I spent a few minutes last night putting together a calculator which can show you a few things. It will show you how many BTU's you burn, using individual species as the input. It then shows that assuming a certain efficiency, you would have burned x gallons of oil or propane, and have saved yourself x dollars in avoided costs from not burning oil or propane. You can also add your local oil and propane costs. Admittedly there are some assumptions, but I wanted this for myself and feel once dialed in it should be shared with the group. I have reached out the admins to understand how to add as a resource, in hopes to share a draft with the group soon.
He's got an excel file that he wants to double check the maths on and we will post it as a reaource tomorrow. Javascript version likely this weekend.
Once I put the clean on this vintage Star movie theater popcorn machine, we will never run out of popcorn on this site!!! (you get the idea)
I just want to say one thing, the spreadsheet will rely on some basic assumptions from you. Even then it does not compensate for moisture content of your wood, etc. The intent is to say I start the season with X btu's based on my feel of the species I have stacked, I end the season with Y. Based on the difference between the 2, you get the btu's consumed. From there you back calc for the efficiency of your wood burner, and apply those btu's to the efficiency of the oil or propane units. Convert those btu's into gallons and apply incremental cost of the oil or propane and heat content of the fuel and there you go. There are ways to do this that are far more complicated, but I did not have time for that exercise and I wanted a rough idea on what I am saving. It is a great way to justify expenses to my wife. If I saved $3000 a year on oil, and lets say I spent 300 on gas oil maintenance etc on my equipment that leaves me $2700 in savings. Those savings justify my new wood shed, or my splitter, a new MS 660 etc If you find an error, please let me know.
You should be able to do that with a spread sheet and a connected input sheet for specifying species, cords, cost per gallon for fuel, etc. It would need a lookup table for selecting the species so that you would have consistent results.
Javascript calc similar to this, which I just finished. Big Picture BTU Online Calculator | Firewood Hoarders Club
