Real world heating cost

[New Forest DEAN]

This is similar topic to another thread - I think wood burners are definately a luxury, unless you have no real choice. Everyone thinks they are lovely and cosy and good value (wood grows on trees, it must be cheap!), but don't factor in the cost the stove, installation, maintenance etc. And then the logs aren't cheap if you buy them ready split....

 

Gas (especially a combi condensing boiler) is the cheapest by a long way - our last house annual bill was about £400 for about 6 hours a day.

 

Oil in our new house (a bit bigger) was £300 a month!!! So got rid of the oil boiler..

 

Wood for 5-6 hours heating a day, 5 months over winter is costing about £500 total - but I do all the ringing and splitting, which is a huge amount of work (plus chainsaw, petrol etc). If I spent the same time on a paying job, I could easily pay for oil instead. But I enjoy chopping wood....at the moment...If I had to buy ready split it would be very expensive, probably as much as oil or more.

 

We also do the kettle and some cooking on the stove.

 

Our hot water comes from solar thermal (not PV) on the roof and provides for April to October - still getting a couple of showers in November.

 

We do run a 'cool' house though, not hot.

[BARNSLEY BOB]

It's interesting to read, that most of the few posting so far, would not heat by logs if they had to buy. Does this then indicate, that most people who but logs, are either paying through the nose for their primary heat source? Or that the wood burner is just a quaint accessory, that they feel gives a degree of rustic charm and incidentally, also heats a room when one has visitors?

 

interesting too how ignorant we all are on THE ACTUAL COSTS OF ENERGY...

 

variables, insulation,comfortable heat, ect,ect,

 

and you can always turn it OFF.. hair and nail extensions have priority over

 

heat and food.

[difflock]

I have maintained, since we started heating the whole house with a gasifying logwood boiler.

That it would be cheaper to sell the sticks for cash to pay for the heating oil.

This is subjective, the only "fact" I possess is that we used to heat the house with one full fill of oil in the year.

For the sake of round figs say 2500 litres worth.

Plus of course the Morso kicking out 5kw for 12/15 hrs per day (say)

I am burning a substantial amount of wood with all the attendent daily hassle to compensate for not burning oil.

Preversely, since we got underfloor, I should probably install a ground source heat pump, (under our RHI scheme) and since we are in peat, this would be ideal ground conditions for GSHP too.

then sell the logs for cash.

But still run the Morso of course.

It is indeed a funny old world.

[Woodworks]

interesting too how ignorant we all are on THE ACTUAL COSTS OF ENERGY...

 

variables, insulation,comfortable heat, ect,ect,

 

and you can always turn it OFF.. hair and nail extensions have priority over

 

heat and food.

 

Bob this thread on another forum might interest you. The chaps on there will talk numbers to you until your head spins

Green Building Forum - Money Box - Fires

[ThrustSSC]

Check out the Nottingham Energy Partnership online: September 2013 | Energy Comparison Data | Energy Cost Comparison | Nottingham Energy Partnership. They publish regular comparisons of all the main fuels - oil, gas, coal, logs, chip, pellets, etc.

 

The key learning is that wood is pretty similar to oil, and more expensive than gas. BUT...

 

The point about logs for MOST of our customers (or at least most of mine!) is that they are:

 

a) a luxury, giving them a nice romantic, warm living room after the kids have gone to bed

b) a 'point' heat source, heating only the room they're using. AGAs are the same - although they're inefficient compared to a condensing boiler, ours is actually cheaper to run as it only heats the room Mrs. ThrustSSC is in most of the day, not the whole house.

c) sometimes available for free - when you or friends cut down a tree, or burn some joinery offcuts - diluting the costs

 

Between the above, logs work out economical for most folks. But for those using them as their only heat source, and paying full price for them, they're expensive.

 

What will be interesting will be the subsidies under the new domestic renewable heat scheme: will these be high enough to cover the cost of the cord to produce the chip/pellets? If they are, does this give those prepared to put the effort in to converting cord into fuel the option of free heating...? (Accepted there will be administrative hoops to jump through!)

[ThrustSSC]

I have maintained, since we started heating the whole house with a gasifying logwood boiler.

That it would be cheaper to sell the sticks for cash to pay for the heating oil.

This is subjective, the only "fact" I possess is that we used to heat the house with one full fill of oil in the year.

For the sake of round figs say 2500 litres worth.

Plus of course the Morso kicking out 5kw for 12/15 hrs per day (say)

I am burning a substantial amount of wood with all the attendent daily hassle to compensate for not burning oil.

Preversely, since we got underfloor, I should probably install a ground source heat pump, (under our RHI scheme) and since we are in peat, this would be ideal ground conditions for GSHP too.

then sell the logs for cash.

But still run the Morso of course.

It is indeed a funny old world.

 

Difflock is spot on - I've made the same calculation that selling the logs to buy oil would leave us better off. BUT... I burn partly the crap that I won't sell (I market mine as a high-quality product, and that means properly-seasoned, no rotten bits, etc.). Logs with rotten bits on them burn nicely, but look ugly, and for me are a waste product.

[Dean Lofthouse]

We get as much efficiency as we can out of our stove, for example installing a big creel above it and drying one to two load of washing per day which saves tumble drying in winter plus boiling the kettle and boiling the spuds

 

Factor the saving and it brings down the cost somewhat, the actual figures I don't know

[AlleyCat`]

As a consumer of firewood with mains gas central heating i can tell you catergorically that gas is cheaper (even when you get some odds and ends for free).

 

I have a stove for several reasons, none of which are to do with "money saving" and i'm wise enough to know that is the case.

 

TSSC covers off several points that i'd consider apply to me.

I also enjoy splitting wood on a w/e (as i'm mostly a desk jockey).

 

There is also the "niggling" part of my brain that likes to have an isolated alternative to "mains" supplied anything when possible as the boiler doesn't work if the gas OR electric is disrupted.

[wrsni]

We have a Stanley solid fuel cooker which is used to heat the entire house and it runs on either coal (coke) or wood. The wood is our own and comes from various places but at no cost other than the labour involved however sometimes I'm too busy at my paying job to be able to cut, chop or whatever and it's coal only for a while.

 

A bag of good quality coke is costing us £16 at the minute and two bags will keep us warm and toasty for a week in all but arctic conditions. That's heat in the living room/kitchen and hot water 24/7, with radiators on for an hour between 6 and 7 in the morning, and from about 4 or 5 till bedtime at night.

 

With sticks/blocks I can cut down to about 1 bag of coke in the week but that will require 10 - 12 good bags of blocks (depending on the wood) to replace the one bag of coke. Well for me that's a saving, but it's not hard to do the maths and see that it would make no sense to purchase the wood.

 

The economics versus oil would probably be a bit more favourable, and we're also putting in a wood burning stove in a centrally located room to see if we can get a bit more heat out of the wood, good though stanley may be, but still on pure cost terms, wood simply doesn't compare, you need to look at it's other attributes.

[codlasher]

I agree with difflock too.

I am in a position that I have no central heating except my Morso 3610 that heats my house and the c 1960's back boiler open fire that heats two showers worth of water. When I have finished the building work, which includes installing massive amounts of insulation that is required on a house built in 1859, I will have minimal heating costs.

 

I am hoping to get down to a 5KW rather than a 16KW burner which would operate over the two coldest months. I plan to have a pellet boiler as primary heating and instant gas for hot water and cooking with solar to boost the hot water whenever the sun shines.

I burn about fourteen tons per year this way and by the costings that I read, yes I'd be better off with a different heat source but when you are unable to fit one, 'tis difficult to do anything else!

I finished one room recently and just the heat from the two spot-lights on their stand, that were helping me see, quickly raised the temperature to 60 degrees so I'm looking forward to finishing others.

 

The biggest plus recently though was that during the power cuts that the storm created our simple system that does not rely on electrickery merrily carried on regardless so we had hot water, heating and were able to cook with the only addition of a match to light the cooker as the electronic ignition was not operating. There's a lot to be said for the KISS principal!

codlasher

Edited November 6, 2013 by codlasher
Addendum.