break even price of a cord?

$200 a cord already processed is pretty good in your area. I thought at first you were paying $200/cord in lengths, that would be high in my opinion.

 

Yeah 200 is cut split heavy cord. Log length is 120 a cord. I never had a 3 year supply. I am new to this and learning as I go. Been wasting pine in burn pits for years never burned in stove. I currently burn 10 cord a year hoping that goes down with new stove. Got about 6 cord down ready to be cut and split before mud season. It is 24 degrees here and snowing so I am definitely still burning. Trying to figure out how to get 3 years ahead that's 30 cord for me I got room to stack and store

 

You may not really need 30 cords CSS on your property...think of how much oak you need for a year and times that by three - that would be good to have on a 3 or 4 yr plan. Softer woods, especially pine, don't need that long. A full year on fresh pine and a bit less for dead and down is enough. That might cut your three year plan down to a more achievable level. Just a thought....

 

Yeah the 10 cord is all hard wood this year 85% sugar maple the rest apple. I just will keep a cord or 2 of pine for shoulder season if it ever shows up oak is pretty rare up here a lot of maple ash and elm yellow birch probably in that order. I figured if I used more softwood my 10 cord would increase wood deck only holds about 8 I keep refilling til snow gets too deep. hoping the IS cuts it down so when I get to 30 I will have enough for 4 years plus

 

The real issue for me with these debates comes into temperature. As woodburners, we keep our space much warmer than would a person running a furnace. I think we all do it for the fun of it. This will be the first year in 5 that I'm not planning on spending a dime. Lots of new chains, enough saws, a truck, and splitter already paid for. Way ahead on wood inventory too compared to prior years.

 

oh yeah thermostats for oil heat are set to 50 as low as they go. Living room try to get 80. a poster in here says wood goes in stove til mamma starts dropping her clothes I don't need a thermostat! I love that line and hopefully new stove will accomplish it more often

 

OK guys final thought here. $200 cord mostly sugar maple according to btu that's 24 million. heating oil(my back up) 118000 btu a galloon currently $2.40 a galloon Or 480 dollars equivalent I will order 6, css 16 to 18 more that's 2 year supply and hope the new IS puts me on a 3 year plan. only got 3 cord hard wood out back never counted or used soft wood probably got 2 to 3 pine white birch popular cut split in half for bonfires. thanks for the help I am gonna burn wood just helps to think saving money doin it!

 

You can't do these calculations without factoring in efficiency. #2 fuel oil is more like 138k BTU per gallon... Run it through an 87% efficiency boiler and you get 120k BTUs per gallon. 24 million BTUs per cord of sugar maple. If it's wet, you might be burning at 50% efficiency or less. At 50% efficiency, you'd only be getting 12 million BTU's per cord. In this case, one cord of wood would only be worth 100 gallons of heating oil. If you pay $240/cord for the not completely seasoned wood and burned it right away inefficiently (given your $2.40 per gallon oil), you wouldn't save ANY money burning this wood.. You'd actually lose money every time you opened the door to get another load of wood.. Yet another reason to make sure you're burning well seasoned wood..

I'd be very curious to find out what the moisture content is of your sugar maple..

 

thanks stuck. yeah my mind types faster than my fingers took btu of oil and dropped it to 86% for furnace to round down to 118 btu . I am curious about moisture level too. I try to be conservative, recommend a meter to me I will order it. hey I a newbie learned a lot this last cold snap called february! thanks to a new tablet and wisdom and generosity of FHC members.

 

Here's the one that several of us have. http://www.amazon.com/General-Tools...138605&sr=8-1&keywords=general+moisture+meter

I think it's available at Lowes... I'd wait a bit and you can probably get it for under $20.. Of note, the true best way to determine moisture is to remove all moisture from the fuel and then figure out how much water was lost. Great for scientific data collection but not really necessary for homeowner wood burning. Any decent moisture meter should give you a good ballpark figure.

I'm pretty much a newbie myself. Only on our second season of heating with wood in the new house.. Learned a lot before we installed the stove so that helped out a lot. A lot of the advice here is given by those who learned from those who have burned before us... Kind of like a firewood family tree, that traces it's roots back to the man with the most experience, Backwoods Savage

 

A lot of the advice here is given by those who learned from those who have burned before us... Kind of like a firewood family tree, that traces it's roots back to the man with the most experience, Backwoods Savage [/QUOTE]
thanks again stuck, I agree just ordered moisture meter, IR gun that and with a new IS I can make some improvements, yeah I been doing it for 5 years but just proves I been doin it wrong, education is a wonderful thing! and I second you with to backwoods, overkill, grizzly etc etc and wildwest cause she must give most likes and just comes across as such a kind hearted person ok