$500 a cord in Mass

[Isaac Carlson]

That's exactly how I see it.

 

[ericm979]

"seasoned" hardwood from reputable dealers is $450-550 here. Delivery and stacking extra. In the quarter century I have lived in these mountains the typical homeowner has changed from DIY types to less DIY tech workers with a healthy income. For those folks it probably makes sense to spend their time working rather than cutting splitting and stacking. They may not have a choice as many tech employers demand lots of hours from their salaried employees. Or they may not be comfortable running a chainsaw.

It's still a savings as a cord of Madrone generates the heat of about $1000 of propane at current local prices.

 

[Jsd245]

I’m not seeing crazy wood prices in CT. I have not bought wood for quite a few years but it still seems to be in the $225-$300 a cord range delivered advertised in craiglist, Facebook, etc. . This is for wood they claim is seasoned but of course never is. That seems to be the same range it was 4-5 years ago when I bought it before I could get ahead far enough cutting it off my property.this is eastern CT.

 

[peakbagger]

At this point in Northern New England, most of the biomass power plants are shutdown, there really is no market for low grade wood so a lot of it is being left rotting in the woods. The problem is the cost of diesel to haul it any distance means its not going to make it down to Mass unless the prices are high. Also anyone who wants to work has more job offers then they can shake a stick at, so not a lot of motivation to process the wood even if it is available.

 

[Tithis]

That might explain it, I've only gotten wood from local landscraping or tree service companies.

 

[peakbagger]

When I was dealing with biomass power plants, the rule of thumb was more than hauling more than 50 miles and the fuel was not worth it. That was when diesel was far cheaper. If a dealer has real estate, they can load up after a storm for free and then process it at their leisure and resell for firewood. There is place on I 93 between 495 and Boston on the northbound side right up against the highway with lots of firewood during the summer. Definitely not a pleasant place to live or work but a great place to pile firewood to season.

 

[Garbanzo62]

Unfortunately, we didn't decide to get an insert until around August. I had a good supply of wood in years past, but we gave most of it to a friend that heated with wood versus letting it rot. I guestimate that I have about 1/2 cord burnable now. Close to .75 cord of Oak that was split and stacked in August (unavailable) and close to a cord of dead ash that has been split and stacked Sept - Oct. That is in various states, checked two splits today, one was 16% the other was 35%.
A local MFG of RR and Landscape Ties sells slabwood for $75 a bundled cord. Supposedly seasoned at least 8 months of various species. Problem is, the bundles weight 4 to 5000 lbs. I don't have access to a big enough truck. They do sell slabs from bundles that broke apart for $40 as much as you can load. Going to try to get some tomorrow (renting flatbed pickup) Hope that it is dry enough to burn and it can get me through.

 

[EatenByLimestone]

I’d burn slab wood all day long for that price

 

[Dan Freeman]

Same here!

 

[ABMax24]

I can't bother to start my chainsaw for $75/cord

 

[EatenByLimestone]

Uhaul will rent you a 6x12 double axle trailer that’ll tow that load no problem! I’d get many cords for that price!

 

[StudlyHogly]

I can't bother to start my chainsaw for $75/cord

I'd have to charge $1000 a cord to make it worth my while as my property is in a small valley, in a larger valley. Half the land is across the creek (steep ravine) and pretty much inaccessible except on foot for 10 months out of the year. Lots of deadfall up off the ground but the logistics of getting it out of there are not great.
Douglas Fir (premium wood here) around Lake Cowichan goes for $325-$350 a cord. I only ever bought one cord, back in 2015 (took possession in December) it was $175. Bit wet here and there, some Cottonwood mixed in.

 

[GrumpyDad]

I was watching the local news in southern NH, they were interviewing a legit firewood dealer planning on selling 2000 cords this year. He looked like they had a lot of inventory in the background. They claim the phone is ringing off the hook for deliveries and that the going rate was $500 delivered (note a cord in Mass and southern NH is full cord 4x4x8 not a face cord. The weather just changed from a warm spell for the first two weeks of November (70 F on Saturday) to a forecast week of colder than normal temps. I guess its time for us "ants" to sit back and watch the "grasshoppers" panic

Id just run space heaters at that point. Far less expensive.

 

[Isaac Carlson]

Unfortunately, we didn't decide to get an insert until around August. I had a good supply of wood in years past, but we gave most of it to a friend that heated with wood versus letting it rot. I guestimate that I have about 1/2 cord burnable now. Close to .75 cord of Oak that was split and stacked in August (unavailable) and close to a cord of dead ash that has been split and stacked Sept - Oct. That is in various states, checked two splits today, one was 16% the other was 35%.
A local MFG of RR and Landscape Ties sells slabwood for $75 a bundled cord. Supposedly seasoned at least 8 months of various species. Problem is, the bundles weight 4 to 5000 lbs. I don't have access to a big enough truck. They do sell slabs from bundles that broke apart for $40 as much as you can load. Going to try to get some tomorrow (renting flatbed pickup) Hope that it is dry enough to burn and it can get me through.

It dries quick, but burns just as quick too. We burned slab wood for two years when I couldn't scrounge enough. It weemed like we were constantly throwing wood in the stove.

 

[ericm979]

Id just run space heaters at that point. Far less expensive.

A cord of Madrone is about 30.9 million btus. 1kw is 3412 btus. So there's about 9050kw in a cord of Madrone. Assume 75% efficiency for the stove and 100% for the space heater. That leaves about 6800kw of heat from that cord.

At $500/cord, electricity would have to cost less than 13.6 cents/kw for the space heater to cost less. I know of some places in the pacific northwest that have rates lower than that. It's more like 2-3x here but we have expensive rates.

 

[Isaac Carlson]

A cord of Madrone is about 30.9 million btus. 1kw is 3412 btus. So there's about 9050kw in a cord of Madrone. Assume 75% efficiency for the stove and 100% for the space heater. That leaves about 6800kw of heat from that cord.

At $500/cord, electricity would have to cost less than 13.6 cents/kw for the space heater to cost less. I know of some places in the pacific northwest that have rates lower than that. It's more like 2-3x here but we have expensive rates.

Our rate here is 10.5 cents/kw, so the breakeven point is around $375-380/cord (for dry wood).
Thankfully we cut our own.

 

[Jsd245]

Our rate here is 10.5 cents/kw, so the breakeven point is around $375-380/cord (for dry wood).
Thankfully we cut our own.

CT’s supply rate just increased from 12.1 kw/hr to 24.2 kw/hr Effective Jan 1. Coming soon everywhere. Wood will continue to be the cheapest way to heat.

 

[rwh63]

i'm in MA, just got a delivery of 1.5 cord for $525 ($F375/cord). bought from the same business last several years for $275/cord. this includes delivery.

 

[patrickk222]

180 for a cord and a half for me was 170 fir the past 2 yrs

 

[Caw]

I agree, it's difficult to calculate and normalize. I've been trying to prevent my heat from turning on at all when burning the wood. I have a 2-story colonial, 2100sqft, not including a finished basement. Three heating zones, stove is on the main/first floor. The first floor zone never calls for heat if the stove is running. The basement I keep at a lower temp, plus the thermostat is near the boiler so reads artificially high anyway. Therefore the challenge becomes the 2nd floor. I've experimented with ceiling fans but I'm finding I get the best results (I think) without any fans and just allowing natural convection to do it's thing. It was pretty cold outside here for a few days (20F yesterday morning) and my upstairs only had a brief (10min) call for heat at about 5:30AM (scheduled set temp changes from 65F to 67F). I'm ok with that. Once I reloaded the stove, upstairs got up to 69F pretty quickly.

I live about 30 mins away from you and heat my 1700 sq ft 2 story gambrel cape entirely with wood. We actually don't even own a furnace just a heat pump. It's a classic 80s closed floor plan (something we're saving $ to improve. Stove is on the 1st floor in the room with the stairwell so heating upstairs is not an issue. I just use one fan to get convection started down the hallway to the kitchen and dining room and the rest happens naturally.

On a normal 20 degree winter day I'd say the living room is 75, tv room 70, upstairs 70, and the kitchen/dining room 65 all give or take a few degrees. Our backup heat only comes on when it gets close to 0 outside for a day or two and it might pop on at 5 am for an hour. I could wake up to reload early but most times I just let it do it's thing.

Mass Save was out and blew 2 ft of insulation in the attic right before we bought the place and added the stove. I'm sure it's the reason I get away with only using the stove. The windows are all original and those are the next upgrade on the list, but, I suspect those will be a one or two a year thing for a while.

 

[sixer]

I live about 30 mins away from you and heat my 1700 sq ft 2 story gambrel cape entirely with wood. We actually don't even own a furnace just a heat pump. It's a classic 80s closed floor plan (something we're saving $ to improve. Stove is on the 1st floor in the room with the stairwell so heating upstairs is not an issue. I just use one fan to get convection started down the hallway to the kitchen and dining room and the rest happens naturally.

On a normal 20 degree winter day I'd say the living room is 75, tv room 70, upstairs 70, and the kitchen/dining room 65 all give or take a few degrees. Our backup heat only comes on when it gets close to 0 outside for a day or two and it might pop on at 5 am for an hour. I could wake up to reload early but most times I just let it do it's thing.

Mass Save was out and blew 2 ft of insulation in the attic right before we bought the place and added the stove. I'm sure it's the reason I get away with only using the stove. The windows are all original and those are the next upgrade on the list, but, I suspect those will be a one or two a year thing for a while.

I too had MassSave come out when we bought our place in 2015. I have a walk-up attic so I opted not for the blown-in, but they did insulate the tops of all the walls with that spray foam stuff. They also made this 'box' out of that foil-sided insulating board stuff to cover over where the walk-up fold-up attic stairs go. That thing used to pour cold air! So much so you'd get a chill walking under it. The windows were trash so we had them all replaced. I agree, it's things like this which can make all the difference. I went around fixing up my door jamb insulation and adjusting the latch depths too.

I find the advice on this forum for overnight burns to be pretty spot-on (as usual). If I can get a nice, dry round or two in the back and load up the rest of the box tightly with splits, 8+hours is easy...

 

[Toasty-Yote]

Whenever I see prices like this, I want to quit my office job and start cutting wood. Naive thought but it crosses my mind.

 

[Niro]

Been lucky in able to have tree service wood dropped off here all summer now I'm 2.5 years ahead. Hope I can continue to get free wood in the spring.

 

[Ashful]

At these prices, some might need to start putting a locked cage around their wood sheds! Get 20 cords CSS'd, and you're looking at the value of many used cars.

On the plus side, it helps justify what many of us have spent on hauling and processing equipment, as well as the investment of time.

 

[SpaceBus]

With current energy costs it is more expensive to process and transport that wood, so it makes sense. It would be hard for me not to burn coal at those prices, if I were buying heating fuel directly.