of heat but is definitely a great thing to have going on colder days ! It has no blower built in but we have one of those fans that you put on top and it spins when it gets hot and distributes the air around the basement nicely . When/if we have a power failure its nice to have it there !  A cord in the Albany area is around $ 225-250 delivered . We have a power line adjoining the property and this past summer the power company came through and cut down all the trees in the right-of-way and left them there to rot so I've been chipping away at them ever since .... it will eventually come out to about 5 cords worth !  

[jjb4900]

I have a woodstove in my basement, when it gets going and I keep it going, it gets the basement up to around 80 degrees and that in turn warms the enitre 1st floor up very nicely......I actually had to add a second heating zone because the second floor never got warm due to the thermostat being on the first floor. Another bonus is that my hot water heater, furnace and heat pipes are all in the basement, I figure keeping all that stuff at a higher temp has got to save a few bucks a year as well. I normally get all my wood free and split it myself, about 3-4 cords a year, if I was to buy it would run between $175-$225 a cord depending on the wood being seasoned and what time of year you buy.

[G-Man]

65-85 a facecord. I have a lot of firewood but don't burn any of it, it's cheaper for me to use propane,and a lot less work. Spent a good buck insulating the house when I built it and only use 500 gal of propane a year about $1000.00 or less than 100 a month. It's always on and if power is out the generator takes care of circulating pump. No mess ,no bugs and no ash to deal with.

[fasteddie]

I used to buy log load , cut them to length and split them . Then I started buying the wood cut to length and split that by hand . I moved to buying split woods by the truckload ( 5-10 ) face cord at a time . We havn't used the wood stove in over 5 years as my wife has allergies . Went to Williamson Hardware and purchased a gas stove that will probably be installed next month . There goes the kid's inheritance !

[philoshop]

I heat 100% with a wood stove in my 800 sq ft house using wood that I cut and process myself. I enjoy most every part of it, from the harvesting and stocking up throughout the summer to the daily ritual of burning during the winter. And nothing beats a cranking wood stove to warm the old bones after spending a cold day outdoors. For the most part, I just enjoy the independence of it.

 

If I had to buy the wood or travel anything more than a few miles to get it maybe things would be different because of the costs involved. Then again, maybe not. It's hard to put a price tag on the independence part of the equation.

 

As a side note: anyone looking to purchase a wood burning appliance should do so in the very near future. Prices will skyrocket if/when the new EPA regulations take effect.

[wolc123]

I find making firewood an enjoyable hobby so I cut my own firewood.  Our 1400 sq ft, L-shaped ranch is heated by two gas furnaces that rarely operate, and one small woodstove (Avalon "mission") that does most of the work.  The house is well insulated and setup so the centrally located stove on the main floor, can move heat around the whole house, keeping the bedrooms cool and the main living space warm.   8-10 face cords gets us thru a typical winter.   The last 4 years, due to the "emerald borer" threat, Ash is all I have burnt.   That burns good, and requires little or no seasoning but does live up to it's name and produce lots of ash.  That means frequent cleaning of the stove is required.  I prefer to burn oak, cherry, hickory and maple.   I have about a 5 acre mature hardwood woodlot at the back of our 40 acre farm which is about 25% ash, 50% oak, and 25$ maple.  

[GreeneHunter]

A Neighbor had a Maple Tree taken down today and I grabbed the wood for $150.00 from the tree guy ....  now I can cut and split it at my leisure for next year !

 

[bigpaul]

I have an outdoor boiler.  I have a tri axle load delivered for $650, cut split and stack myself, about 8 cords.  I also harvest about 4 Cords around the house.  Some years I have some left over, last year I burned it all.  I have not bought fuel oil since 2008.  So I heat a 1750 sq. foot home plus full basement and hot water for less than $1000 a year.

[thphm]

Outdoor boiler here also, use about the same amount of wood, same size house, basement, garage / shop and hot water too.Just filled up the 275 tank just in case. Sorry I did not put a wood burning stove in the basement for a back up.

[G-Man]

It's feasible if you do 90% of work yourself, but my time and efforts are worth more to be at my regular job than cutting and splitting wood... see a lot of wood for sale by posters over 100 a cord (I assume face cord) if your burning 10 cord of wood that's a lot of cash outlay...

[thphm]

If I were still working ( retired 10 years ) I would work overtime and use that money to buy the firewood. And yes 10 + cords is a lot of work .The price of fuel oil and prophane was high enough up until now I paid for my saws, fuel and repairs on them with the money I saved..

[HectorBuckBuster]

I remember reading a news article about a firewood shortage in some area's. Because of the NYS law about a 50 mile radius and alot of the firewood logs are now going to wooden pallet makers. Its going between $65-$80 a face cord in my area.If you live close to the Finger Lakes National Forest you can buy a permit for something like $15 bucks and cut wood on the National Forest ( I do not know the regulations)

[philoshop]

I don't mind doing the work (a little at a time ) but the cost of traveling to haul the stuff can add up pretty quickly.

I like not having another bill in the mail every month, though.

[adkbuck]

Firewood is a topic near and dear to me GreeneHunter.  Burning firewood will save you a lot of money even if you buy it already cut and split.   If you can cut and split it off you own land all the better!  I f you buy logs as mentioned earlier and cut and spit that is a great savings too.  The newer wood stoves all have efficiencies over 80%.    Additionally if you cut and split you will be "strong like bull" ...and I am not just talking about odor!

 

I cut and split 14-15 face cords to heat the house.  Additionally  I cut and stack additional 8 face cords of mostly hardwood plus 3 or 4 face cords of soft wood and scrap lumber for the maple syrup evaporator. I still split by hand because it is faster than using a splitter. When I get really old I will probably get a gas powered log splitter.  I score the really big logs with the chain saw first before splitting them with wedges and and a sledge.  Most of the wood for the maple syrup operation is branch wood which I pickup off the forest floor which just has to be cut to 4' lengths and is usually small enough in diameter to not have to be split.  The house wood I cut to 16 -20 inches. I use a big super sharp two bladed ax for the easy stuff and a 16 pound sledge and several wedges (including a grenade wedge) for the tough stuff.

 

Landtrachunter has a bigger maple operation than mine and I am sure he has great wisdom in this area!

 

As far as curing.  The only wood that takes more than 6 months to cure well is hard maple (sugar maple and black sugar maple).  Everything else cures well in 6 months.  Sugar maple retains a lot of water so the longer it cures the better.  A full year or more is good.   If the maple you bought was standing dead timber then a shorter time curing is fine.

 

Ash they say will burn well without any curing but I always try to get all our firewood to a moisture content of 20% or below.  A lot of people burn wood that is too wet. Yes it will burn but....  As a result much of the heat generated is used to evaporate water, not to produce heat to warm your house or boil your maple sap. 

 

You can buy a reliable wood moisture meter for about $20.  Basically it is a electrical conductivity meter calibrated for moisture content.   Use it to monitor your firewood's moisture content.

 

The important thing is to stack your fire so it gets plenty of air and sun.  Its good to keep covered for the last 2 or 3 months before the heating season.  The Cornell extension has some good info:  http://ccetompkins.org/energy/heating-wood/storing-and-drying-firewood

 

Our firewood is mostly Cherry, Birch, Beech. Maple, Ironwood, Ash, basswood and Aspen.  Aspen and popple are not really hardwood but burn fast and hot and are still worth burning. The aspen I split and dry to use mostly as kindling for the house and as a main firewood for the evaporator. 

 

 Finally a BTU rating chart which will give you a good idea of the relative heating value of various types of wood:  http://worldforestindustries.com/forest-biofuel/firewood/firewood-btu-ratings/

 

Good luck.  You are on the track to a new money saving activity and a great hobby!

 

 

 

 

Edited January 3, 2015 by adkbuck

[Doc]

I gave up on wood heat quite a few years ago. I found it to be quite dirty. Furniture always had a layer of dust regardless of how often they were cleaned. I also noticed the import of some wood eating bugs with some of the older wood that came in. And then there was the mess of taking the ashes out. But the thing that finally caused me to end it was the day we were sitting watching TV when I heard a "Whump" and looked over and saw glowing coals laying all over the floor that had been blown out through the damper by some kind of explosion inside the stove. That had us scampering around there trying to police up these hot coals. The hardwood floors over there still have the burn marks. What would have happened if we had not been home? I don't need that sort of thing.

 

My Brother-in-law also had a raging chimney fire. Fortunately it happened while they were home and they got the fire trucks in before it caught any of the structure on fire. That was just dumb-luck too because they spend a lot of time away from home.

 

On the plus side, I will say that it was the most comfortable heat going. And like somebody already mentioned, the exercise was great.

[WesternNY]

Outdoor Boiler here... 3000 sq foot house.  It is the version with the conveter on it, it runs very clean.

 

Heats the house and our domestic hot water.

 

I burn around 40 facecord a year.   Can be more depending on how cold it is.

 

Should be mentioned facecord is 4'x8' by 16"   cord is 3 facecord.

 

I load it every 12 hours when it is cold, every 16 when its above 35.   I cut some, but I don't have the time to do it all.  I can get it for around $60 a facecord, cut split, delivered.

 

Wood is a lot of work.  Boilers are expensive, but after your 3rd year you are saving money based on my house size, price of oil, and including buying your wood.

Edited January 4, 2015 by WesternNY

[G-Man]

Wow my house is 3000 sq ft,propane is my stoves heat and water, 40 cord at 60 is 2400.00$ my propane is 2.09 a gallon I use 500 gallon.or 1045.00$ a year and I don't have to load or remove ash,or move propane closer to heater. I'll stick with propane. It's still my firm belief unless wood is under 30 a cord,or you own the woods and do the wood yourself your better off insulating and using alternative heat.

[Dave]

I gather all my wood in the end of March to early April. We have mostly ash, beech, maple and cherry, I look for blowdowns and cut them up . Like to cut the ones closest to the logging roads first. Bring them back to the house and have a log splitter so it makes it alot easier. Most wood is let dry for a year before we burn it. The best part of this is its all free wood, just have to supply my time and energy. Which I enjoy doing, nothing like a good fire and a glass of wine on a cold nite.

[Lawdwaz]

I'm on balanced billing with National Fuel.  1650 sqft house, gas dryer,gas  hot water tank and 90% efficient furnace.   My monthly bill is $111.00

 

4 occupants...........

 

Not too shabby I'd say. 

 

The only thing is I really enjoy all aspects of wood.  If I had access to handy wood and a wood stove/fireplace I'd be burning it.  I do have a fireplace but I don't trust it also it surely wouldn't be very efficient for a heat source.