My wife and I just purchased our first home in the middle of nowhere. No natural gas. Baseboard heating below huge bay windows on a 2000sq foot rancher. We moved in April this past year in Michigan. Our first 46 days of electricity cost 365$ to keep the house freezing @ like 59degrees so the pipes didn't freeze and we used the electric blanket and dogs to keep warm. To keep the house warmer but still cold ~65 would have easily been 400-500/month.
So I spent 4k on new stove, professional install, and ordered 6 chords of log length hard wood and split/stacked it in April. Finally burned the stove in the other night (low of 36). Stayed 74 degrees in the upper level (stove in in the basement level, was about 84 down there). I still don't know how much wood we are going to go through this winter I am hoping less than the 6 chords but it could be more. But to keep the house toasty warm if we use 1 chord a month will be ~100 dollars in heating costs instead of 400-500 and that is to keep it substantially more warm as well and keep the old woman happy.
Anyway, If everything factors in right the stove pays for itself in 3 winters. I also get 300 back from the energy tax credit this tax year.
Nothing beats the chainsawing, splitting, and stacking for me so far, it is something I did as a child as we heated with wood and was very excited to start again now. And frankly the heat and ambiance is so much more....bourbon consumption worthy. Lots of homebrewed cold beer to get me through the summer chopping and splitting. Lots more bourbon as i sit by the fire and watch the snow come down in winter.
Many of my co-workers look at me crazy and can't understand how i get pleasure out of manual labor. I look at them crazy and can't understand how they so strongly desire a sedentary life style.
But as for the original poster there weren't to many unsurprising costs....
Stove - catalytic (burning efficiently with less wood was extremely important in stove choice for us, also made it significantly more expensive for stove purchase)
Stove pipe - we ran it up an existing mason chimney
Professional install of stove and pipe - I would and could have done this myself, but our home insurance dictated we purchase a NEW stove, from a STOVE dealer, and have it installed by a LICENSED AND INSURED installer. I wasn't going to mess with the home insurance company on this one. At least i get the 300 dollar tax return
chainsaw - already mentioned (299$ for an echo 18inch bar...its been going strong. No horror story...yet).
maul - already mentioned (30$)
splitting wedges - I have two ~10.00 a peice
Stove thermometer - already mentioned (was about 20$)
Stove gloves - already mentioned but got a deal at a men's consignment shop on mine for 7$
I don't really count the gas can, bar oil, and oil mixutre. I mean to cut up 6 chords of log length wood cost maybe 10 dollars in gas, 8 dollars for a 1 gallon can, 10$ for a gallon of bar oil i still haven't emptied, and oil mixture was like 8$? But that is still like 40$
I still am not ready to move up to purchasing a gas splitter yet. But it did cost me 100$ to rent one from home depot for 24 hours. I was able to split about 4 chords in a day with me and my wife. The last two i finished by hand. We potentially could have gotten through all 6 chords but towards the end of the day I dropped a 100lb on my foot hiking it over to the splitter and thought I had broken it and we stopped when I couldn't stand on it anymore...I did get an x-ray but no charges were incurred for said trip to urgent care the next day
.
All in all the big one time purchases are over except for more wood. And while it hurt shelling out for the stove and install, having an electric bill that is only 100$ a month in winter is much more palatable then one that is 400-500 and you have a cold unhappy significant other mad that you purchased an ice house as your first house.
Crap this was way longer than i expected.
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