Actual cost of firewood

[CobyRupert]

At 83, your mom looks very spry and chipper. ...or spruce and chipper? :laughing:

def.
[Chipper: (adjective) 1. marked by or being in sprightly good humor and health.]

 

[ultrarunner]

She does very well physically and always ready to lend a helping hand... it is the memory and confusion taking a toll... in Washington everyone thinks she is the native and I am visiting!

Her neighbor who passed just shy of 102 was as sharp as could be but had trouble getting around... they made a good team in later years... she would call to remind Mom of things and Mom would help her with little things around the house as neighbors...

After 40 years of smoking a pack a day (All the nurses smoked back in the day) she disparately wanted to quit and always fell back... someone told her they started running every time they wanted to smoke... Mom tried this and in her 50's started running Ultra Marathons... did her last at age 75... grew up the oldest girl on a family Diary Farm and was all too glad to leave the baking and house work to her younger sisters... she worked a lot in the woods with her Dad... and rebuilding the old Farm House...

The urge must have been strong to smoke because how else can you explain running 50 or 100 miles?

EDIT

As I was writing this she just asked if we were going to the tree farm to make firewood???

 

[deezler]

RE:deezler....
An economical design, super insulated, and passive solar....yep you have low heating requirements. You chose to invest $2k in burning equipment and burn $300-$600 a year in wood.

If your heating needs are indeed that low.....don't know why you were figuring $20k-$30k for Geo.

I installed my system myself. Hired the ductwork out. Taking off Federal and local credits.....I came out at $7k or so. But my Geo does two things most people's.wood burners don't. 1. It heata my matter in the winter AND summer. And 2. It cools my house as well. And given your low heating requirements, you probably wouldn't need anywhere near the 4 ton system I installed. As that 4-tons replaced 6 cord a year. So a Geo sized to your house would be even cheaper.

I didn't see you mention air conditioning. .aube you don't need or want that where you live. But that's not the case for most people.

Alot of the proponents claiming how much they save burning wood......ALSO spent the money for an HVAC system with ductwork and all just for cooling.

I save money NOT burning wood. Sure the Geo was a large upfront cost. That's a given. But I needed (wanted) air conditioning anyway, which the house didn't have. And the cost difference between installing a central AC unit.....and the Geo with all the rebates.....was nil.
And at the end of the day....even if I could save $400 or $500 a year burning.....is it really worth the mess in the house, and the hassle? For me...no.

Now before Geo, I heated with wood for two seasons. The alternative was baseboard heat at $300/month more than the wood. So the hassle was worth it then

Thanks for the reply, good points. Yeah we have a big ductless mini-split in the great room (I think was like $3k installed when we built the house), for backup heat if we're not home to make fires (almost never turn it on though) and of course, air conditioning. We typically only need air conditioning when the temps are above 90 for more than 4 or 5 days in a row, so it doesn't run much in summer either (big roof overhangs mean no solar gain in summer, and earth-bermed north wall and again, high insulation, house stays very cool).

My $20k estimate for the geothermal was based upon what I heard some friends paid, and the word of our contractor during the home build. If I had an excavator, maybe I could have done it cheaply, I dunno. Also would have needed to clear more forest to make room for the ground loops. I forgot about the tax credits tho. What is the electric kWh/bill like to run a 4-ton system in central Ohio?

On the firewood mess front, our woodstove is 5 ft from patio doors to the screen porch, so the wood stays out there and we carry in 3-4 logs at a time that go right into the stove. So mess is very minimal. The puppy and 4-yr old mean vacuuming every couple days anyway, haha.

 

[deezler]

LD1... another thought. You seem to want us to think of firewood processing like we are doing a job, and then just choose not to sell the product we made, and burn it for heat instead. But that's not at all how I think of it, you know why? Because I work 8am-4pm every weekday at a salary desk job. Thats just what I have to go do every weekday, and then money magically appears in my bank account. I don't think of each chore or service I do away from my desk job as a source of income. But you sell firewood and do tractor work for a living, so that makes sense for you to do.

But I think a lot of the rest of us are desk jockeys who play on the weekends, doing chores we'd have to do anyway (clean up fallen trees, etc). So the wood feels free and we enjoy the hobby work.

For the record I don't assume I am saving thousands (or even really hundreds) by burning wood. But I do think it is the cheapest and most sustainable way to heat my house.

 

[LD1]

My electric rates are about 12 cents per kwh.

The Geo is a two stage system. So the kwh varies depending on. 1st stage or second.

But overall......my summertime electric bills are around 1500 kwh (running ac). Fall and spring with neither ac nor heat....about 1100-1200kwh. Winter full heat....about 2000kwh

 

[deezler]

Not too bad. Our kWh's cost $0.17 up here, not very cool and I can't really see why. No hydro power and only one nuke plant left online might be one reason.

 

[oosik]

AH - that's why everybody is talking alternate sources of heat and energy. My electric here is 6.2 cents per kwh. If I would have done half the pencil work all you guys did when we first moved in - I might not have gone the wood stove, then pellet stove then electric route. When we moved here in '82 the electric rate was 4.6 cents per kwh.

Our electric rate is one of the lowest in the nation - all our electricity comes from Grand Coulee dam. About 70 miles NW of me.

Don't feel so bad - when we left Anchorage to come here in '82 the electric rate there was 26.7 cents per kwh. Lots of candles - very few light bulbs.

The "cheep" energy source in Anchorage was natural gas.

 

[ultrarunner]

kWh here can be over 30 cents with the tiered system... they recently knocked down the top tier as it made Solar a no-brainer...

Average monthly usage never varies... 12 months a year at 360 kWh per month for 2400 square feet, 4 bedroom 2.5 bath with gas heat and gas hot water... no one here has A/C

The last California Nuke is set to be closed with no alternative ready to take over 9% of the State's total needs.

The irony is some Green organizations say it is carbon neutral and now questioning... Diablo Canyon...

California approves closure of last nuclear power plant | TheHill

 

[quicksandfarmer]

My electric rates are about 12 cents per kwh.

The Geo is a two stage system. So the kwh varies depending on. 1st stage or second.

But overall......my summertime electric bills are around 1500 kwh (running ac). Fall and spring with neither ac nor heat....about 1100-1200kwh. Winter full heat....about 2000kwh

Do you have a thread on your geothermal install? I'd like to hear more about the details.

 

[dodge man]

There is another way to look at it. I already own the tools. My son and I just cut up about a chord of wood. I don’t know an exact number but probably $5 in fuel. My cost per chord is $5.

On the other hand I could have sold my tractor, log splitter, saw for say $6000. So that chord of wood cost me $6000.