Save a Bit Or a Bundle With Wood Fuel (And Get Other Benefits As Well)
Tired of paying those high fuel bills to heat your home? If you don’t mind some hard work, you might be able to save a bundle by switching to wood as your primary heat source. There are many other benefits, as well. Let’s explore some of them.
Saving Money Depending upon how much work you are willing to do, you can save a bit or a bundle. For example, you can buy wood already split and seasoned (dried), ready to burn. This is the most expensive way of buying wood, but you do not have to buck, split, and season the wood. Someone else has already done all this work for you. Even so, you could still save a bit on your heating bill.
Look at your heating bill for the last year or two and compare that with the cost of delivered split seasoned wood in your area. Although there are many variables involved, a general rule of thumb in comparing the cost of wood heat with heating oil and natural gas is that one cord of seasoned wood burned equals 175 gallons of number 2 oil or 225 therm of natural gas. For example, a cord of split and seasoned, quality wood delivered for $250 equates to oil at $1.43 (250/175) per gallon or $1.11 (250/225) per therm of natural gas. So use the actual prices of wood and oil or gas for your situation and see how they compare. In many instances, wood is still a money saver even purchased split and delivered.
There is a much greater savings if you can process wood from delivered logs. Where a split cord of wood costs $250 per cord, a cord delivered in log form might cost $100. You are really paying yourself for processing the wood. When you consider the typical home burns 3 to 6 cords of wood a year (depending on stove efficiency and tightness of the home), the savings can become significant.
In this scenario, you purchase wood in log form (usually cut to eight-foot lengths) and delivered to your location. There is a minimum purchase amount, typically 10 cords, which gives you the best price. You need the room for not only the logs, but for the rounds bucked from the logs, and space for splitting and stacking.
If you have a desire to do hard work and the space to do it in (1/2 acre or so), processing wood yourself can save you a bundle on your heating bill.
In addition to the money savings, there are other benefits in processing and burning wood for heat.
Good Body Workout Processing wood is an excellent way of getting in shape. By its very nature, wood processing is labor intensive. It starts with bucking logs into stove-length rounds using a chainsaw. The rounds are then split using a 6- or 8-pound maul. The split pieces are carted to an area where they are stacked for drying (seasoning) by wind and sun. The seasoned wood is then placed in a wood shed (if available) or left until brought in for burning.
Each part of the process is hard work, but provides a good body workout. Many who process their own wood do so primarily for the exercise. They enjoy the payoff to their body. The results are as good, if not better, than a workout at a gym, they are saving money, and producing burnable wood in the process.
Ambiance Probably the single benefit that most who burn wood agree to is the warmth and comfort that only a wood stove or fireplace can provide. Flames from burning wood are hypnotic. People can stare at the flames for hours. There seems to be serenity with burning wood that draws people near. Start a fire in a fireplace or have one in a stove with glass doors and people naturally gather nearby.
There are people who move some distance from their work just to enjoy wood heat. They are willing to commute the extra distance to have the ambiance provided by a wood-burning device. When it is said and done, all the hard work is forgotten when that fire keeps the house cozy warm on a cold winter’s night.
In addition to personal benefits, there are other benefits as well.
Renewable Resource Wood is a renewable resource; gas, coal, and oil are not. When a tree grows, it removes carbon dioxide (CO2) from the air, replacing it with oxygen (a benefit already to mankind). When a tree dies and rots or is burned, the CO2 is returned to the atmosphere. So the net result is zero concerning this greenhouse gas-not so with coal, heating oil, and gas. When they burn and give off CO2, that carbon dioxide came out of the atmosphere millions of years ago. There is no renewing cycle of CO2 (and certainly no oxygen being released). The result is that those fuels are adding this greenhouse gas to the atmosphere. Wood fuel, therefore, is environmentally friendly.
Reduces Dependency On Foreign Oil When you look at the bigger picture, what you have is a renewable (sustainable) energy source that replaces (at least partly) a non-renewable source. When people burn wood, they are not burning coal, gas, or oil, thereby producing a net positive environmental result.
For every cord of wood used for home heating instead of oil, more than a ton of carbon is kept out of the atmosphere. Plenty of households in rural areas and small towns could easily cut their carbon emissions by four tons each winter by substituting firewood for two tanks of fuel oil.
Promotes Local Economy Rather than support foreign cartels for our energy, we would do well to support our local economy in the processing of wood and sales of wood burning devices and accessories. When you look at all the players in the wood burning industry, there are no mega companies like there are in oil and gas. It consists of hundreds of manufacturers spread all over, as well as the local loggers and woodlot owners.
In addition, there are the local stores and service organizations providing goods and services related to wood processing and burning.
Wood fuel businesses are the main source of income for 10% of rural households, supplying about 40% of their cash earnings. Wood fuel use generates at least 20 times more local employment than energy from oil products (per unit of energy).
Summary Although wood processing is not for everyone, the many benefits may be what you are looking for. Whether you want area heating or central heating, there are many possibilities you can pursue. A good place to get started is with the Hearth, Patio and Barbecue Association which provides a host of services and information related to the wood burning industry at http://www.hpba.org
This article is extracted in part from the author’s book Wood Processing Made Simple.
Carlton Carney has been processing wood most of his life and has used wood as his primary heat source for the last 18 years. He has developed and taught a host of technical training courses for industry. He brings his personal knowledge of wood processing and his ability to simplify information in his book Wood Processing Made Simple.
For more information about his book, visit his web site at http://www.capaproductionssite.com
