What chunk of your total utilities is heating and Domestic Hot Water?

[Ashful]

My solar does financially make sense. Because I only paid 45% of its cost due to tax credits (Fed and State) back in '18.

Tax credits are going down, and break even time is going up therefore.

Even then 13 years to break even may not sound nice, but another 13 years after that with no electricity cost (at net metering, another necessity), does make it make sense.

Did you figure inflation into that? What about the earning potential of the 55% you put down on the system, if invested in an index fund? You could've bought Exxon!!

 

[snobuilder]

You're always welcome to move to a place where taxes are lower. Last I checked, Bermuda and United Aram Emirates have zero income tax. What I pay in taxes is obscene, your head would likely spin off, if you only knew. But to bastardize an old Churchill quote, "ours is the worst system on earth, except all the others." He was talking about democracy, but it finds application nearly anywhere you look, including our tax codes. When I travel, and look at the trade-offs others face, versus what we have in this country, I feel less bad about what we're paying.

My solar does financially make sense. Because I only paid 45% of its cost due to tax credits (Fed and State) back in '18.

Tax credits are going down, and break even time is going up therefore.

Even then 13 years to break even may not sound nice, but another 13 years after that with no electricity cost (at net metering, another necessity), does make it make sense.

Welfare.

 

[snobuilder]

You're always welcome to move to a place where taxes are lower. Last I checked, Bermuda and United Aram Emirates have zero income tax.

What I pay in taxes is obscene, your head would likely spin off, if you only knew. But to bastardize an old Churchill quote, "ours is the worst system on earth, except all the others." He was talking about democracy, but it finds application nearly anywhere you look, including our tax codes. When I travel, and look at the trade-offs others face, versus what we have in this country, I feel less bad about what we're paying.

That 3% is what they add to my bill to pay for the freeloaders of society. If you enjoy the feeling you get from supporting ppl who can but refuse to work for there daily needs then you are in luck ....we are about to see it increase tenfold .

 

[snobuilder]

My solar does financially make sense. Because I only paid 45% of its cost due to tax credits (Fed and State) back in '18.

Tax credits are going down, and break even time is going up therefore.

Even then 13 years to break even may not sound nice, but another 13 years after that with no electricity cost (at net metering, another necessity), does make it make sense.

How is it YOUR solar when someone else paid for it?

 

[snobuilder]

Well, this is about the most entertaining thread I've read in awhile. I hope we keep it going, and the mod's don't see any need to shut it down. I'll do my best to post my numbers below, but first:


You are forgetting that we determined in prior threads, that snobuilder's setup must be running damn near negative efficiency. It is very possible his prior claims of not saving any money by burning wood are true, given how little fuel he's saving, per cord of wood burned.

Who the eff is WE? 🤣

 

[bholler]

How is it YOUR solar when someone else paid for it?

You are missing the point that we pay just as much in subsidies to fossil fuel companies. So why are the subsidies for solar different???

 

[stoveliker]

How is it YOUR solar when someone else paid for it?

Same way you are complaining that I steal your gasoline from your car that you bought with subsidies from my taxes (and I can guarantee more of my money flows your way that the other way around) if I siphon it out of your car.

But I'm not.

I heat for free and don't complain about it like you do. And I have AC for free too.

Be a bit more positive in life. It's nice.

 

[Ashful]

Has anyone defined “your annual utility bill”, yet? I know roughly what I spend in heating, but I don’t know what constitutes an “annual utility bill”. I’d like to answer the poll, if that is ever defined.

 

[Bad LP]

Has anyone defined “your annual utility bill”, yet? I know roughly what I spend in heating, but I don’t know what constitutes an “annual utility bill”. I’d like to answer the poll, if that is ever defined.

There is never going to be a day where my costs for wood heating to be justified as saving money.

I could have bought an awful lot of propane for what has been spent on setting myself up to heat with wood. The biggest benefit is knowing it’s already been spent so it’s gone.

 

[brenndatomu]

I could have bought an awful lot of propane for what has been spent on setting myself up to heat with wood. The biggest benefit is knowing it’s already been spent so it’s gone.

Probably true...especially for you hydronic guys, but like with anything, it takes money to make money...the thing with wood heat is having your fuel for 1, 2, even 3 or more years already "paid for" and on site...plus being able to keep the house warmer without worrying about the cost. And at the end of the day if you get to the point where you decide to hang up wood heat, you have equipment that has some residual value (quite a bit these days!) whereas with fossil fuels you have an empty tank, and wallet, that's it.

 

[JRHAWK9]

I could have bought an awful lot of propane for what has been spent on setting myself up to heat with wood. The biggest benefit is knowing it’s already been spent so it’s gone.

The way I see it though is when you pay the LP bill, that money is gone forever. You can't re-sell the LP after you are done with it. It has zero residual value.

At least with buying all the equipment needed for wood burning, it all has a residual value and one can simply sell everything to re-coup probably 75% of what you initially have into them. $10,000 in equipment is still worth, say, $7,500 when one is done with it. $10,000 in LP is worth $0 when one is done with it.

I can't speak for everyone, as some of you guys have some pretty fancy setups that cost a lot of $$$$, but taking into account my wood furnace install and all my equipment (minus the ATV, as I use that for recreation as well), I am very close to breaking even, or am already there after 7 years. I know I am already way on the "plus" side of things when just looking at the cost of my wood furnace and new chimney install (~$10,000).

If I were to decide I wanted to get out of it right now, I could sell my wood furnace for dang near what I paid for it back in 2014. The chimney install, obviously, has zero residual value though. The rest of my equipment does and I could probably re-coup 75% of what I have into it. Then there is my wood supply.....at $250/cord I am sitting on over $16,000 of wood. In terms of processing wood, one HAS to like it and see it as a form of exercise and not as work. If you see it as work and value your time spent as $$$, then you will never see it as saving $$.

In my situation, the value of a cord of wood is worth more to me in heat than it is for me to liquidate it and pay for LP. Before heating with wood, we'd use ~1,100 gallons of LP a year to heat this place to keep it at 68° and have the basement un-heated. This is ~$2,600 in today's LP prices. Over the past 7 years of heating with wood, we've burned, on average, ~16,000lbs (~4.4 cords of red oak). So I'd have to sell my wood for ~$600/cord or more right now if I wanted to liquidate it and use it to pay the LP man to heat the house. Heating with wood, we keep the house 70-72 the majority of the winter as well heat the basement solely off radiant heat of the furnace. Even when LP was $0.99/gal......we'd still have to sell the wood for ~$250/cord and we still wouldn't have a house that is as warm as it is with wood heat.

For the record, when we left at the end of February for a week, the LP furnace ran for over 53 hours over 8 days to keep the place 55°. This cost us over $100 in LP over 8 days to keep the place 55°.


This years heating season is still in progress:

 

[JRHAWK9]

And at the end of the day if you get to the point where you decide to hang up wood heat, you have equipment that has some residual value (quite a bit these days!) whereas with fossil fuels you have an empty tank, and wallet, that's it.

beat me to it with WAY less words!

 

[stoveliker]

Did the calc of JRHAWK above as well.

I have $300 in processing equipment, and $1500-$2000 in a shed (bad timing, but a mental health project in early covid...).
The shed can be repurposed if I quit wood; add walls. It's that sturdy, and the roof is as good as on my home.

The $300 is manual axes and a corded electric chainsaw.

The wood is delivered here for free (ok, $25 to the driver).

This year, I used about 5.6 face cord = 2.87 cord (b/c avg was 17", so slightly more, but ok). mixed oak, pine, ash, sassafras. Given their relative quantities, I estimate about 22 million BTU per cord. That equates to 63 million BTUs put into the stove. At 70% efficiency, that means I got 44 million BTUs in my home.

Had I used oil (at 90 pct efficiency?), I'd have had to put 49 million BTUs into my furnace.
At 138500 BTUs per gallon, that'd have been 353 gallons of oil. At $3.50 per gallon (b/c price now is higher, but I think that was near the start of the heating season here when I'd have filled up), I saved $1235 this heating season.

 

[Ashful]

Maybe I’m too much of an optimist, or ignoring too many equipment costs, but I really don’t understand how any of you are failing to save money, unless you’re depreciate way more equipment than is really needed for your usage. Outside working today, just took a quick break, but will post some numbers tonight.

 

[stoveliker]

I'm wrong in my cordage. 1.87 cord...
So that amounts to $802 saved in oil. Still 2.5 times my equipment investment in one year.

 

[bholler]

Maybe I’m too much of an optimist, or ignoring too many equipment costs, but I really don’t understand how any of you are failing to save money, unless you’re depreciate way more equipment than is really needed for your usage. Outside working today, just took a quick break, but will post some numbers tonight.

If you honestly figure in the value of your time I seriously doubt heating with wood saved and money over some other options.

 

[stoveliker]

But that only makes sense if you'd have used that time to actually make that money. Most of us don't.

 

[Bad LP]

If you honestly figure in the value of your time I seriously doubt heating with wood saved and money over some other options.

My time is only worth what I rather be doing. If it’s a nice day I’ll go have fun and play with wood some other time.

 

[JRHAWK9]

Did the calc of JRHAWK above as well.

I think one thing we are not taking into account is the actual delivered efficiency of a fossil fuel furnace. The efficiency rating listed on the furnace is combustion efficiency. The heat still has to get into the home and with the furnace kicking on/off like it does, I think we lose a lot of BTU's to heating of the duct work over and over. The ducts cool off and have to be constantly warmed back up again once the furnace kicks back on.

I say this because when I look my own numbers, things don't make much sense. I am essentially replacing ~1,100 gallons of LP with ~4.4 cords of red oak.

1 gal LP = 91,500 BTU's
1 cord of red oak = 23,725,000 BTU's

1,100 gallons of LP: 100,650,000 BTU's
4.4 cord of wood: 104,390,000 BTU's

Using the stated efficiencies of both appliances:

LP (92%): 92,598,000 average BTU's supplied to the house averaged over those 5 or so winters keeping the house 68° and not heating the basement.

Kuuma (78%): 81,424,200 BTU's keeping the house warmer overall and heating the basement.

So, I'm sending less theoretical BTU's into the home heating with wood all while keeping the house warmer overall and heating more volume.

I just think using the combustion efficiency of fossil fuel furnaces to compute delivered BTU's may be inaccurate due to losses I mentioned above.

 

[stoveliker]

Yes. Though I confused furnace and boiler; I have oil -> hot water. Those pipes are all inside the envelope and thus losses there are minimal.

 

[ABMax24]

If you honestly figure in the value of your time I seriously doubt heating with wood saved and money over some other options.

That's exactly it. I went to work yesterday for 11 hrs of straight OT, in one single day I made enough after tax to pay the additional cost on my gas bill that my wood stove saves me over the course of the winter. There's no way I can process a winters worth of wood in one day, never mind any of the other activities associated with operating a wood stove.

 

[Ashful]

If you honestly figure in the value of your time I seriously doubt heating with wood saved and money over some other options.

Well, of course. But I don’t figure my time, as it’s not an activity for which I can bill a customer. I also wouldn’t figure the cost of my hourly rate into time spent at the gym, if which is surely want some more, if I didn’t have this activity. Figuring cost of hours spent can get messy, we all have various rates for that, but surely few of us would choose another hour in the office over wielding our Stihl or Fiskars in the woods.

I’m talking true depreciation of equipment and the material goods of wood vs oil or LP alone. If you need to consider the cost of your time, then I’d argue you’re doing this for the wrong reason, there are definitely better ways to save more money with less time.

Things got busy last night, didn’t have a chance to post, but will to get my numbers together and post soon. You’ve seen them before, many times, so no huge surprise. I just want to look at how it compares to a total depreciation of all tools and equipment involved.

 

[snobuilder]

That's exactly it. I went to work yesterday for 11 hrs of straight OT, in one single day I made enough after tax to pay the additional cost on my gas bill that my wood stove saves me over the course of the winter. There's no way I can process a winters worth of wood in one day, never mind any of the other activities associated with operating a wood stove.

That was kind of my point. Some OT can pay for a bunch of NG vs. the same amount of hours making your own splits I used to get homeowners that would want a discount if they helped me with whatever construction job I was doing for them. I would first ask if they know construction, then what am I doing here if they can build.....and then ask if they have overtime available at their real job which will ....A. provide them with the $$ to pay me and B. keep them out of my way.

 

[Bobbob]

Here is a thought: If you enjoy sitting by a fire like I do, and you are saving money on heating costs, then burn some wood. If you don't enjoy the warmth of a fire or the gathering of wood, then don't. I enjoy every chance I get to spend some time alone in the woods. Keeping the fire lit all winter provides exercise and therapy for me. Over the last 2 years dealing directly with Covid patients on a daily basis has made me appreciate all of this even more. Some things cannot be measured in dollars and "sense"

 

[snobuilder]

Here is a thought: If you enjoy sitting by a fire like I do, and you are saving money on heating costs, then burn some wood. If you don't enjoy the warmth of a fire or the gathering of wood, then don't. I enjoy every chance I get to spend some time alone in the woods. Keeping the fire lit all winter provides exercise and therapy for me. Over the last 2 years dealing directly with Covid patients on a daily basis has made me appreciate all of this even more. Some things cannot be measured in dollars and "sense"

I think everyone here likes burning wood for heat or rec. or both but i find as I am getting older and it gets harder to keep up, i will most likely be looking at the actual savings with a more critical eye.

I am truly impressed and actually surprised by the calculations some of you do....way beyond my comprehension or interest....just wondering if youse calculate out each sheet of TP use as well.🤣...or flush rules?