New Woodburner

Cat_Loving_Lady

Just moved house looking to save on fuel costs.
How long does it take to recoup the cost of a woodburner.

QrizB

That's one of those "how long is a piece of string" questions.

If wood is free, and the woodburner replaces half of your heating costs, maybe 4-6 years at current energy prices?

If you have to buy all your wood, it's unlikely to ever pay for itself.

FreeBear

Depends on how much the stove & installation costs and how much you have to pay for logs.

Unless you live in a rural area, have access to a lot of free/cheap logs (and have space to store them), there really isn't much saving to be had. In and urban environment, a stove is often more a lifestyle choice, and buying in logs gets expensive very quickly. Even more so if you don't have any suitable dry storage space and are having to buy small nets.

[Deleted User]

Why not a multi-fuel stove? More variety of fuel available and easy to get. 

worlestone

Unless you live off the gas grid you'll not save anything, it's a lifestyle thing.  Cost is difficult to calculate;late, we're rural and on Economy 7, so heating with electricity in the evening is hideously expensive, the wood burner keeps us warm. A gas boiler, even now would be so much cheaper.

Sg28

Ive had a few quotes to install a multi fuel stove. Its about £4-5k. I dont expect to ever recoup that money. Having had a very old cottage with one in previously ts just something I like. 

Qyburn

It depends what you pay for wood. Round here it's £60 for a cu.m of softwood, around 250kg making it 6p/kWh.  Buying kiln dried hardwood will probably cost at least twice as much.

A stove's probably less efficient than an oil boiler, but makes up by the fact that it's mainly heating the room where it's installed rather than heating the whole house.

victor2

Cat_Loving_Lady said:

Just moved house looking to save on fuel costs.
How long does it take to recoup the cost of a woodburner.

FreeBear said:

Depends on how much the stove & installation costs and how much you have to pay for logs.

Unless you live in a rural area, have access to a lot of free/cheap logs (and have space to store them), there really isn't much saving to be had. In and urban environment, a stove is often more a lifestyle choice, and buying in logs gets expensive very quickly. Even more so if you don't have any suitable dry storage space and are having to buy small nets.

^^This exactly sums it up^^

We had a log burner installed about 4 years ago. As we have limited storage for logs, and no free supply, we have to buy a small number of sacks at a time. It costs more to run the log burner in an evening (£3 to £4 worth of logs) than it costs to run the central heating for the whole house. However, it is lovely to sit in front of, and we just open all the internal doors to let the warmth circulate around the house, as it chucks out a lot of heat (it's rated at 5KW) and causes the heating thermostat to switch the boiler off.

Plus we have to get the chimney swept once a year at a cost of £50.

It will never pay for itself unless gas prices go much much higher than they already are, and timber prices don't go up by a similar amount. Of course if the OP doesn't have gas, then you'd need to compare the cost against more expensive electric heating..

clive0510

I thought we supposed tp be doing away with things that put emissions into the atmosphere.

Ectophile

clive0510 said:

I thought we supposed tp be doing away with things that put emissions into the atmosphere.

A few years ago, we were being encouraged to switch to woodburners because the fuel they used was classed as a renewable.  Now we're being told they are polluting, and we shouldn't be using them.

Qyburn

clive0510 said:

I thought we supposed tp be doing away with things that put emissions into the atmosphere.

The particulates are a short term issue, once they're washed or precipitated form the air they're gone. Not a good reason to favour fossil fuel over a renewable source.