Question for people with wood burning stoves

Davesnave

What are people paying for logs? I'm on £55 a trailer load for hardwood and £35 for softwood, and I reckon it is well over a tonne. I wouldn't say it is all wonderfully seasoned as it's stacked outdoors with no protection, but probably a year or so old. This will be no problem to me as I've plenty of dry storage, so next summer I'll get enough under cover in advance. Overall this seems a good deal, but I have no previous experience.

Lotus-eater

It depends how big the trailer is Dave!
There's 3 or 4 guys who supply firewood round here, I haven't bought any for a couple of years but I see what other people buy, I always go and have a nose to see what quality it is and how much they paid.
I reckon for about a metre cubed of hardwood about £65, 2 metres, £120.

They all seem to charge about the same and the wood is of varying quality depending on the time of year I think. I bet any wood bought atm would be terrible.

It's expensive round here wood, rural, but expensive rural area, too many people with wood burning stoves who wouldn't even think about the cost of wood.

Lotus-eater

jojonic wrote: »

Except if the price of gas is going to rise at the predicted rates over the next few years, people using 'renewable' sources of energy will be laughing all the way to the bank whilst those of us stuck with good old gas central heating will be weeping over our gas bills!

Well what's to stop you getting a stove put in, in the future then? Nothing, in fact if it goes like you say then there may well be more installers and the cost may be cheaper (I don't think it will btw)
I said somewhere on here once about the cost of wood rising if there were more people targeting the limited resource which firewood is and the cold weather this year has shown that to be true, as well as the amount of stove owners shooting up last year because of the oil price.
Go get a woodburner and buy the wood, then tell me how much you save over gas, nothing that's what, the price of gas would have to massively go up to make a woodburner worthwhile in money terms.

Davesnave

Lotus-eater wrote: »

It depends how big the trailer is Dave!

Hmmm....looking at the pile that came on Friday, there's well over a m3 when its all stacked, so that looks quite good.

The load before that was in a tractor link box due to the snow and not as much, but hey, just getting a delivery at that time was remarkable in itself.:)

The pile of stuff I'm making from my own trees is still less than a m3, but every little helps. I reckon I can cut 2 tonnes a year without depleting them and I have more trees waiting to go in....if only I knew where! Plans keep changing.....:o

savemoney

Dont you think wood wont rise there is only so much renewable wood if people keep getting log burners logs will have to be imported and or prices wil shoot up. They already have in my area 20+% last year prices shot up

There is no evidence that using a log burner is cheap, the guy who represents the trade said so on working lunch the other week. He did say its nice to have one and asset to your home. Unless of course you can get free fuel

jojonic wrote: »

Except if the price of gas is going to rise at the predicted rates over the next few years, people using 'renewable' sources of energy will be laughing all the way to the bank whilst those of us stuck with good old gas central heating will be weeping over our gas bills!

savemoney

Another thing you got to take into account most of us with CH. Using gas you normally pay in 2 tiers, like 4.2p tier 1 2.5p tiers 2. You go through to tier 2 very easily in Winter so the biggest part of your bill will be tier 2 @ 2.5p or there abouts

I have alog burner I didnt pay for logs this winter which would costs me £130. I just had my big winter has bill despite awful cold weather my bill has jumped up by £130 for logs

You also have to factor in getting chimney cleaned in any equation, this can be £40 and need doing once a year sometimes twice

choille

There is so much wood waste & now it can't be put into land fill that surely it makes sense to allow people to get & take it away free.
I am lucky in being able to get wood free - have a lot of dead wood on the croft.
Saw mills usually allow you to get slab wood & off cuts free or cheap. When you see the waste that's left on a forest floor after they've felled it it's incredible - mind you a lot of it is rubbish & awkard - but free.
If you want free wood & have transport you can get it with a bit of forsight & a 'skip diving frame of mind.

mirabelle

FIDDIWEBB

Excellent, informative post. I agree, you must know what wood you are burning for best results. I have turned against wood this winter and am burning smokeless fuel Taybrite which is really hot and stays in overnight so there is no need to remake in the morning. It produces a lot of ash so you must clear this out during the day, but the cost is cheaper than logs and it throws out a lot of heat and doesn't take a lot of attention like wood.

cliffski

FWIW we got the efficiency of our stove massively better. We called the installers and spoke to them, and they told us to keep the long thin draw tray doodad pushed 90% in, and to control the heat with the spin wheel (normally have it 90% in). This is the complete OPPOSITE of the instructions in the clearveiw manual. Doing it this way around has emant the stove gets WAY hotter, and burns much longer. It's great now.

When the stove is on, we are always using it to boil a kettle for tea, so that saves us some cash too, plus its good fun.
We have found that quality of wood varies a lot. Our local jhardware store sells great wood, the local B*Q does cheap 3 for 2 bags which feel like sponges they are so wet. we are storing them for next year and sticking to the dry stuff. One day the real ordered stuff will show up

Lotus-eater

cliffski wrote: »

FWIW we got the efficiency of our stove massively better. We called the installers and spoke to them, and they told us to keep the long thin draw tray doodad pushed 90% in, and to control the heat with the spin wheel (normally have it 90% in). This is the complete OPPOSITE of the instructions in the clearveiw manual. Doing it this way around has emant the stove gets WAY hotter, and burns much longer. It's great now.

The wheel you are supposed to use to start the fire?

Anyone else heard this?