Neighbor thinks im crazzy

[firefighterjake]

Whether you live in the city or country . . . or whether you're living in a northern state with rugged winters and a history of wood burning or in a place where winters are mild and not as many folks heat with wood . . . it doesn't matter.

Most folks who only throw some logs on their fireplace for the holidays or buy the $5 camp fire wood while camping will not understand why having seasoned wood is so important . . . heck, sometimes long-time wood burners just don't get it.

Fact is . . . with few exceptions heating with wood seems to be among the cheapest ways to keep your home warm in the winter . . . add in not having to worry about heating the place in the winter with an extended power outage with the enjoyment one gets from curling up in the arm chair and watching the fire on those long, winter evenings and well . . . as I said . . . those folks just won't get it . . . unless they experience it . . . and even then I'm not sure if they would understand.

Rest assured . . . here you are in good company.

 

[lukem]

My family used to think I was nuts, but they are coming around...may even install an OWB before the winter. I told them I'd swap them green wood for seasoned since they don't have any ready...and I'm at least 4 years ahead.

My co-workers think I'm cheap and nuts...chuts? They are a bunch of "why do it yourself when you can pay someone else to do it" types. Nothing wrong with that, but they don't understand why I fix my own stuff, burn wood, have a garden, mow my grass...the list goes on and on. I will never convince them and don't really care to. I'll just keep having fun, saving money, and hanging out here.

 

[Backwoods Savage]

Dennis, some people prefer FUD over facts.

Dave, what in Sam Hill is FUD?

 

[PapaDave]

Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt.

 

[amateur cutter]

This must be a universal conversation, I don't have neighbors per se, but we had some people over in March years ago . It was a rather raw day, maybe 40 & windy with a little rain. They commented on how nice & warm the house was & made a smart remark about how much I must be earning in the shop to keep the house that warm. Then commented on how cheap I was to not spend the $ 2100.00 to get the gas from the road down the 1000' driveway to save the money over propane. My wife who is the quietest, nicest, person you'll ever meet got a bit of an odd look on her face, went to her desk, & casually handed the other wife our latest propane fill slip/bill for 60 gal. The lady apologized up down & sideways thinking that 60 gal was all we could afford. My wife says no that's all they could fit in the tank, & then explained that it was last filled the previous October. She then points out the back door toward the woods @ about 12cord of split stacked firewood. By now I can barely keep from popping a vein laughing, cause this just isn't her, she grew up in Chicago, & was real hesitant about wood heat till the first 20* day when it was 77 in the house cause I forgot to dampen down the heat run in the living room. Well the story ends with the other couple admitting that they thought I was insane for cutting firewood & working so hard. We actually sat & did the math between our two households for heat bills etc. even including my equipment & time, vs. their gym memberships etc. I was well ahead after 2 years, & that was 10 or 11 years ago.

Moral of this story: I'm pretty sure I'm nuts, but my nuts are warm in winter, my wife is happy, & I still don't have a gym membership. SO PUT THAT IN YOUR HI EFFICIENCY GAS FURNACE @ 68* & SMOKE IT. A C

 

[DexterDay]

..........Moral of this story: I'm pretty sure I'm nuts, but my nuts are warm in winter, my wife is happy, & I still don't have a gym membership. SO PUT THAT IN YOUR HI EFFICIENCY GAS FURNACE @ 68* & SMOKE IT. A C

Thats an awesome story.

This November is 3 yrs since our last fill and I am at about 40% . Only use LP for cooking and last Winter I even did a little on the 30..... ProPain man dont come here anymore!

 

[Fi-Q]

That's a reason why i don't have neigbor !! Honnestly, around here a lot of people are burning wood, even in town. But I do have some friend that are burning that are buying their wood with the usuall saying : ''I prefer do some overtime and pay for wood than spend time doing it myself''. But me, I jsut love it, the feeling of being on my own piece of dirt, trimming all the forest, sweating like crazy to than come home to a warm and cozy place, it'S priceless. And I did loose 25 pounf last winter cutting all my wood and a bunch of larch in 8 foot timber in the deasd of the winter. It was awesome So keep on getting the wood, either ignoe or try to educate the people around you (I am doing a lot of education at work, some call me crazy and some call me for advise). And keep on talking to your dear wife to move to the country if that's waht you want.

 

[Seasoned Oak]

My sister told me once "your obsessed with heat" no i said i just like it warm in the house and dont want to go bankrupt keeping it that way. She pays about $3000+ a year heating an old farm house with oil. And has to work outside to boot so she freezes all day in winter. I saved at least $25,000 (not buying heating oil) in the last ten years. And i keep the house about 76 all winter. With oil it was in the 60s

 

[Cross Cut Saw]

Next year at this time ask the guy how much he paid to heat his house with heating oil at $3.36-$3.76 a gallon and compare it to your house (keeping in mind the relative sizes of both) . . . or simply add up the cost to heat the home last winter (a very mild winter for us) to this coming year. I would wager my paycheck for two weeks that you will most definitely save over $100 this year in heating costs and will quickly pay off the cost of the stove, install, etc. in a few years.

It still blows my mind that in one of the most heavily wooded states east of the Mississippi that more folks aren't heating with wood or wood by-products . . .

Not only the most heavily wooded, but oil and propane are outrageously expensive compared to natural gas and wood.
I like the idea of heating with wood but I must admit, if natural gas were available I'd probably just supplement with a little wood...

 

[certified106]

Just wait until someone asks to buy some wood from you.....That's when you realize how much you are attached to it....LOL

 

[mywaynow]

Selling extra wood sounds like a decent idea. But then you find yourself looking at a stack of wood that is split and dried, doing math and realizing "that was too much work for $175 a cord".

I too started scrounging wood almost 2 years prior to having a stove. Big white oak came down in a storm just a 1/4 mile north of my house. That was the beginning of many hours processing firewood. About a year and a half later a client asks me if I would be interested in a wood stove. Turns out to be a VC Defiant, and I was indeed interested. Price was just perfect; free! It took some fixin' but ran great and heated better. Savings per winter is more like 1500. Oil truck was here in October, Janurary and again in March. Now it's been since October of 2010 since a fill, and still at around 230 gallons.

 

[JP11]

My wife is JUST starting to come around. We haven't had our first winter on the Vigas yet. I think I need to teach her that EVERY time she fills the boiler, that's 800k BTUs which is about 6 or 7 gallons of oil.. 20 bucks saved.

I did point out to her how many THOUSANDS of dollars my current wood pile is worth if it were oil. It's money in the bank!

 

[eclecticcottage]

My brother and sister in law were just over for the first time this past weekend (they live in MD). He's the typical cityfied green washed kind. They are buying a Volt and buy wind power because it's "green" (never mind that they shop at wally world and heat with NG that's probably the product of fracking). He rolled his eyes at the wood stack (we ended up with about 25 face cord from the piles we collected this past winter, and 99% is split and stacked). He thinks it's stupid to do all that work, and it's not very "green" of us. Poor, lost soul, lol. Some people will never understand, and some just don't want to.

 

[fahmahbob]

Selling extra wood sounds like a decent idea. But then you find yourself looking at a stack of wood that is split and dried, doing math and realizing "that was too much work for $175 a cord".

Not to mention that a cord of wood is equivalent to anywhere from 100-175 gallons of oil (depending on the efficiency of your stove/boiler). Right there it's value is $350-$600 per cord!

 

[firefighterjake]

Just wait until someone asks to buy some wood from you.....That's when you realize how much you are attached to it....LOL

I've never been asked . . . but I'm pretty sure if I was asked the answer would be "No." I spent way too much time and energy getting that wood to just give it up for a few dollars . . . and I know I would be worrying about having to replace that wood once I saw it rolling out of my door yard.

Heck, you should see me agonize over the punks, chunks and uglies that I toss aside for camping and fire pit fires . . . even these I find myself thinking that I should save them and not "waste" them with a camp fire.

 

[firefighterjake]

While my wife still doesn't like the inevitable mess (well inevitable because I'm a slob) . . . the other day we were talking about retiring to The County some day and she said if we built a home she would really like it to have a center chimney. I asked her if that was for aesthetic reasons and she said that while it may look nice, she also figured it would help heat the house better with a woodstove -- have I ever mentioned how much I love this woman?

 

[red oak]

No matter how you do it, wood heat requires more work. I split everything by hand, and that takes a lot of time, but I enjoy doing it so it really doesn't matter. Many don't even want to mess with wood and would rather pay more. I don't get it but that's the way it is. I did the math one year and I think we save at least $1500 on heating each winter - that's our vacation money each year.

 

[Backwoods Savage]

My brother and sister in law were just over for the first time this past weekend (they live in MD). He's the typical cityfied green washed kind. They are buying a Volt and buy wind power because it's "green" (never mind that they shop at wally world and heat with NG that's probably the product of fracking). He rolled his eyes at the wood stack (we ended up with about 25 face cord from the piles we collected this past winter, and 99% is split and stacked). He thinks it's stupid to do all that work, and it's not very "green" of us. Poor, lost soul, lol. Some people will never understand, and some just don't want to.

Sounds to me like this guy may think he is being "green" but really does not understand a whole lot. They may think we are stupid for doing this work but do they think we are stupid for keeping our homes warm? I shudder every time I hear someone say they keep their homes in the 60's during the day and maybe 55 at night.

 

[Seasoned Oak]

Its about the beauty of a wood fire as well. Not just saving money. The best thing they ever did on the new style stoves was put a mammoth viewing glass and big front door on. Remember the old days when most wood stoves had NO glass at all.
A fire in a modern stove with secondaries blazing is truly a sight to behold. My harman TL300 looks like the northern lights when i start backing off the primary air.

 

[tfdchief]

I have rambled here to many times about how I love wood heat and everything that goes with it, so I won't bore anyone with it again. Except to say that if people think you are crazy about your wood cutting/burning habits, you are in the right place here. And NO I don't sell my wood. Young guy house sitting for my neighbor next door, who is on active duty as a Marine, ask last winter to buy some wood for a few fires in the fire place. I said nope, I don't sell wood. I will be glad to give you some for the fire place but I won't sell it. He is a good kid and has been a good neighbor.

 

[Bigg_Redd]

Well I Been gathering wood since april and have accumulated around 5 cords. We had a new neighbor move in next door and we got to talking and he remarks about all the wood I got stacked in the back yard. Every time I pull in to the drive way with a load of wood and he is sitting on his patio he laughs and says something like holly chit what ya gonna do with all that damn wood or dont ya got enough already?. He thought it was even funnier when I told him I dont even have a stove yet. Ohh well some people just dont understand. But thats what I get for buying a house in the city. Hopefully in a couple of years I will be able to convince the wife to sell the house and move out to the country.

My neighbors mind their d@mn business

 

[Seasoned Oak]

Its a good skill to have cuz with the economy in the tank and getting worse a lot of people might freeze otherwise. Although there are those who would rather freeze than work.

 

[smokinj]

Well I Been gathering wood since april and have accumulated around 5 cords. We had a new neighbor move in next door and we got to talking and he remarks about all the wood I got stacked in the back yard. Every time I pull in to the drive way with a load of wood and he is sitting on his patio he laughs and says something like holly chit what ya gonna do with all that damn wood or dont ya got enough already?. He thought it was even funnier when I told him I dont even have a stove yet. Ohh well some people just dont understand. But thats what I get for buying a house in the city. Hopefully in a couple of years I will be able to convince the wife to sell the house and move out to the country.

Little dog stays on the porch! (Wonder if he can hold my beer for a second)

 

[golfandwoodnut]

Tell him it is money in the bank. Would he complain if he had an extra 1000 gallons of gas? Energy is money, cord wood is money.

 

[bogydave]

Selling extra wood sounds like a decent idea. But then you find yourself looking at a stack of wood that is split and dried, doing math and realizing "that was too much work for $175 a cord".

Selling 2 or 3 year seasoned wood would be tough for me. Painful even.
By the time the wood goes in the stove, I know each split very well, be like selling an old friend. LOL