Whew, got a great jump on heating our home

[Darlene]

Just finished stacking the last of next years wood for our fireplace that has an insert. This is the most we've ever had (5 cords) due to unexpectedly having to take down another tree (the tree whose big branch mooshed my car)
Woohoo, hard work pays off in more ways than one. You factor in cutting it down, hauling, splitting, stacking, hauling bits in the house as needed...then you get warmed again by burning it.
Anyone else doing anything now to save towards future utility bills?

[Katybird]

I am starting a saving fund towards a pellet stove for this coming winter. I am hoping to decrease our heating bills by at least half.

[cherrie79]

I am gathering ideas. I know I definatly need to caulk around the windows. I also need to find out what I can do to cover the windows. I usually use thick industrial plastic (not that thin shrink kind) but I still believe I feel air coming in. I know I heard someone putting fleece thingies.

I am renting currently and can only do so much. It's also a OLD house, so it's very drafty.

[Missy]

i am thinking a pellet stove woukd be beneficial to us too

[FrugalMomof3]

I wish we could have a fireplace that uses wood but no where to put it and no money to make a chimney either, but we are getting new front storm windows, new efficient heating system and all that good stuff

[wanderinggrandma]

We love out pellet stove! It isn't as messy as our old woodstove. We switched over afew years back. The added plus for us is being able to run it off the generator when we loose power. Which happens every winter.

[Scattymum]

Ive started to collect wood for the woodpile too, also as the heating bills should go down during the summer Im going to try and stock up on a few extra bagas of coal, briquettes and turf to burn over the winter

[geckoace]

yeah i started the wood pile last week and DH has some more big limbs he wants to cut down so that will be good. we have a woodstove and although we havent tried it yet i am getting all set for next winter

[anna021]

I am starting a saving fund towards a pellet stove for this coming winter. I am hoping to decrease our heating bills by at least half.

be careful in planning to use a pellet stove, when we brought ours a bag of pellet was about 1.50 or 150 a ton, well this year they jumped up to almost 6.00 a bag, it was cheaper to burn fuel oil. Right now because of the surplus from people not buying this last winter, you can buy a ton for about 225, which is good if you have a storage area that very dry and free of pests, but a ton of pellets takes up alot of room, and you can go through 2-3 tons easily in a winter. So just be careful, do your homework before buying.

[freyadog]

dh is out as we speak and bringing down more dead trees for firewood. using our woodstove saves us about $100 a month during the winter.

[Mom23boys]

Walmart has the plastic window seal on clearance. I purchased enough for all the windows of our home. We put some up last winter and it helped.

[kabin63]

I think I am going to make window quilts for next winter. I have lots of fabric, may not match, but cheap and keeps the heat in and not out.

My brother and I were talking about wood burners recently. He said his buddy went to get one and the salesman told him it is cheaper to burn coal now than to burn pellets and corn.

[mustang80]

Wood IS hard work, but so worth it. We got free firewood, mostly cherry from a job DH was doing. We bought a $150.00 chain saw and got busy. We cut, loaded and stacked the wood. This year we rented a splitter and split most of the wood. We have a couple cords of both split and round wood.

I use the fireplace to supplement the heat and it has saved us alot of money. I'm all stacked and ready for next year.

I'm hoping to sell some of the round wood now that it is seasoned to offset the cost of the splitter.

[freyadog]

dh is out as we speak and bringing down more dead trees for firewood. using our woodstove saves us about $100 a month during the winter.

a friend of dh at work has a huge trailer load of wood for us to go and pick up for our wood stove this winter.

Now if I could just figure out how to or where to hook the cook stove sitting out on my deck, up and use it to cook.

[YankeeMom]

Dh just came home with a truckload of wood free from the neighbors behind us having a maple tree cut down It still needs to be split & cut a bit more, but we'll borrow the splitter and chainsaw from my dad to do that.