Heating �Free� with Firewood

SHORT VERSION: We could sell the wood we have ready to burn next winter for $750 (five true cords at $150 each) and put that much in our pocket -- or we could burn the wood and put no money in our pocket. Isn't our true cost $750?

LONG VERSION: We use about five cords (128 cu ft or 3.6 cu meters each) of firewood per season. Our pile right now measures 6x6x20 feet (though next year we are going to try using a round pile in the style of the German �Holz Hausen� -->Link

The direct costs involved in accumulating the woodpile are minimal since we have plenty of trees on the property that should be cut when damaged or dying. We also have a nice Husky saw and a 4x4 pickup. Most of the �cost� is our time and energy.

But still, is it free? Well, in our area we could probably sell five cords of wood of seasoned hardwood for $150 per cord. If we option to use the wood ourselves we give up that $750. Isn�t that our true cost of heating for �free�? Either we have the wood to use or we have seven hundred and fifty dollars (which would probably pay central heating cost).

Of course, we will keep the wood for our own use and wouldn't consider using a thermostat. Part of what appeals to us about using wood heat is the enjoyment and satisfaction we derive from using wood that would otherwise have decayed back to the soil, and we thoroughly enjoy cutting and splitting firewood. More important, however, we love our cozy fireplace burning merrily and sometimes constantly during the cold months (though our winters are mild in NE Texas).

But, we recognize that using the wood means that we forgo $750 � and that is our true cost of �heating for free�.

I'm in East Texas. Where are you?

A heaped pickup load should be between half and three quarters of a cord. If the pickup load costs only $35 in your area, the cost per cord is between $50 and $75. At those prices reselling makes a lot of sense if you can get any volume, .

If you will go to>Link

I am not buying or selling firewood, but just making it for personal use. However, prices advertised locally (rural country with small towns and moderate size cities) appear to be in the $150 range for seasoned hardwood.

Firewood sells for a LOT more than that in cities all over the country. That same web site will give you some idea of prices others are paying.

If you decide to start reselling, would you give me first shot at 100 cords or so? An 18-wheeler should haul about ten or twelve cords, I'm guessing, to stay within legal weight limits, so hopefully we're not too far apart.

LeMaverick

Is unemployment high in your area? I can't imagine why anyone would be willing to cut and split half or three quarters of a cord for $35 to $50.

You are right that transport would be a bit much to my area, but there should be a lively market in Indianapolis, Terre Haute, Ft. Wayne, Louisville, etc with reasonable transport cost (maybe $1.50 a mile for a friendly 18-wheeler owner-operator?).

If you advertise wholesale prices on that firewood website you should be able to put something together with an urban area dealer somewhere in your area.

Dave

A friend who is as avid a wood heat enthusiast as my wife and I, and who also cuts and splits wood from his own property, said that he burned wood mostly because it was free. He is not enamored of the open fire like we are and uses an enclosed stove for greater efficiency (so he burns far less wood).

I asked what he would charge for his stack of firewood, which we�d estimated at three cords. He said that he�d probably take $500 if someone drove up and offered that (and then go out and cut more for himself). I also asked what it would cost to buy that much firewood and we agreed that it would be somewhere between $400 and $500, depending on when it was purchased and how good a deal could be negotiated.

Thus, he burns at least $400 worth of wood per winter (and we burn almost twice that much). We didn�t pursue the matter any further, but it made me think about it being �free�.

If there was $400 worth of wood in his stack in the fall and none in the spring, it seems like HEATING was NOT free because $400 of value went away in the process.

Otherwise, what accounts for the $400 in value that goes away?

If 20 hours is about right, then your time is worth $6.25 per hour! If it takes longer, well you guessed it, your time is worth even less. If you only have to invest about 10 man hours in a cord of wood, then you are getting around $12.50 an hour.

Maybe it's just me, but I don't want to work that hard for that little money. In my opinion, the only way to consider wood heat cost effective is to live in a tent near a forest fire.

Hi LeMaverick,

Ya, but what happens if you keep selling the wood then you neighbors pass a law that out laws wood burners.

Now your out of heat as you can"t sell your wood and you can"t burn it.

So now tell me just how cheap that $750 is now!

If you burn wood and that is your only source of heating, then the county/State can"t make you stop burning wood as it"s Grandfathered in.

Then how about when there is a power outage? Any of commerical fuels takes electricity to use. Now you spend that $750 for a genset...lol

I stick with wood :>)

T_Bone

I�m distressed to learn that it is �impossible�, �inefficient� or �crazy� to heat a home with a fireplace and that �more heat goes up the chimney than the fireplace produces� (all of which I have heard).

After years of thinking we were comfortable using just a fireplace, NOW I find out that we�ve been wrong all along. We must have died from the cold a long time ago and just not realized it.

Hehehehe

I'm with you T-Bone, I'll stick with wood

WHAT IT COST ME TO HEAT WITH A WOOD STOVE
By Deliberately Anonymous

FIRST YEAR HEATING COSTS (estimated conservatively and rounded down)

Woodstove $700
Installation $450
Chainsaw $350
Fuel & Oil $25
Log Splitter $500
Used 4x4 Pickup $17,000
Beer $100
Doctor Visits $300
Chiropractor $300
Total $19,725

SECOND YEAR HEATING COSTS
Natural Gas $500
Whiskey $1000
Divorce $$$$$$$ (Everything I had or ever will have � including the 4x4 truck, chain saw and log splitter)

The way I heard it, the cost was a rear pickup window. Then another rear pickup window, 'cause I didn't learn the first time.... :)

--->Paul

You know that you have a good situation with a bunch of wood available within walking distance of your house. Not many people have that situation (and therefore might need a truck).

By the way, what is your system for moving wood the quarter mile or so to your house?

A lot of our wood is within a similar distance of the house too -- but down a damn steep trail. I can't think of another way to get the wood up the hill as effectively. In fact, it is so steep that 2x4 won't do the job even with a load holding down the rear end.

We use "Ole Blue", our faithful old Dodge Cummins diesel 4x4 with over 300K miles. Blue is "semi-retired" and just works around the property (working a lot harder than the newer trucks). It has a broken rear window too (but it doesn't care).

Isn't it interesting what different perspectives we all have on these matters and still we manage to keep it light and friendly?

A fireplace is the worst way to heat a house.

Then you could heat your house with 2 cords of wood, and sell 3 cords for $450 a year.

The stove would pay for itself in under 3 years, and you would be making money - as now the efficient wood heat is the cheapest source of heat, and you are not doing any more work but you are getting $450 of income each year.

--->Paul

A fireplace isn�t the worst way to heat a house � it is just the least efficient of common wood burning methods. Efficiency may not be the highest priority.

In fact, the fireplace might be considered the best � if one�s highest priority is enjoyment (with a secondary objective of providing heat).

My wife and I love our fireplace and we both enjoy cutting and splitting firewood (even after many year�s experience).

We�re not complaining at all about the effort required to heat with the fireplace. We�re just saying that thinking that any wood heat is �free� ignores the fact that firewood has value (and could be sold instead of burned) � and that calculation of cost should include that lost income.

LeMaverick

This line totally invalidates your question, tho. I understand what you are saying, that's cool. But, first you ask if the wood heat is free or costing; and now you say the cost does not matter, it's only that you enjoy it.

Which is it? you can't have a discussion & be on both sides? You have totally contradicted yourself.

:) :) :) I know this is all in fun, no problem. :) Just my thoughts on your 'discussion'. You now have no point at all. And, your point was all wrong to start with, for those of us who actually need to heat a building....

I live in Minnesota, last winter we had several nights down to minus 28 degrees, the day did not get up to minus 5 degrees. A fireplace that puts 75% of the heat produced up the chimney, and when not in use siphons other heat out of the house through the chimney, is _NOT EVER_ considered a best heating device here. You would never be able to enjoy the flames, you would be too busy trying to make firewood to feed the dern thing. :)

(Sometimes typed words look real stern - I'm just having fun & enjoying the discussion here with a big grin on my face, hope that comes through. :) :) :)

--->Paul

Boy are we on the opposite ends of the heating continuum. You have minus 28 and we seldom get lower than positive 28 (and then only a few times per year -- but we still feel it necessary to heat the house).

When I lived in harsh winter climate (rural northwestern Pennsylvania) I built a wood-burning furnace and heated with wood exclusively -- but still used a fireplace frequently because I LIKE a fireplace.

My original point is valid in that if we make firewood (no matter what we burn it in) we have a choice to either use that wood or sell it. If we use it (no matter how much), we walk away from the money we could have made by selling -- and THAT is our cost.

I'm not looking for cheap or easy -- that isn't the point.

All said with a smile -- and with great enjoyment of the exchange of information.

I grow corn. Lets pretend it costs me $1.90 to raise it per bu.

Lets pretend the elevator is offering $2.03 per bu.

Lets pretend a neighbor wants a few bu for $2.25 from me - but not all of what I have, just small portion.

Let"s pretend I can feed the corn to cattle, and right now doing that & selling the cattle would get me $2.25 a bu.

What would you consider the true cost of my corn?

It is always $1.90 to me. I need to explore the different oppertunities to change that into something better for me - no work but low rate of return; or a high risk, but higher rate of return.

Your true cost of the wood is what it costs you to make it. After that, the profit is in what you decide to do with it. Some would sell it for $450 and figure they had a good rate of return. You choose to burn it in an open fire and feel you get a very good rate of return.

I believe this example truely measures the cost & benifit, and accounts for things properly.

Again, if you play the stock market, you _could_ have been a millionare if you bought the right stocks at the right time & sold at the right time. But you & I didn"t, so here we are in reality, not dream world. :)

To get a proper handle on what you have & where you are, you need to figure the cost of something as the true, actual, current cost. Your wood has low $$$ cost, large labor & time cost.

What you wish to turn that into, small pile of money or small pile of ashes, is for the future to decide, and how big those piles are and what value they will have to you is actually unknown. Right now, the cost of your pile of wood is what it cost you.

That is how I would look at it.

--->Paul

You have interesting and informative things to say and you make several good points that cause me to reconsider costs and the meaning of various terms.

Can we say?

Cost of firewood = fuel + maintenance on equipment + personal time + cost of logs. Log cost is zero in our case when cutting dead, down or hazard trees on our property. Fuel and maintenance are negligible (guesstimate $15 per cord?). The time we spend cutting and splitting our personal firewood we don�t put a price on � any more than a dedicated rose or vegetable gardener would �price� her time in growing her roses or vegetables). Thus, we have very little invested in the firewood, other than personal effort.

Value of firewood = what it would bring on the local market, or what a willing buyer would pay a willing seller for the wood �where is, as is�. We�d probably take $150 a cord if someone offered that � and go out and cut some more before cold weather. A buyer might offer $125 or so and we might negotiate, but a cord is worth somewhere in that range around here.

Profit (if sold at $150) = value minus cost = $150 � 15 = $135 per cord (which in this case would include �compensation� for our time invested). If we were making firewood commercially, we would place a value on our time and keep track of the number of hours that are required to cut and split a cord (to determine if it was worth our while to market firewood).

If we intend to burn the firewood, COST and VALUE of the original firewood stack are not changed. Right? All that varies is profit � and it becomes zero if we decline to sell. Thus, we forgo PROFIT (or potential profit to be more correct) if we burn the wood.

To think about things in a slightly different way, if the corn that costs you $1.90 / bu to produce were destroyed in a fire, what would you tell your insurance company it was worth?

If someone stole my firewood I would tell my insurance company that firewood is worth $150 a cord and that is what it would cost me to buy firewood to replace it.

I don�t know that either of us would be fairly compensated by our respective insurance companies, but it seems like we could make a strong case for a reasonable replacement value.

It is enjoyable and educational to exchange ideas � but sooner or later we�re going to have to get back to work. Hehehehe

I�ve posted separately in this thread �How All This Got Started�. Your comments will be appreciated.

Dave

WOOD FREE ?????
ALTERNATIVE FUEL, YES.
046 STIHL $600
30 TON LOG SPLITTER $1000
GAS ,OIL,CHAINS,FILES,FILTERS ????? ++++++
CHIMNEY BRUSH $30/RODS $40
AND I CANT COUNT THE HOURS OF CUTTING AND SPLITTING /STACKING NOT EVEN MAKING MIN WAGE THAT IS MY FREE TIME THAT COULD HAVE PAYED THE DIFFERENCE ON ANY OTHER FUEL

I would not be surprised if we could sell the firewood for MORE than it would cost to heat with fuel oil or propane (if we had such an option) or even with electricity (at our 5.7 cents per kilowatt hour rate here).

It is NOT that we would even consider doing so because we love our wood heat � but we know it isn�t free � only that we don't have to lay out cash (but decide to not accept a fair price for the firewood instead).

Let's say, however, that we sold the firewood and bought electricity for exactly the same amount. Could we then say that we heated for free? Would the same hold true if we sold a cow and used that money to buy electric heat?

What if one year we sold our firewood for $750 thinking we�d be gone for the winter then changed our plans and, being short on time, bought firewood for $750. How much did it cost us to heat that winter?

Fawteen, who lives in Maine and can't figure out how to run an air conditioner on wood.

I think some guy named Edison tried this awhile back I'm not sure how it ended.