Thanks for the kind words and the effort to defuse the situation- and good job of it BTW. "Tact": the art of rubbing out anothers' mistake instead of rubbing it in. My favorite definition.... Yeah, I am an acquired taste, sort of like Scotch; some like it (like me), others find it harsh and burning. That is probably why I spend so much time with Kirby and Mr. Elkhoof (a dessicated squirrel that I blame everything 'cause it 'talks to me' and the front hoof of an absolutely huge elk from WA state, given to me by a good friend because he thought I did not have enough elk hooves attached to my motorcycle). Then again, those two are really BIG hits at rallies and Mr. Elkhoof is a big hit just about everywhere as he rides strapped to the top of the top box of my bike, resulting in things heard such as "Hey, that guy has FXXXXXG ROAD KILL on his bike!" and so forth. When people ask about 'him', I reply that I am hoping that I die in a horrible, high speed collision with a large member fo the deer family and the first- responders are thoroughly perplexed as to why [what I hit] had five feet. Just about to give up waiting for that boom truck..... I tells' ya', the electric company acts like I need them more than they need me. Brian
Opportunity Cost....work for your heat, or work to pay gas/fuel company for it- very simple, really. It's a personal choice, and to each his own, eh?
Absolutely. Always, to each his / her own. Not sure if I can say this here so moderators, please delete this if too inappropriate. Anybody here old enough to remember the window stickers from the early 70's that had a silhouette of an attractive female and under it the caption: "Gas, grass or azz, nobody rides for free." ? Funny and true, all at the same time. Probably very non- PC today also but I am too old to be expected to know all the rules; I still call ladies ladies and use forms of address such as ma'am and this somehow really offends some.... and saying 'Sorry Ma'am' does not seem to fix it either. Now I am convinced that truck just is not a-commin'. OK, off to Homely Despot for some 12-3 and some 10-3 and pizza... well, the pizza does not come from Home Depot but it will all be in one trip. Brian
Brian we got same stove and I know it only like dry wood!! so no way you were gonna css it now and burn october! I also know you built your own stove before this one.. also got a buderus oil base hot water.. and I use it at 20 below or when not home.. but wood heat is addictive.. your addicted. ... even if you run it less hard
For those who derive the value of their home heating choice strictly by cost it does seem to be a good time to let the oil burner take on some more duty. For me though, cost benefit is way down on the list of reasons why I burn wood so the currently marginal cost benefit of burning wood over oil is more than made up for by the other reasons.
True for me as well, and I also derive the benefits of burning wood beyond pure economics. But that said, as every man measures his own greed, we all have to set a line that marks the point where something is no longer worthwhile, and for me, if the cost of firewood is too high, and I have a reasonable alternative, then I choose not to purchase firewood because I believe purchasing more of something that is already over- priced merely fuels (pun marginally intended) the already [too high] price and supports bad economic decisions. Put more simply..... 'at that price, nah, you can keep it'. And I do not think I am alone because as I said before, the local dealers have never- before seen piles of firewood in rows because their conveyors cannot pile it up any higher. IMO they are now in 'gouging' price territory. So for me it is not a choice based on a single thing but a number of points. BTW- like the Sterling Hayden quote. I have a favorite of his, this one: “There’s is not enough money in Hollywood to lure me into making another picture with Joan Crawford. And I like money.” Brian
Yep, all true. But I think I have enough for this coming winter, and my plan was to mix in a few of the newer splits (purchased this spring / early summer) with a full load of dry wood and extend the load while still having it burn well. If I do not end up buying more wood this year, then wood burning may well become an evening this next winter with the boiler carrying the house by day, and that will extend my existing wood supply and buy me time to get some next year. If I can get this project off my back or at least down to a dull roar, buying log- length wood and cutting / splitting it myself will again become an option. I can get a lumber trailer full of all hardwood, mostly oak, that is sold as 7 cord but really is between 7 and 9 cord for $900, delivered and stacked with a grapple. Then I can cut and split it in lots as it does not have to be all done all at once. That would be a little high in price but acceptable..... next year, when I expect to have the time. But I am still expecting either cut, split and delivered wood prices will drop or a local dealer will cut me a deal if approached about it. What I want is around 5 cord for around $175 or so per cord. Not $250 / cord and not $285 / cord. Brian
Thanks. Went pretty well, 50' of 10-3 for $69, 50' of 12-3 for $53 and that is enough to go from the upstairs panel (the new sub- panel actually) to the two compressors on the ground. Tried to pick up two disconnect switches too but could not find a three- leg pass through and so passed because I know the compressors require a neutral line as the wall units (powered directly from the compressor) run on 115V or a single leg. Tortured two H.D. employees, old guys like me... actually had a bunch of laughs with them, 'testing' showers to see if they were big enough so that I could wash all my 'special places' from inside.... it turned into kind of a mime show for the lucky shoppers walking arond. And when we stopped by the restaurant to pick up chow, there were about six people standing outside with boxes and bags, all looking all around the parking lot: I immediately rolled the window down as guessed that they were trying to find people who would give them a ride in exchange for the food they were carrying. Two thought that was pretty funny, one was confused, and the rest did not have any clue why I was talking to them; all in all, a successful exchange. I almost stopped to talk to the L.E.O. parked on the side of the road- I like to pull up to them as ask them if they know why I stopped, it seems to confuse them. It is OK though, I am a RSO for a couple of SWAT teams and know most of them, and the ones I do not know are in for a treat. As to the south thing, not only am I in the north, but I am in the southern New England, bastion of uber.... er, 'sensitive' people who take offense to everything, including good intentions. I so do not fit in here..... Brian
There's plenty of room down here! And since I'm a born and bread Long Islander, one thing I learned, "the definition of a dayum Yankee- one that moves here and doesn't leave" is to retort, "I got here as quick as I could!"
BDF House = A hole in the ground into which one pours money. Poured a lot of money in those holes over the years never filled in the hole.
Well, I am not sure how we got here but yes, one must spend money to live (in a house, in an apartment a condo, etc. etc.). My original post was about my perception that while the price of fuel oil (the only viable heating fuel source where I live) has dropped to less than half of what it was, the price of firewood has risen and then held price over the same period of time. My original post was basically asking if anyone else had noticed this. Then the subject widened to the relative value, wants, likes and so forth of buying and using firewood vs. buying and using fuel oil for heat. THEN it was pointed out to me that I was not being [fair, inclusive, reasonable? whatever] in that I was not considering the cost of buying clothes and driving to work to procure the money to buy fuel oil..... which all of course also applies to buying firewood and frankly, seemed like a bit of a poke. I responded with a sarcastic, long- winded post widening my explanation as to what might be considered regarding expenditures in the purchase of both fuel oil and firewood. Then, of course, it morphed further offtopic and became increasingly useless regarding content. So: please allow me to stop here and apologize and say that perhaps I did not understand someone elses' post correctly or even at all. It happens. Entirely possibly I reacted incorrectly, overreacted, or reacted to something I did not comprehend in the first place. That happens too. Sorry if any of these choices are what happened. Now, moving forward, I would like to try and steer this thread back toward the basic idea of the choice, for myself, between buying firewood and burning it in a woodstove or buying fuel oil and burning it in a boiler to heat my house, in whole or in part, for the next couple of years. I have no other viable choices. So, my plan is to wait a bit (weeks) and see if the prices for firewood drop a bit, or if I can 'cut a deal' with a firewood vendor for several cord at what I believe is a fair, just and reasonable price or just skip buying any firewood this year at all. Right now, there is a huge amount of firewood at many places I normally pass in my travels, both in the log form waiting to be processed, and cut and split, waiting to be sold. If this continues, and the price of fuel oil does not rise dramatically, I expect the vendors will have to drop prices, perhaps drastically, to move the product that 1) is taking up a lot of the available space (not infinite, I live in the most densely populated state in the union so just using another 10 or 40 acres to store more firewood is not an option for any firewood vendor I know of) and 2) will start to rot. If the price of fuel oil rises dramatically, then the vendors currently overloaded with material may be sitting on a proverbial gold mine, and I may have missed the 'good prices of $250 / cord'. That too is fine with me. My entire point about comparing the two in price is that I am not willing to spend, say, 80% or more of what it will cost to heat my house with oil on firewood. I will always burn wood if possible but I will not buy much, if any, at fuel oil equivalent prices as I choose to heat with oil as it is <virtually> effortless and automatic and just burn wood for chuckles, even it is old pallets or Christmas trees. Hope this corrects the big bend in the thread and as Mr. Lincoln might have said 'again allows the ideas and thoughts of woodburning to flow unvexed into the woodstove'. At least that is what I think he would say about..... this. Brian
up here good hardwood css and delivered 200 a cord... hho is 2.09 a gallon 3 to 4 years css out back.. my women like house stove room 80 is which put kitchen 70 ish and bedrooms about 65.. I think I qualify as notrtheast
Yeah but you are a lot more northeast than I am. You are so far northeast I have seen Immigration Control (whatever they are called) set up roadblocks on the Interstate and stop all the cars.... That does NOT happen 'round these hear parts. Fuel oil is $1.63 / gal. Firewood is tougher to put a price on because it varies from vendor to vendor of course but it also seems that it has moved down a bit since the first of this year. It was around $220- $250 / cord but a spot check (just looked craigslist) and it <seems> to be in the $190 / $175 cord for hardwood or pine (!!), your choice (pine is for camp fires I think). So that is better price- wise. This wood is supposed to be seasoned but of course it is probably not 'our kind' of seasoned. As far as Mom liking it, she does (Mrs. BDF) but then again, so do I. I wear less clothing in the winter than the summer, at least in the house and our living room (stove room too) is normally in the 75- 77F range but it is the direct, radiant heat that we really like. OK, this is really pretty good news. I am in for hard- burning (Easy Boys!), 24 / 7, complete house heating for $175 / cord. Even better if I can buy 5 cord and pay $150 each. If I buy in July, and it is at least somewhat dry, it will be more than good enough to get mixed in with the wood I have on- hand. I am NOT looking for next winter's wood now, just trying to stay ahead. Brian
they are border patrol (actually ICE immigration custom enforcement ) white cars green stripes.. no problem they don't write speeding tickets Oils higher here just because delivery routes are so far.. those trucks not fuel efficient. drivers make 25 hour anyway! I looked into pellet stoves first said right on packages a ton of pellets equal about 100 gallon of fuel oil why I went with woodstove.. got 22 aces and storms keep knocking trees down so it saves me money (yeah right) I don't think you can get mortgage here without a primary heat source no local banks would write it... so woodstove has always been a save money backup heat plan for me.. bought house when single thermostat set to 50.. never inside anyway... got married they like it hot! my biggest complaint with stove is they make ya lazy... come inside ... 0 degrees outside stoke stove ... check FHC ... 2 hours later still in chair
BDF Your posts are thoughtful if not to say WELL thought-out and explains the veritable in and outs of firewood processing from tree to stove (I too count 5-6 times maybe even 7-8if Im doing a restack (bad location or the like)) along with your oil comparison. It is indeed counted as "not free" however the costs of some involvement is lower than which the average cost of wood depending on its "seasoning" and the time of the year. Winter (lets be harsh and say the winter has been quite cold) and well seasoned wood will invoke a premium. However not everyone sells their wood so often a wet stack is available that could be freshly cut or been sunbaked for years. Ive seen just about all of it on CL and offer up. In April: I had picked up a large amount of paper birch, 3 trailer fulls and almost immediately started to process it. Within a month, it was all split and stacked. One of the wetter spring breaks Too. Either way 2 summers for this wood is going to work out just fine for this batch and we've had minimal rain. I ran to an area that was about 20 Mins from my house and 2 times in one night. I figured I was on vacation and then it was also an opportunity that I really couldn't waste. I dont remember if I filled my tank up but it was still a very efficient pile as everything was practically ready for me and cut to a managable size. I got the splitter and split the really hard stuff. This was to my perspective an investment as even machinery has its costs but so do doctor visits! Factor all this in with a stove... small house with really cold drafts...I probably spent enough on electricity during the winter to buy two stoves at the price I got mine. While Scrounging for wood can seem like a costly venture I managed to put it out of my mind in that sort of light as nearby sources on my way to work and back home!! give me opportunities and solid ones to boot. The cool trade off here is I saw such a dramatic increase in my ability to find wood that I decided to think "wow If I am able to collect wood like this in Fall/Winter and Spring, I may as well bring home the same wood and burn that tonight!" Saves me some splits and the wood is in perfect sizes most of the time. 10-20 mins of my time is negligible when I can stuff enough wood in my back of my car to last 3-4 days perhaps?? The math comes back to me like a solar panel gaining credit, stored for another time and the coefficients work since Im not going out of my way going home just different paths. You understand the big picture I just merely know how this is spoken as a whole:time, processes, equipment costs and fuel for those tools equals the cost of firewood but even firewood can gain a positive as it is used for another day besides your hard earned $ being wasted on the turn of a knob. Chucking firewood is "free" and the less you gotta process the better. Thank you for your insight, I doubt Id be burning oil anytime soon but Id rather be cold hard and dead before I burn oil to stay warm.
Someone did write to me regarding this sort of happenstance in deep winter. You tend to lay low if this is correct among those who live in areas where temps are teens on a normal basis? I don't see this as a bad thing. I spent a lot of time watching tv as well. This winter may very well be different for me as a stove will create a different ambience and noises. I keep thinking about where this stove will reside and how much change that creates. Like to think of it as a different being in my house. So a lot of this will be learning for me as I want to study how much wood I am burning, how long are my burns, (NW wood likely much different than NE!!!) when I burn it etc etc, all the perks of a new wood stove owner. Likely keeping a journal. Either way Watching the stove will help me cancel out a lot of tv. Those secondaries.
My reason to start burning, back in the early 90's (for myself, been burning wood at relatives places, both houses and commercial garages since I was short) because money was tight, house was old and needed everything and the boiler used about 20% of the oil I fed it and sent the rest up the chimney. Started with an old Tempwood (old even then) that was given to me. Re-worked Tempwood, found pallet builder and bought and burned hardwood skid ends: 4 X 4 X [between 5 and maybe 8" long]. Boutht two 4 X 4 X 4 steel 'baskets', modified them so that 1) they could be sling lifted with 5/16" cable anchored to the steel grate bottoms and came to a common hook above and 2) one side could be opened when hanging from cables. Owned a backhoe and so drove to pallet dealer, he loaded basket on trailer, cost $15 each, drove home, picked up basket and dumped blocks in a pointy pile (Piled pretty high- machine was Ford 755, big machine, long reach). Did that for years and years, got fast and slick at it and overall worked pretty well. Pallet mfg. burned down in an accidental fire (everybody OK including dog (beautiful Akita, nice dog.... well, nice with me at least, on duty with everyone else) other than one cat) so lost source of wood. Went to burning pallets (Backhoe is also pallet dissambly machine: place pallet on edge, place hoe bucket teeth on edge of top of pallet.... pull 'boom' hydraulic lever and pallet is dissembled but leaves a lot of 'tire destroying' nails everywhere) and finally firewood splits. Had built custom woodstove (big- 10 cu. ft. firebox, 3 gallon built- in stainless steel water container for humidifying) but top loading doors arranged for wood blocks. Worked fair- to- poor with splits and could not fully load stove... built a gassifier with 24+ hours capacity and it actually worked quite well except it would regularly fill with gas (duh) and make a truly nuclear backpuff that would make you take a couple of steps back. Never got it to display the manners needed for a 'house grade' stove and so ended up buying the Ideal Steel. But it has been a lot of years things are different. Money is less problematic, also have new, very efficient boiler, but time is pressed this year. Hopefully that will loosen up but probably not until next year. I think wood pellets are a fantastic idea and the pellet supply method as well as most of the stoves I have seen are truly outstanding; efficient, clean, wood is dry, evenly sized, stoves burn hot and clean but relatively small fire. They are fully automated other than loading the hopper (and that is not anything a 6" screw elevator through the floor could not fix either- a one- month supply in the cellar would be no problem. Clean, reliable, auto start / stop, extremely efficient, fuel supply easy to handle, store, move and dump in stove. What is not to like? Well, the price of pellets and the extremely spotty supply of pellets. Until that gets ironed out, not a viable system in my view. I will let you folks know how goes the wood buying and stacking. Maybe not even too much stacking- that time thingy again. But it won't rot in one year so it may sit where the dump truck lands. A big, ugly pile of wood really will not be that noticable next to a big, ugly pile of semi- house next to it. How do the Soviets deal with a disaster? They cover it up with a catastrophe. Example: the economy is down the tubes, people cannot buy staples because there are not enough and thing are just dreary and frankly very unpleasant day- to- day in the Soviet Union... this is a disaster. So they ran a couple of tests on the nuclear plant at Chernobyl, had a little mishap and suddenly the bad economy fades into the back ground: this is the catastrophe. Also my plan for ugly wood piles, overgrown everything, some piles (as neat as they can be made) of building materials, new and old but the tri- color, mostly Zip sheathed (the stuff is dull green with taped seams.... the neighbors seemed to notice right away), the lower section white vinyl sided.... mostly, with a band where they blend showing the medium red shingles under the vinyl has really done a great job of taking their minds off the ugly wood piles. At this point, I think they are happy with little things such as removing the temporary power tap 'teepee' in the middle of the front yard.... Brian
Yup, and it entirely explains what caveman did without books, TV, the corner pub or anything. Trog have fire. Trog not happy but Trog happier with fire than without fire. We are going to end up with a large master bedroom on the second floor and the thought crossed my mind to put a small woodstove up there. I could do it; the floor and structure is more than up to the weight, and I could easily put a short chimney through the roof. But what stopped me was: 1) tending two stoves in two different rooms- bad. 2) it would have to be a smaller stove and so probably use smaller wood- two wood lengths- bad. 3) carpeted floor and where to store the wood. Unless I put a lifting apparatus on the back of the house and ran it up on rails to sit in front of a window but still, carrying and loading wood around a carpet is going to make a mess. 4) the ashes.... what? Throw them out the window? Probably a bad unless we got darker siding. Decided against it but I did consider it.... Brian
Good thing - against codes for solid fuel appliance in bedroom- how everyone survived all those years with a big old fireplace in the bedroom I just don't understand
