Noob firewood seller questions

[Highbeam]

Agreed. Break even here in the cheap energy PNW is around $220 per cord compared to NG. I'm collecting as much scrounged wood as I have time to pick up, but I'm also paying $75/cord to tree services that will deliver rounds, and I'm looking for logs at the $50/cord that @Caw is paying. Trying to build up to the 3 years stored point. I might pay $150/cord for split green wood if I could find it, but the going price seems to be closer to $300 to $400.

@begreen , @Highbeam : anyone in the PNW have an idea what the break even is for heat pumps / mini-splits? Depends on outside temps, of course, but maybe a typical cost over a year?

I did the math for my minisplit and it really depends on what you consider your cost for firewood. I break it down to cost per kWh.

300 per cord bought as firewood or 100-150 per cord bought as logs. Heck, i sold half of my 11 cord woodshed at 600 per cord this year.

I have no access to NG.

 

[NHWS]

I did the math for my minisplit and it really depends on what you consider your cost for firewood. I break it down to cost per kWh.

300 per cord bought as firewood or 100-150 per cord bought as logs. Heck, i sold half of my 11 cord woodshed at 600 per cord this year.

I have no access to NG.

Typical BTUs per kWh would be a useful measurement. A chart of BTUs per kWh @ outside dF would be ideal, but unlikely to be available. I've been surprised that none of the usual suspects (the local power company, etc.) have such a chart.

Somehow I suspect that the wood you sold was not freshly cut, and it isn't what most firewood vendors call "seasoned". I haven't bought any split wood; I'm just going by advertisements I've seen and a couple of conversations with loggers working for tree services.

Anyone selling splits would reasonably have to charge more. Anyone selling fully dry splits would reasonably charge a lot more.

The cost for most of my firewood is my time and amortization of my splitter, other tools, storage area, etc. I count my time as exercise, not as heating cost. Between storm damage and construction, there's a huge amount of wood available around here at the moment. At 1/2 cord per trailer load, it takes me a while to collect it. I'm not paying anyone for wood; I'm paying for their time and effort to load it up and deliver it. I could get it free from tree services who want to save the cost of carrying it further to a sawdust mill, but I'd rather pay something for it to keep them coming back.

 

[Highbeam]

Typical BTUs per kWh would be a useful measurement. A chart of BTUs per kWh @ outside dF would be ideal, but unlikely to be available. I've been surprised that none of the usual suspects (the local power company, etc.) have such a chart.

Somehow I suspect that the wood you sold was not freshly cut, and it isn't what most firewood vendors call "seasoned". I haven't bought any split wood; I'm just going by advertisements I've seen and a couple of conversations with loggers working for tree services.

Anyone selling splits would reasonably have to charge more. Anyone selling fully dry splits would reasonably charge a lot more.

The cost for most of my firewood is my time and amortization of my splitter, other tools, storage area, etc. I count my time as exercise, not as heating cost. Between storm damage and construction, there's a huge amount of wood available around here at the moment. At 1/2 cord per trailer load, it takes me a while to collect it. I'm not paying anyone for wood; I'm paying for their time and effort to load it up and deliver it. I could get it free from tree services who want to save the cost of carrying it further to a sawdust mill, but I'd rather pay something for it to keep them coming back.

View attachment 320640

That chart exists and is published for every minisplit that is certified and eligible for tax benefits. You have to be a little scientific to understand it but they’re published for heating and cooling.

 

[NHWS]

That chart exists and is published for every minisplit that is certified and eligible for tax benefits. You have to be a little scientific to understand it but they’re published for heating and cooling.

Scientific I can handle. Must not have looked in the right places yet.

 

[Caw]

I do enough science at work. You guys figure it out and report back. I like to keep it simple and unga bunga with my saw and axe in my free time. 🤣

 

[Highbeam]

Scientific I can handle. Must not have looked in the right places yet.

I needed the chart for my rebates. It's kinda like the EPA test data, it's there, it's required, but some manufacturers hide it in the documentation for various reasons.

For my Mr. Cool minisplit, and 13 cent per kwh power, once it's below 47 degrees outside there is never a time when it is more expensive to burn 200$ per cord wood for heat. Since I buy cords of logs for 150$, there is never a time ever that it is cheaper to heat with the heat pump.

The heating chart stops at 57 degrees with each kwH of delivered heat costing me 4.3 cents.

Heating with 150$ per cord softwood at 75% efficiency, 20 MMBTU per cord, is 3.4 cents per kwH of heat.


The heat pump is more for when I'm lazy, on vacation, during burn bans, and for cooling. It's not a money saver unless you want to consider the market value of firewood.

At 300$ per cord, wood costs 6.8 cents per kwH to heat with. At that price, it's cheaper to make heat with the heat pump until it drops below 5 degrees outside. At 5 degrees outside it still costs 6.1 cents per kwH with the heatpump.

 

[Caw]

The heat pump is more for when I'm lazy, on vacation, during burn bans, and for cooling.

This is how I look at mine minus the bans, we don't have those here. I have an older r22 model so it's only rated down to 37 degrees before the backup resistance so it's rarely used for heat unless it's 45-55 degrees outside. I prefer to use the stove so it really just covers me when I'm sick, tired, injured, or away then does the summer ac which is fueled by the solar array. I'll be replacing it next time anything is wrong with it.

It also keeps the insurance company happy having backup heat. I don't bother doing the math on it since it's really just a heat backup. I don't sit there wondering which is the most cost effective.

 

[begreen]

anyone in the PNW have an idea what the break even is for heat pumps / mini-splits? Depends on outside temps, of course, but maybe a typical cost over a year?

Too many variables to make anything but a generic statement. YMMV depending on house size, insulation, extent of glazing, sealing, home style, location (big difference between 2000 ft in Darrington and 250 ft in Tacoma), wind exposure, heat pump efficiency, cost of electricity, etc. It could average out to $40 a month or $90.

We don't run ours much when the temp drops below around 43º

 

[Highbeam]

Too many variables to make anything but a generic statement. YMMV depending on house size, insulation, extent of glazing, sealing, home style, location (big difference between 2000 ft in Darrington and 250 ft in Tacoma), wind exposure, heat pump efficiency, cost of electricity, etc. It could average out to $40 a month or $90.

We don't run ours much when the temp drops below around 43º

Heck, it’s 44 outside right now. By that criteria you might not do much burning.

Selling wood this year gave me a new appreciation for the value of firewood and how happy I am to buy it cheaply in log form. I do enjoy the work of processing.

 

[begreen]

Heck, it’s 44 outside right now. By that criteria you might not do much burning.

This year for sure, we've had a warm winter so far. However, it was 39ª this morning and I started a fire. It's been going all day. Last year we started burning in late October and were burning 24/7 by mid-November. This fall the heat pump has been doing the most of the work so far. Fine with me with wood at $300/cord.

 

[Highbeam]

This year for sure, we've had a warm winter so far. However, it was 39ª this morning and I started a fire. It's been going all day. Last year we started burning in late October and were burning 24/7 by mid-November. This fall the heat pump has been doing the most of the work so far. Fine with me with wood at $300/cord.

It’s important to note that central ducted systems can be very inefficient and the break even point can be quite different. Also, if you have enough money these differences in heating price may not be significant and convenience might be a bigger factor.

 

[begreen]

Yes they can be quite lossy if it is an uninsulated oil or gas furnace system. That's why every part of our system was sealed and the runs are all insulated and travel through a conditioned space. The heat losses are there, but not high. When tested at 40º outside temp, the temp drop was <5ºF between the plenum and the farthest outlet.

 

[EatenByLimestone]

When I changed from oil to NG, I kept my boiler and swapped the oil burner to a gas burner. My costs went way down.

 

[NHWS]

Too many variables to make anything but a generic statement. YMMV depending on house size, insulation, extent of glazing, sealing, home style, location (big difference between 2000 ft in Darrington and 250 ft in Tacoma), wind exposure, heat pump efficiency, cost of electricity, etc. It could average out to $40 a month or $90.

We don't run ours much when the temp drops below around 43º

Understand that there are too many variables, but I'll look for better info on BTU/kWh/dF. I already know NG-therms/dF and can easily convert that to BTU/dF. Not perfect, but at least it should be good enough to know whether or not to investigate further.

In the meantime, my stove just developed an installation problem yesterday. Not sure yet if it is going to be possible to fix it this heating season.

 

[peakbagger]

BEWARE major thread drift (since others have already started it )

It's not incredibly hard in theory to come up with justification for mini split versus wood, it is just very tedious to build up the spreadsheets. And depending on your spreadsheet skills you may need to spend some time relearning various built in functions, included the dreaded array functions (that take me hours to get right if I havent used them lately)

First thing is do a manual J calculation heat load calculation with outdoor temp as a variable and if the space is not heated 24/7 then consider adding indoor temp as a variable. There are multiple sites on the internet where you can download local temperature data usually from a nearby airport. You can get really detailed but it comes down to how many columns of data you want to generate. So lets assume you use a daily average ambient and disregard direct heating from the sun, its indirectly in there based on average ambient but its a stretch if a house is optimized for solar gain.

Now knowing the daily ambient you can do a look up table for a particular heat pump which is KWhr input for heat output. The best source of info is NEEP https://ashp.neep.org/ They are big enough that they have
enough clout to get low temperature performance data that is not normally published.
https://ashp.neep.org/#!/ NEEP has an advanced calculator that does some of the heavy lifting based on accessing local weather data and it generates some real nice graphs but as far as I can see, there still is a need to upload the data to a spreadsheet and do the KWh calculations. Note that some companies do not participate in all Energy Star ratings, I was surprised that Mitsubishi does not appear to participate in the Energy Star V6.1 Cold Climate category (while Fujitsu and others do) so I skipped that category and grabbed an arbitrary Mitsubishi model and pasted it below.

For now, lets skip the cooling. Take a look at the COP which is the amount of electric power required to put out the heat load you need. You will notice it varies depending on load and outdoor temp. Keep in mind the COP for an electric heating is effectively 1.0 so the extra efficiency gained by heat pump is COP -1.0. A wood stoves COP is at best 0.8 and an old smoke dragon is probably 0.4. Luckily wood is cheap per BTU compared to electric power so COP is less important for wood at least initially. Keep in mind 1 kW= 3412 btu. These are also best case numbers, many cold climate units have electric pan heaters to keep from freezing up the outdoor unit and that is not counted in the COP.

Notice the kW line. It is showing you how many kW are required to put out the heat load you need. It is related to COP, so in the -13 F case to get 2,830 Btu you are putting in 0.54 kW. For an hour of heat that is 0.54kW/hr. Notice that if you need more heat, the COP goes up, so the unit looks to be more efficient. I (could really confuse things at this point on how the efficiency is calculated but lets not and save that for the advanced course) . Ultimately you need to plug in a KW demand for your load that is accurate for the ambient temperature.

With this variable efficiency you need to figure how you are going to deal with what happens when your unit runs out of capacity. So now your spreadsheet needs to have some "IF" statements on how you want to split the heating loads between multiple units or do what most smart designers do, write off really cold temperature operation and use a backup heating source.

I know I am pissing into the wind on this compared to the PR being pumped out to the public but not many folks are willing to pay an extra $5 to $6K each for a one or two extra mini splits to cover the coldest temps. Even if they do, they are probably paying a premium for power in the winter (obviously depends on who you buy your power from). Down at those low temps, those higher electric costs may offset any savings running multiple heat pumps. Far better to crank up the backup fuel paid for by the savings of not buying the extra units. In a cold area like where I live, I would need four 17,000 Btu units to heat my house in the coldest temps and that is lot of power My 5 to 6 K was for a 12,000 BTU unit so lets use 7K for swag at cost per unit. I can heat my house a long time on the $21,000 needed to buy 3 additional units to cover my worst case load especially if I am burning wood. I need backup as my ambient temps go below -13 F on occassion but most folks live farther south so its not a consideration.

On the other hand, I have a 12,000 Btu rated mini split and that covers a lot of my shoulder season heating load down to about 20 F overnight temps ( I have a small house and set the temps way back on my second floor at night), it is an older cold climate unit and I do not even have a rating sheet as NEEP was not around. My wood boiler with storage is not very efficient during shoulder seasons, as I need to heat up a lot of mass and water to heat up the storage. The storage has pretty good insulation but the 1000 pound plus steel boiler and 40 gallons of water (320) pounds inside it is effectively not insulated. The boiler is in a basement so everytime I heat up the storage, I am effectively throwing away a portion of that 1320 pounds for warming up the ground and floor outside the basement. The other aspect is my house is somewhat well optimized for day time solar heat gain, I have some terrain blocking my house at low winter sun angles so I do not get full sun until 9 AM this time of year and I lose it around 3:30 PM but I do get 6 hours of free heat where I really do not need auxiliary heat if the temps are over 30 F and the sun is out. I do have R5 double cellular blinds with side seals on almost all the double pane windows which I close at night but around 5 PM its time for auxiliary heat, so on those days I will probably run the minisplit during the day and keep the storage warmer until the evening when I am normally recharging it.

Going back to the table, take a look at COP at load heating load versus high between 47 and 17 F. Sure the COP is great if its idling but when cranked up it has gone way down. Still twice as efficient at electric baseboard but keep in mind the colder it gets the more time the units going to run at high output.

It is important to note that woodstoves are going to have similar variations in efficiency. At steady state operation they do have some limited turn down range where the efficiency stays up but during start up and shut down they are far less efficient. If the stove can idle along during long periods of no heat demand like my 6 hours a day, that is great but I expect the efficiency at idle is zero during that time if there is no need for the heat.

So feel free to run the calcs, the data is available and for a spreadsheet guru its probably an interesting challenge. as far as I am concerned, I will keep my minisplit on my main floor and am considering replacing a 15 year old cooling only minisplit on my second floor to a cold climate unit and running my wood boiler when the heating demand goes up. The strange thing is, I have surplus solar credit so I could probably heat full time down to -13F with minisplits but I hate how they run down at low temps. Defrost cycles happen more often and the heat coming out the register is cooler than forced hot air. Yes its warm but not hot and the air flow and noise is higher. I also notice far more room stratification with warm ceilings and cold floors. I know I personally have to keep the temperature setting higher with the minisplit on than if I am running baseboard.

 

[DonTee]

We've been thinking about getting a mini split for our house. To use as A/C in the summer and as a back up heat source in the winter. The wood stove is our primary heat source, but it would be nice to have a better back up. It usually stays above 0 here all winter. About the coldest it gets is -15 or so.

Well I’ve sold about half the firewood I want to. I stack some wood in my 8’ long rows and put up the ad. It takes a day or two to sell the wood, and then I’ll take down the ad until I restock the measured rows.

So far the buyers have been happy with the wood.

 

[DonTee]

I’ve also been collecting data for next year. It seems like people buying wood this time of year are looking for just a face cord or two. Also they’re looking for medium sized splits to burn in wood stoves or inserts. No fireplace users yet.

I was concerned that some of my wood is split too fine, but it hasn’t been an issue yet. I like the finer split wood so I can really fit a lot of it in the BK. It doesn’t seem to affect my burn times.

I’m cutting the wood now that I’ll sell next year. And my own personal wood for the 2025/2026 burning season. I’m aiming to have 50 face cords to sell next year. All from either dead or dying trees. The ash borer has left me A LOT of wood to harvest.

 

[EatenByLimestone]

That’s a lot of cutting, hauling, and splitting!

 

[Caw]

My shoulder hurts thinking about all that work but it does sound fun! Good luck!

 

[DonTee]

I think processing wood is fun. I pile rounds by the splitter and then work on it a little bit every night after the kids are in bed. The straight stuff I split by hand and the more twisty stuff I use the hyd splitter.

I ended up with so much extra firewood because it’s something I work on a lot. Especially on the winter nights when nothing else is going on. Working in the buggy summer sucks, so I try to avoid that. Oh and ticks too.

I have a tractor with a logging winch, so I can pull out quite a bit of wood at a time.

 

[Caw]

Thanks as always, BG. Sure glad you're still around. 😁

Amen. Im outside bucking wood today and it's 50 degrees out right now and even that is too warm. I like to process in the cold. I can layer up and take off what I need to feel comfortable. I'm roasting out here.

 

[GrumpyDad]

I pay $250 (was 200 until this year) for a full cord of mixed hardwood. It is never wet when delivered but I never expect it to be dry. There are no firewood sales in my area that have their wood stacked and covered. It's processed onto a conveyor to big piles, then someone uses a bobcat to scoop up so much, pop it into a truck then dump it wherever you want it. That's just how it works around here. There is one outfit that stacks the wood on pallets, and they shrink wrap the very top, then when it gets delivered the entire rack gets wrapped and delivered with a little fork to move it around where the customer wants. It's $800 a cord kiln seasoned. So while the wood is dry, the customer's brain is damp.

I should add, at no time has my wood been delivered in dry weather. It's always raining (sometimes snowing) so the wood gets wet.
If someone is buying wood expecting to use it that day, I would be surprised as I would think that would be more rare than someone that just notices they are running low and they need to stock up. You could always ask when they plan to use it, let them know it will need to be stacked and the exterior dried for a couple of weeks before using it. Split one in front of them and show them the MC when you deliver.

 

[EatenByLimestone]

Amen. Im outside bucking wood today and it's 50 degrees out right now and even that is too warm. I like to process in the cold. I can layer up and take off what I need to feel comfortable. I'm roasting out here.

I think you just discovered the origin of “Buck Naked”.

 

[DonTee]

Lol

 

[NHWS]

I think you just discovered the origin of “Buck Naked”.

Ouch.