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Submitted by Garen Daly on Sun, 2008-11-09 16:36.
With winter fast approaching and even though the price of heating oil has moderated, many people are taking a close look at some alternatives. This article will not discuss solar, geothermal or wind, but rather wood, wood pellets, space heaters and some other relatively simple methods of heating your home. BEFORE STARTING - Questions to Ask  WOODPROS - off the grid, easy to find, relatively inexpensive, possible use of your own back yard, CONS - labor intensive, daily mess, not as efficient, inconvenient, higher emissions (new wood stoves are forbidden in some areas), stacking and storing (need 6.5 cords for the average house), maintenance (chimney, etc), increased safety concerns. carbon monoxide. insects and vermin. Costs: Unit cost - around $800 plus $300 for installation. Fuel Costs - $250 to $300 per cord Around $75 per cord if you cut yourself. PELLET STOVES Factoid: Over 800,000 people use pellet stoves PROS - good availability, relatively inexpensive for fuel and appliance, few emissions, can be loaded automatically, ecologically better (uses biomass)  CONS - more cumbersome than oil or gas, storage area is big, need over 7 tons for the average house, maintenance (chimney, etc), getting a uniform temperature in a houseCOSTS: • unit cost - around $800 plus $300 for installation. • Fuel costs - around $225/ton SPACE HEATERS Portable heaters could save you money--if you keep most of your house much chillier and use the heater in just one room to supplement your regular heating. Otherwise, you'll spend more on electricity for several heaters than you would to run your furnace. What's more, open floor plans can make sealing off just one room to save energy impossible. Kerosene and natural-gas heaters don't use electricity, but they do bring added fire risks and fumes. We recommend limiting their use to camping and emergency heat during a blackout. Cost will vary depending on your electricity costs, number of space heaters used, but space heaters are not recommended for overall heating, but very specific, small areas, maybe taking the chill out of a bathroom for a morning shower. 'MIRACLE' AMISH HEATERS You’ve seen the ads. Buy a lovely wood mantel and get a free "miracle" heater, one that Here's some math to ponder. If you pay 20¢/kwh for electricity, this heater will cost about 30¢/hr per to operate; if the heater runs 12 hours a day, that adds $108 a month to an electric bill for one room. This is true for ANY 1,500 watt electric heater. Also, ALL 1,500 watt electric heaters produce 5,119 BTU. If an electric heater was 100% efficient, it would convert 1,500 watts of electricity into 5,120 BTU of heat. All electric heaters are nearly 100% efficient, and this has been true for decades. The "miracle" heater is no more efficient than any other electric heater. A space heater saves you money if you turn down your central heat, buy one heater, use it to heat one room at a time, and move the heater from room to room as you move around. This is called "zone heating." You’re not going to move the mantel and the heater from room to room. And most people don't like to have just one room of their house warm while all the others are cold.
If you want to get one heater and move it around with you, that would be cheaper than central heat, but you can get a lightweight 1,500 watt / 5,119 BTU electric heater with a fan for under $100 at your local hardware store, while the "miracle" heater costs $350 including shipping. The heater at your local hardware store won't have the Amish-made mantle and the fake flames, but it will work just as well. Make sure to get one with a fan, since it will warm up the room faster, although fans can be noisy. Various woods have different densities and the denser the wood, the longer it will burn. In general, hard woods are better than soft woods. The best hard woods are apple, elm, ash, maple and oak. Figure 1 cord of seasoned wood equals 100 gallons of heating oil but this a simplistic number which will vary from wood to wood, type of stove, etc, According to Consumer Reports the best way to determine true value is establishing the cost of the fuel, the heating value in BTUs aand the efficency of the heating appliance. The numbers of BTUs issued by 1 gallon of oil at a cost of $1 per gallon, then the cost is $10.99/Mbtu A cord of seasoned hardwood, costing $250 a cord will end up around $11.00/mmBTU. This does not include delivery, stacking, or any maintenance. Here's another way to look at. In simple cost terms, heating with wood will cost at least 47% at less than heating with oil. (source: hearth.com) • HEAT COST CALCULATOR from Hearth.com • HEATING & COLLING TIPS from the University of Maine Extension Service • BURNING CORN from Penn State University |
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Green wood is not only bad for your chimney, it is less efficient. It requires 20% more green wood to get the same energy from seasoned wood.