How much to heat with wood?

**Toonces2** · 04-15-2008, 02:34 PM

We were offered a wood stove for free. Right now we dont have a hook up and would have to install one. This year we spent $2500 to heat our house with oil and propane. If we installed the stove we could eliminate the propane entirely and supplement with oil.
How much does it cost to buy wood. Or install a stove? Will this save us money and be worth it? Opinions please.

**YankeeMom** · 04-15-2008, 03:51 PM

My parents heat almost exclusively with wood. They have a oil furnace & small propane heater in their added on (unheated) kitchen. Their furnace supplements the wood stove more than the other way around. Every summer they order a truckload of wood (about 5-8 full cords) for about $400-450 and it lasts them all year. Their house is always WAY too hot for me lol. And it's all the wood stove. The furnace hardly ever comes on at all...and usually it's just to keep the boiler heated up. In fact, they've had their furnace completely turned off since the beginning of March and have been only using the wood stove. It was plenty warm there for Easter. We were all stripping down to our shirtsleeves it was so warm lol.

Their house isn't very big..about 1400sq ft and two stories.

We supplement with wood. We get 1-2 face cords per winter. It helps us to be able to keep our furnace set on 59*. With the wood stove going we can get it up to 62-64*. We don't run the wood stove all the time...just in the evenings. My parents have theirs going all day and most of the nights.

**Holly** · 04-15-2008, 04:10 PM

We have 2 wood stoves and the furnace to supplement.
We live on a very windy top of a hill
(believe me the wind howls through the walls , we need new insulation bad in this old farm house )
We went through about 15 cords of wood
(but bought it off a cousin so he didn't charge as much to us ) Both stoves go
constantly until very early in the morn then furnace takes over til we get up
Wood costs are different from place to place. We pay when not cousin $50.00 a cord but it goes up to $65.00 in places.
One thing is make sure its put in by a professional and up to codes.

**Toonces2** · 04-15-2008, 04:10 PM

Thanks Yankee mom! I could deal with $450 instead of $2500!

I just called around to a hardware store that installs wood stoves and I'm looking at around $2000 just to install the thing! UGH!
I called my insurance company to find out if it would be an issue on my policy and she said no but it must be proffessionally installed. UGH!
I know it would benefit us in the long run but man thats an expensive start up cost!!!

**zakity** · 04-15-2008, 04:21 PM

We use wood to heat with and the furnace just early in the morning. We go through about 5 cord a year. A cord of wood around here can vary between $50 to $250 depending on what kind of wood. The price usually reflects how much cutting and splitting you have to do to it also.

If you look on freecycle, sometimes people have trees that fell over in a storm and they just want it gone. It is a lot of work, but it is free wood.

**Toonces2** · 04-15-2008, 04:22 PM

Holly thank you for the reply! Wow $50 a cord, thats awesome!

**Southlake** · 04-15-2008, 04:56 PM

We have some good friends that heat their entire house with wood only. It's a 4 bedroom 1600 sf house and it keeps the house nice and toasty- though you still use extra blankets upstairs. And, that's with wind, cold and lots and lots and LOTS of snow. I can usually wear a tshirt in their house in the winter, and I'm pretty reptilian so it's saying a lot. They go through a lot of wood, but it's much cheaper than the 500/mo+ (and that was three years ago) cost of propane during the colder parts of winter. (And here we usually need heat from early October through May)

**BetterLateThanNever** · 04-15-2008, 05:17 PM

my parent's have a wood burner and electic baseboard heating. If someone is going to be home to stoke the stove all day long than it's very feasible to heat mainly with wood.

my dad get's his wood from an Amish sawmill. He's buying slab wood. The wood cut off to square up the tree log. Burns well and he gets alot of oak and sometime cherry. He usually buys enough wood to last about 6months for about $100.

Also have a next door neighbor that has one of thos out door wood burners that heats not only his house but two water heaters. He has woods on his property so he gets his wood free.

**Toonces2** · 04-15-2008, 07:38 PM

Thanks for the replies and info!

My dh was talking about getting logs delivered and cutting and splitting it himself. He says it will cost less.

I think we are going to get the stove.

My dh talked to the local fire marshall and he said to beware of companies saying they professionally install wood stoves because there is no one around here who professionally does so. Good to know. So we are on the look out.

**forHISglory** · 04-16-2008, 10:28 AM

We have a wood stove. It is plain and simple, no blower, but does a powerful job of heating. I can't explain it, but wood heat seems warmer than gas or electric heat.

We use about 2 cords per winter (depends on the winter, of course), and cord goes for about $70 here. This heats, sometimes overheats, our 2500 sq. foot home. You can also contact your local utility companies and arrange to take the trees they cut after storms or for line maintainence.

The cost you cite for professionally installing the stove seems pretty high, but I'm probably out of the loop on that expense.

**della92** · 04-16-2008, 11:11 AM

We have an outdoor wood furnance. We purchased it in 2001. The installed cost was around $7500.00. It heats two houses including the hotwater for each house. One house (my inlaws) is probably 1800 sq ft, and my house is around 2600 sq ft. It does take a lot of wood. My husband fills it twice a day during regular cold, when it gets in the teens and below during the day, it is filled up 3 times a day, after temps get to 50, it needs only to be filled once a day. The indoor temperature at my house stays around 78-80. I have heard that small furances cost around $3000.00 installed. And there is less risk of fire because it's not indoors and no mess inside.

Ours works by the fire heating the water around the furnace and a pumps pumps the hot water to the house via underground pipe, it is then sent to an indoor heat exchanger that blows the hot air from the water through the duct work to each room. The heat is much warmer than gas. There are other methods of heat delivery to the house, i.e. radiant floor heat or radiators.

Hope that helps.

Della