Imported kiln dry logs ?

[Woodworks]

To put it into perspective to heat our house with bought in processed dry wood would cost about £1,500 to £2,000. The equivalent oil would have been under £500 if you got your timing right in summer. It's only a matter of time when the result of the wood burner boom of a few years back is that people realise they cost them more money burning wood sorry to say.

 

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How do those numbers work?

 

Done some quick sums and our logs work out at £0.07 per kWh before appliance inefficiencies and we are not cheap. Is oil as low as £0.02 per kWh?

[gdh]

To put it into perspective to heat our house with bought in processed dry wood would cost about £1,500 to £2,000. The equivalent oil would have been under £500 if you got your timing right in summer. It's only a matter of time when the result of the wood burner boom of a few years back is that people realise they cost them more money burning wood sorry to say.

 

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A lot of that is because oil went down in price while wood is creeping up but steadily. It will also depend on how much you're paying for firewood which is the key thing.

 

If you really wanted to use a wood fuel source you'd be better off with woodchip since it's slightly cheaper to produce and burns much more efficiently.

[gdh]

Some quick figures...

Google puts the costs at 7p a kwh for wood (sounds expensive to me but probably correct as an average) , 3.5 for chip (sounds cheap, I expect thats skewed by commercial users and I would charge 5p to domestic users) and oil at 4p.

 

That's from April.

 

Our biggest 5cube load of less than 20% moisture hardwood is just over £60 a cube delivered if someone knows the figures to work that out. I've confused myself trying already

[william petts]

I'm thinking of installing a log burner in our house, all hot water etc is from gas, but with a log burner there would be no need to have any of the radiators on as the heat from the fire would soon warm up the house, it's not very big, so gas would only need to be used for hot water for taps, and bath. It's all hypothetical talking but I reckon wood would be cheaper,

[biggarlogs]

In my house (4 bed farmhouse)the previous occupiers bur ed 500 litres of oil a month.I burn 500 litres a year now but burn 3 cubic metres a month of wood .if wood cost me £60 a cube that would be 180.now oil at 45present a litre would be £225 so how does that stack up?.of course I get my logs for free so I am lsughing:thumbup:

[SbTVF]

Chip for our chip boiler costs about 2p per kWh we reckon if we chip it ourselves. But that's only cos we bought the chipper for £800 initially. Also includes a sharpen of the irons at £35 a time. So it won't last if we put 100t a year through it.

 

Even buying it in its costing us about 4p per kWh.

 

If you've got an efficient log burner and buy in big enough bulk I don't see why you couldn't save money but most people aren't interested in that.

 

I'd say 90% of customers just have it for effect and the enjoyment of it. It's not a money saver.

 

 

 

 

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[cornish wood burner]

Ltr of oil contains almost 11 kWh so at 40p/ ltr that's about 4p / kWh

Cube of wood weighing 500 kg at £100/ cube is 20p/ kg

Kg of wood contains 4 kWh so 5p / kWh

If wood was £80/ cube then it's 4p / kWh same as the oil.

No calculator and not checked this btw

Our chip cost is just under 2 p/ kWh

Edited November 24, 2016 by cornish wood burner

[Daerve]

We have to use oil for CH but it's rarely on with the burner going. We only tend to use it in the morning prior to firing up the burner.

 

Considering that I'm a total unashamed log goblin and have used up every spare bit of space to store free sourced wood means it's a lot cheaper than oil.

 

No one gives away oil but wood....

[openspaceman]

Cube of wood weighing 500 kg at £100/ cube is 20p/ kg

 

Moisture content of this 500kg wood?

 

A tonne of freshly felled pine occupies about 1 solid m^3 and has about 400kg of dry matter, chop it up and it probably occupies 2m^3 of space. Chip it and it is a heap of ~3m^3

 

 

Kg of wood contains 4 kWh so 5p / kWh

 

1 kg of wood at 20%mc wwb contains about 4kWh

 

Our chip cost is just under 2 p/ kWh

 

It's an interesting comparison because I think you buy your wood in green by the tonne, you then season it in the round prior to chipping at around 20%mc

 

So your air drying from ~50% MC to 20% mc changes the weight and increases the calorific value.

[Big J]

With our house (127 square metre, late 18th century detached cottage) we get through about 1200 litres of oil a year (hot water mostly, and is being topped up on Monday for 35.5p a litre, which is quite reasonable, I thought) and around 35 cubic metres of firewood. At the moment we are easily a cube a week. House is warm though, and trousers are rarely worn in the living room with the stove!

 

I'm mixed hardwood/softwood, so would be about £1800 a year if I bought my wood. Oil is another £500, though I'd think we'd get through another £2000 worth of oil if we didn't use wood.

 

The economics of heating your house with wood rarely stack up unless you have a cheap source. I say that with the proviso that that applies in the present market. It may change.