Price of firewood vs. fuel oil in northeast

raybonz send me info on superstore when ya get a minute... my Bradford white is 11 YO it can't last forever! I looked at new electric hot h2o heaters with condenser on top ... bottom line at 13 dollars a month for 6 month...... oF summer PAYBACK is years.? in winter eXtra is minimal,.. oh my furnace is vented into clay lined chimney in basement my clay 40 plus years old is perfect because always has heat in it so clay stays dry and no issues..

I hope your new one is as reliable as mine. .. my furnace guy who cleaned it 2 months ago and I told him that I hadn't been cleaned in at least three years said this isn't even the dirtiest one I cleaned today these Riello burners are great when you have them dialed in.. apparently mine is.. had a subContractor check it 1.5 years ago. . changed filter on oil tank said 20 bucks I'm not even going to get vacuum out of truck for this

 

Yes, and that is the max. heat loss.... mine loses temperature even slower than that. Around 0.38 if I remember correctly. When it was first installed, I was losing heat from the first couple of feet of the hot water outlet pipe faster than the rest of the entire tank so I insulated that pipe and things really improved.

I am also using my DHW tank as a 'buffer' to increase the effective mass of the low- mass Buderous boiler. By having the circulator to the DHW run whenever the boiler is fired, it adds the capacity of the water heater tank to the effective boiler water storage and really helps to stop the burner from short- cycling (when the burner starts and stops multiple times during one heating cycle of a heat zone).

These things really are excellent products I think. I do not have anything else to compare it with but it was an easy install, and it exceeds every spec. I have been able to measure. With no electrical connections (all PEX plumbing) and a stainless steel tank liner, it should out- last me.

BTW- not sure if it means anything or not but it is often recommended to have them exceed 140F at the peak of the heating cycle to kill off Legionnaire's disease.

Brian

 

Legionnaire's disease in the closed water heater? That bacteria is commonly found in fresh water so that is the source; it comes into the water heater with the water supply. Not sure why it is a good idea to kill it in the water heater but not the cold water lines but perhaps it tends to breed in the warm water heater environment? But it is a common recommendation to raise the max. temp. of a water heater to 140F (or higher of course) to kill the stuff. And that works well for me because the wider temperature spread, from ~150F to ~115F allows the boiler more down- time without firing, which increases the efficiency of the system.

Brian

 

That was very smart on your part. I am not the advertisement for safety by any means, but a good friend of mine (granted a boiler tech by trade) went to take a boiler down some basement steps, had it slip, and he ended up wearing it. It broke his pelvis and ruptured many things in his guts like stomach and such. He lived after 5 weeks in intensive care, but 7 years later is still having surgery for reoccurring problems.

I am all for doing as much as I can for myself, but sometimes having the right tools makes the biggest difference.

 

Sorry to hear that story about the gentleman getting hurt. Glad to here he is doing better, if not totally free of long term effects from that accident.

I put my boiler in my cellar using my Envoy. I have a front mounted trailer hitch, and I tied a long run of rope between the vehicle and around the boiler (still in the box), and tipped it over onto a plank running down the stairs. By moving the vehicle forward, the stove crept down the stairs with no one in front of it and my B-I-L behind it, 'steering' it toward the center of the stairs and away from the walls. Once in the cellar, I picked it up with a hand truck and rolled it to where it was going to live. And my Buderus is a relatively small, light boiler at a couple hundred pounds. The ancient Thatcher boiler that it replaced must have weighed a ton; the guys who moved that one out did it by sawing the stove sections apart and bring the pieces out one at a time.... and they were still very heavy.

Brian

 

For those of you who don't know me when I bought my house it had a propane furnace in it and the first summer I was there I ripped out the propane line to the house and proceeded to heat with wood and only wood for roughly ten years until last year.

Then last year the Gas company came down my road and offered to hook my house up to natural gas (yes I was ecstatic about that even though I love my stove). I had to run 350foot of gas line down to the road for them to tie into. I undertook the project and ran the gas line down to the road and then last winter decided to try the furnace for a month in January just to see what my bill was. I was shocked at how cheap it was!! I set the thermostat to between 72-74 degrees and my total gas bill for the month was $57 dollars. I should also mention that when I hooked up the natural gas I went and bought a gas cook stove off CL and put it in the house also (I love cooking on gas by the way). Over the course of this summer when it was just cooking and water heating my gas bill dropped to about $18-22 dollars per month. So effectively it cost me $40 dollars per month to heat the house in January. When I actually sat down and thought about that it was pretty mind boggling to me. When I had my parents farm to cut on it was a 45 minute drive one way which is a lot of fuel and wear and tear not to count chains and everything else.

Needless to say I haven't quit burning wood and I still love the wood stove going on a cold day but I'm sure not worried about letting the furnace run on days when my wife and I's work schedule have us out of the house for 14+hours. I still have a pile of wood that needs split from my cutting this summer and a few more trees that need bucked up.

 

Just to be clear, you didn't burn any wood for heat in the month of January?

 

I live on a road that is about 1 mile long, strung in- between two much more major roads. Both major roads have gas mains in them but not MY road. :-( No natural gas available and none expected to be installed (ever) due to insufficient potential customers. So my fuel choices are #2 fuel oil, which I use, and electricity, which no one can afford in this area (southern New England).

After installing a new boiler, burner, controller (outside reset, programmable type from Honeywell) and a new chimney for the boiler, my efficiency has also taken a trip to the moon. But I cannot heat my house with oil for the prices you mention and wood is still about 1/2 the cost for a much warmer house. But I was nodding while reading your post because until the new boiler last year, I was a slave to the woodstove and simply could not use the boiler because the standby and stack losses were ridiculously high and so I am in that very same boat of really enjoying the new system being available, reasonable in price, excellent in efficiency, and standing by (actively) so if I am not 'Johnny on the spot' with the woodstove, the house never drops into the high 50's. It is really nice living in the 1960's! So congrats on your new setup and great to hear you are enjoying the modern convenience of a central heating system and reasonably prices DHW- both are really great things, especially when one has not had them for a while (almost 30 years in my case!).

Brian

 

Replying to Certified106...

I suspect I'm a bit farther towards the end of the pipeline, and in a more northern latitude, (NH). For January of this year, my natural gas bill was $95, with the wood stove going more or less nonstop. That's for 63 therms, according to my bill.

 

much like other a main natural gas line runs within 1 mile of my prooerty,, neighbors farm.. which feeds whole lake side of VT but they haven't run it down my road yet.. My rental properties 10 miles south have it month bill is 75 a month in old house with heat to 80 til that changes I burn oil for little heat and hot water that only cost 65 a month cause of woodstove... so I remain open but IS stays!

 

Wow, I am really surprised that so many of us are in (or were in) a similar situation: namely that old, inefficient heating systems have driven so many of us to rely on firewood as the principle heating source. Nothing wrong with that of course, and over the years my family have always been reasonably comfortable but still, getting up first thing in the morning and trying to flog the wood stove to recover the house, only to have to damp it down for the all- day burn, then coming home to a cool (or cold) house and again kicking the woodstove in the pants to catch back up gets old. And it can make for some chilly dinner times before the stove takes hold and really drives the temps. up.

So my compliments to all my fellow 'wood strugglers' who have had to reach a little further to make the grade while most rely on the thermostat, and congrats to some of those same folks who now have a thermostat connected to something that serves well without all the nastiness of a gazillion dollar fuel bill!

We still heat primarily with firewood, and will continue to do so as long as we are able but I have to say, it is nice to have a ready, efficient central heating system in our proverbial back pocket to take up the slack..... It is a lot nicer to come home to a house that needs to be warmed up from 66F than one that has to be recovered from 54 F.

Brian

 

That's a little bit more than me but I guarantee you are a bit colder than I am in South East Ohio. Also my house is 2x6 construction with sprayed in insulation and probably at least an R50 in the attic so it's pretty tight for sure.

Edit: I should also add the furnace is 98% and the water heater is a direct vent 90+ so everything is pretty efficient. When I ran the cost difference between my old electric water heater and the gas 90+ it would only take about a year and a half to pay back the cost of the upgrade so it was a no brainer. Electric prices have went WAY up around here.

 

I definitely need to get better insulated. I've got a 3br ranch built in the 60's. We've added attic insulation, but there are still plenty of gaps.
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I also live int the middle of nowhere in rural south east Ohio but I got really lucky last year. There is a huge natural gas pumping station in the middle of a field 7 miles from my house and they came right down our road laying anew pipeline to the station. The only people that got natural gas were the houses right down that stretch of road and there are houses all around us that still don't have it. I do feel fortunate that's for sure. I am still baffled by how low the price is right now. When I put in the pipe to my house it was a heck of a job up a cliff that was nothing but sandstone but I got it done. I even put in a 1.25" line and it's high pressure reduced down at the house. I can run anything I want and then some. I'm hoping to put in a generator in the next few years.

I still enjoy running saws, being in the woods, and having my stove going though. I definitely don't feel the pressure to find and split wood like before but I still find it enjoyable and don't see myself stopping. I love the furnace in the shoulder season though when it's really hard to regulate the house temp.

 

My house is super insulated, but is still a 3 bedroom ranch (2500 sq ft), but I have an electric hot water heater and THAT I must get rid of.

I think that is my biggest pet peeve of people, they spend lots of money on a new heating system (whatever it is) then never put money into making sure their home is insulated and tight. I understand insulation and good windows have no "cool factor", but why install electric, wood, coal, oil, propane, solar, etc if the heat produced is wasted?

I am impressed with many of the people on here that have taken this route and tightened up their home. You are cool in my book!

 

You lucked out for sure, having the pipe go down your road. There are folks here who have fought to keep new natural gas supply pipelines out of their towns. Like your community, they might not be able to tap into it, but have to give up land for the corridor. We have lots of oil burning households up here, who are locked out from natural gas because it's not built out to their area.