Firewood prices during this inflation

How many cord to replace the 450-500 gals. of oil Erik?

 

I'm guessing 3 cords...

 

If that's correct, then assuming $4.00 per gallon for fuel oil $500.00/cord would still be a savings.

 

Around 3 cords per year and I do not buy wood. I have enough on my own land to keep me well supplied. It does take some sweat equity to get it CSS. Like others have said, it keeps me out of bars

 

Understand that for sure, but it also gives something of a baseline to compare hho to wood usage prices. Bottom line imo is if you sell in a heavy oil or propane heating area an increase in cord price is justified and still fair to the customer.

 

I don't do any selling of wood. As long as I am not buying a lot of HHO I figure I am coming out ahead. I do not put a dollar value on my labor, either. Having made the purchases of my equipment I use, my only expense is gas and oil and the occasional repair. I bought my splitter over 20 years ago so it owes me nothing.

 

Re: TV News. I gave up ~ 5 years ago. Blood pressure dropped 15 points and mood is much more positive. Of late though I’ve been keeping up on Ukraine.

 

Pricing to sell, same as many here. I work too hard to sell it. But, I will give some away from time to time, sometimes they want to barter, other times a little cash comes our way other times, I feel good knowing they are not buying oil.

I also agree that the only way to save money on heating w/wood is to DIY. We had a fair amount of help to get to the 3yr plan, but now I can manage keeping 1 year at a time brought in. For those buying....they'll loose out on much savings by buying wood. Perhaps we'll see chainsaw sales, people cutting their own trees down, perhaps bartering for our time/help/knowledge?

As far as our cost: the last year we heated with oil, we spent $2K on oil and $500 on kero to keep occupied spaces comfortable. This year, had we used oil, weda blown $3300 on oil (as of february) and $600+ on kero.

Going on saving $2500 on big oil annually we've about saved the cost of wood stove install (including saw upgrades, extra fuel for the truck etc) in the last 18 months.

That savings does not include:
Electric to run the furnace blower motor
That we are actually warm and comfortable now
We can/do cook on the wood stove (further gas/electric savings)
Peace of mind:: we dont care if the power goes out (heating, cooking, hot water for whatever)
Rate increases: aint no way electric prices in CT will drop below sodomy.
Oil prices: up for the war perhaps down later, but generally going up.
Taxes: sure they'll go down one day. But after paying taxes on everything I earn, being taxed on what we need to stay going...... Pfffft.
Morally: renewable resource, practising good stewardship
Health: soulishly I love nothing more than C/S/S wood for our use and comfort. Physically, I could bike ride/hike my way to health, but neither is productive like wooding is.

We're on gas now. The wood stove went in when the oil burner came out. The gasser replaced the oil burner. We have never heated with the new gas unit alone. And we dont want to. As long as some greedy expletive-laden-yahoo in an office building decides how much of my income goes toward heating our home....and can rape my bank account because of some war, or they didnt make enough profit this month, or the moon winks at them......they can go straight to H... in the slowest most agonizing manner available.

(I'll have to spend time repenting tonight. Hell is rather permanent, and by harming me, they harm the One who watches out for my welfare, and Whom they ultimately harm.) I believe that the "vengeance is Mine" clause applies here.

Sirchopsalot. A whole lot.

 

Wish I could love this post instead of just like it.

 

Does the gas come from the US and is not imported ? If so why is the Natural gas so high if we are not importing it ? OK the oil is high because pipe lines were shut down and the rest is imported but why would that affect the price of Natural gas coming from the US ?

 

Oil companies will use any reason (true or not) to justify jacking up prices. Much like the pipeline...it didn't get shut down, it wasn't even going to be operational until 2023 sometime. The construction of it got shot down and the oil companies immediately jacked their prices up.

 

Because of a previous glut of natural gas in the USA, natural gas export facilities were constructed on the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts as LNG (liquefied natural gas). As such, natural gas price in the USA is now linked to world prices. Crude oil prices were linked for a long time because of both export and import at the same time. The old pipeline natural gas price was lower and set by bidding between producers and consumers in the USA and got very low during the glut. A LNG ship cargo is priced as a percentage relative to a crude oil cargo and currently exceed 100%, i.e. LNG costs more than crude which is very expensive. Last winter when Texas froze, loading natural gas for LNG export was only stopped by order of the Governor (i.e. socialists run Texas).

 

Nice response.What do you mean Texas is run by socialist ? I thought Texas was a Red state .

 

Just a tease. Many preach "free markets" until they disagree with the "free market" results which is what happened when Texas froze. When times get tough, everyone is a "socialist".

 

Speaking of Hell, what do we think they burn there? I’m gonna guess it’s green cottonwood.

 

I say green Elm...because bad wood hoarders that end up there get to split it by hand...FOREVER!
Or maybe...I'll change my answer to the ironically named "Tree of Heaven" as I hear its just as bad as Elm, or even worse to split, and burns up in no time! (and stinks to boot!)

 

TOH splits like cake! Pic from a thread a year ago. Splits stacked in front.
Easiest wood ive ever split. I couldve used a hatchet.

 

They burn coal in Hell and they get it from somewhere in PA off of highway 61

 

The following is not oil, but for LP. Thought it may be of use anyway. How many cords to replace X amount of oil/propane will depend -heavily- on wood species. 4 cord of pine will not equal the BTU's of 4 cord of Hickory.

Going off of my records.

We averaged 1,242 gallons of LP a year from 2005 through 2009 from when before we used any wood to supplement our heat. Here's our fill-ups from that timeframe keeping the house at 68°. The winter of 2010 is when I started supplementing our heat with a conventional fireplace when we were home, so using usage after that would not be accurate.




Out of that I know we use about 125 gallons for our water heater and clothes drier, as I now keep track of how many minutes the LP furnace runs a winter so I can figure out roughly how many gallons of LP we use for the LP furnace. I then take that and subtract it from the total gallons used....this is what is used by the other LP appliances (water heater and clothes drier).

Below is my wood usage over the years (this winter's is still in progress):



I use 3,650lbs/cord of Red Oak.

I averaged ~16,000lbs of wood a year...this equates to ~4.4 cords of Red Oak. Although my wood usage has trended down a bit the past handful years.

So I am replacing ~1,100 gallons of LP with ~4.4 cords of red oak....

Taking it further and examining the costs of LP related to selling of firewood. The value of a cord of wood is worth more to me in heat than it is for me to liquidate it and pay for LP. That ~1,100 gallons of LP would equate to ~$2,600 with today's LP prices. Seeing I'm replacing that ~1,100 gallons of LP with ~4.4 cords of red oak, I'd have to sell my wood for ~$600/cord or more right now if I wanted to liquidate it and use it to pay the LP man to heat the house. Heating with wood, we keep the house 70-72 the majority of the winter as well heat the basement solely off radiant heat of the furnace. Even when LP was $0.99/gal......we'd still have to sell the wood for ~$250/cord and we still wouldn't have a house that is as warm as it is with wood heat.

For the record, when we left at the end of February for a week, the LP furnace ran for over 53 hours in total over the 8 days we were gone to keep the place 55°. This cost us over $100 in LP over 8 days to keep the place 55°.

 

That sir is some very helpful and valuable info. Thank you! Cord wood price will increase this fall for sure.