Installing A Wood Burning Stove Or Boiler Stove. What Do They Cost to Run?

If you were to ask: 'should I stick with fossil fuels and beef up my insulation so that I use less; or do I go for a wood burning stove or boiler stove'? I would go for the wood boiler every time; and with the money you save you can get the insulation. That is if you consider you still need it, remember a house has to breath.

There are three main types of wood burning stove: The straight Wood Burning Stove, the Wood Burning Boiler Stove, and the Wood Burning Home Furnace. Both the Boiler Stove and the Home Furnace can be free standing, appearing much like a straight Wood Burner and generally installed in the main living room as part of the décor, or they can be utility units situated in the yard or boiler room and can be of significant dimensions, feet rather than inches. These will generally be for the larger dwellings giving longer burn times, larger loads and will include sophisticated air flow control. The straight Wood Burner can be free standing or come as a fireplace insert.

Installing a straight wood burner or multi fuel stove is relatively simple, a day a or two's work for an experienced installer. There is no reason why a straight wood burner cannot be installed in every room of the house, though that would rack up the cost, unless you are a D.I.Y installer, and anyway most people would consider it impractical, despite older houses, which most houses are are, having fireplaces in every room including the bedrooms, and of course that would mean maybe seven or eight chimneys to sweep. Impracticalities aside, such an arrangement would considerably reduce your fossil fuel bill, the bulk of which would then go to just heating the hot water.

On the other hand you may consider a multi fuel boiler stove which will provide central heating and hot water. The installation is somewhat more complex, but the result is well worth the effort. For guidance on installation you may visit my web page: A Do It Yourself Guide To Installing A Wood Burning Boiler Stove

The other choice is: multi fuel or straight wood. The multi fuel gives you a plan B. You can burn smokeless fuel if you can't get wood. You can forget wood altogether. It's much easier to have the coal man deliver a ton of smokeless,than it is to have the log man deliver a hundred cubic feet of logs; though smokeless it's still a fossil fuel with green taxes.

Since the first firing of my wood burning boiler stove in the last week of October 2010 I have to say I have never been quite so comfortable. The winter of 2010/11 was the first winter in 29 years when I was not acutely aware of the weather outside. The house was, and is, warm from top to bottom, I have plenty of hot water, and I don't have: double glazing, loft or cavity wall insulation. If the house were properly insulated it would be too warm. In fact it is so warm that even without the insulation I have to open a window from time to time.

Another advantage to solid fuel, not just wood, burned in a multi fuel boiler, is that the entire house warms up even when the fire is ticking over. The fire may go out overnight and the radiators feel cold to the touch but the house is never really cold and it soon warms up again when you relight the fire, particularly when there is plenty of hot water left in the cylinder. It's only when you go outside that you realise how warm it is inside.

Because I burn mostly free wood I saved around £1100.00 in fuel costs over that first winter of 2010/11 and virtually recouped, the cost of installation. The installation was D.I.Y and came out at something less then £2000.00. Now that is not bad going, when you consider how long it takes to recoup the cost of double glazing and other insulating measures. The savings are ongoing, even during the summer I light the stove for a couple of hours in the evening to heat up the water, though that will cease when I install solar hot water. The largest part of my electricity bill is running the computer and microwave cooking. My electricity bill is lower than fuel companies say you can save by trying their new deal.

I calculated I used 4 cords of wood over the winter season, but that was almost entirely softwood from pallets. If I had used only hard wood logs I would have burned less. In the cost comparison table I priced the closest I could get to a cord which in French is 3.4m3.

Even if I were to buy one load of logs per month at around £110 for 100 cubic feet or there abouts, which is more than I can burn, my fuel bill would be half that for the propane gas that I used to use. Even spending £100 every two weeks (and that was 2009) on propane my home wasn't warm enough, I still had to choose which rooms to heat; on wood I can heat them all. I shudder to think what that would have cost me on propane.

I acknowledge that for most people D.I.Y installation and the acquisition of free fuel is impractical, but even buying your logs will be more cost effective than oil, gas or electricity by a long long way. It is also possible to buy logs in bulk which is even more of a saving; though you have to have somewhere to put them.

The U.S. Dollars for G.B. Pounds equivalents are a little misleading as unit for unit things are less expensive in the United States, but I think the ratio between the two fuels may hold good. If you are buying logs in the UK, try and work it out in cubic feet. The log sellers in the UK use a variety of measures from 1mtr dumpy bags with varying degrees of 'fullness' to 'half loads' 'full loads' 'double loads'. Often they fill a Transit tipper which is 7' x 10' x eighteen inches which yields 105 cubic feet of jumbled logs, not the same as stacked logs which occupy much less space. I bought 3 cubic mtrs, when I stacked them in my log store they measured 1.8 cubic mtrs.

In the U.S wood is sold in cords. A cord is based on a stacked volume of logs measuring 4' x 4' x 8' which is 128 cubic feet. You can also get a face cord which is 4' x 2' x 8' giving 64 cubic feet and you know what you're getting. In the U.K we're buying a lot of fresh air.

If you decide to buy logs get hard wood if you can and ready split; unless you want to split your own. There are a range of Lo-tech (brute force) log splitters available that don't do a bad job once you get the hang of it; and splitting logs is not a bad way to spend a couple of hours. Alternatively there are inexpensive powered log splitters; I guess it depends on how many many logs you want to split.

Log suppliers will advertise their logs as seasoned logs; but they they may not be. They may have been cut down a year or two earlier but may have been lying around in the woods for all that time simply because they won't have the under cover storage.

Generally, split hardwood logs take around two years to season, oak around three. If you buy them unsplit with the bark still intact they will take longer as the bark holds in the moisture.

You need to start buying logs in May/ June so they can season on and be ready for winter. You can build yourself a log store, pallets are ideal for conversion to log stores. Make it one, or at the most two logs deep. Just keep the rain off the top and keep the front, back and sides well ventilated. Get yourself a moisture meter to measure the water content of the logs. Ideally it should be below 20%; but I am happy with under 25%. I bought one load of logs at the start of this project. They cost me £105.00 for 100 cubic feet of mixed logs. They were bought as seasoned logs but all of them had a moisture content of 36% or more. I found I had to bring them in a few at a time and stack them over and around the stove for a couple of days to complete the drying process to below 20%. Some came down to less the 10%. Once they are dry I take them off the stove and stack them to one side and bring in the next load.

Drying logs out around the stove is not an uncommon practice. Keep in mind though; that I have a boiler stove, and the fire box is surrounded by a water jacket, so the top, sides and the rear of the stove are never hotter than the water inside; this will not be so with a straight wood burning stove, which will be much HOTTER. It is not recommended that the logs ignite before you get them in the stove so be a little cautious when drying out your logs.

Is there a down side? Not to me there isn't; but it depends on your point of view. You have to pay the fire some attention; keep putting fuel on, relight it when it goes out, keep the hearth swept, sweep the chimney, etc. And let's be realistic; it WILL NOT look like the promotional brochure with a tidy pile of sanitised logs on a plate glass hearth and a vase of lilies. You can try of course; but If you use your stove as your main form of heating it will look like it's doing a job of work. I know some people are tidier than others, and some may feel they can just bring in the logs for the current burn and fussily sweep up the odd speck of sawdust; but it won't last. Soon you will be bringing in enough for evening, then it'll be for the whole day, you'll get a bigger log basket. Then you'll create a halfway house between the log pile and the fire; probably in the back porch, where you will store enough for the week. You will just do what you have to do to keep that home fire burning, and the sawdust can go hang, because once you put a match to that stove that will be it; it will be love at first light.

You will have to forage for fuel if you want free fuel; but you will consider it more like recreation with a pay off.

Taken all round a wood burning boiler stove is less trouble than keeping a dog; and you won't have to take it for a walk. In fact if you have a wood burner, the dog won't want to go for a walk in the first place; it'll be out to the yard and back in quick time. Like a dog though, you will have to consider the stove one of the family; but there are no vets bills, no unsavoury doggy bags. OK so the stove won't give you an affectionate lick or greet you like a long lost friend when you walk in the door; but it will welcome you with a wall of warm air that will engulf you as you stand by the open door kicking snow off your boots. Your stove won't love you like a dog; but you will definitely love your stove.