Some general questions about living in Southern NH

[Nonesuch]

Originally Posted by chris410

If you were to BUY a cord of seasoned wood its about 300-350 dollars right now. which in reality its probably cheaper to burn oil at this cost and much easier. Burning wood for heat is a labor of love or a love of labor. If you have enough property or have the will to scrounge wood, its possible to get the wood for free although there is still a LOT of labor involved. It is also dirty, ash dust, wood chips, etc will make a mess of your house and as others have said the heat is uneven. Sounds glorious right? I wouldn't have it any other way! Something extremely rewarding about heating your house for nearly free, getting a good workout in and lounging around in your underwear in front of the fire when its -10 out.

Using wood for heat works best when you live on acres of hardwood or have another source of "free" hardwood. As they say, heating with harvested wood warms you three times.

Most everybody I know who heats with wood or biobricks has a fossil fuel furnace so their house/pipes don't freeze, e.g. if they go away for a 3-day weekend.

Originally Posted by NHartphotog

NH is a VERY EXPENSIVE place to live. The highest electricity costs of ANY state. Insane property taxes that continue skyrocketing (no homestead exemption; assessed at MORE than market value & constantly reassessed higher.

Only your first sentence is broadly true for the state.

NH not only doesn't have the highest electricity rate of any state (Nobody else comes close to Hawaii!), but whether you rank by rate or average consumer bill, we aren't even the highest in New England.

I moved here in part to get away from paying even higher property taxes, and mine are not skyrocketing, perhaps you chose your town poorly? My assessed value has (nearly) always been at or below market value, and is only reassessed on the five year interval mandated by the NH state constitution (Part 2 Article 6).

Originally Posted by NHartphotog

Plus, forget trying to hire anyone to help you with ANYTHING - anyone who can afford to live here isn't going to do "menial" labor for any price. If you're lucky, you can hire a company to provide a service - so rather than pay someone $10 an hour to clean your house, you must contract with "The Maids" & pay the equivalent of $100/hour.

I don't entirely consider this a negative, but then I've never been one to routinely hire servants.

[NorCalMan]

Originally Posted by chris410

I am not sure what a ton of wood is but that sounds like there is a zero missing. A cord of wood will heat a 2000 sq foot house with average insulation and decent windows for about a month +/- (more if its cold, less if its warm)

If you were to BUY a cord of seasoned wood its about 300-350 dollars right now. which in reality its probably cheaper to burn oil at this cost and much easier.

Burning wood for heat is a labor of love or a love of labor. If you have enough property or have the will to scrounge wood, its possible to get the wood for free although there is still a LOT of labor involved.

It is also dirty, ash dust, wood chips, etc will make a mess of your house and as others have said the heat is uneven.

Sounds glorious right? I wouldn't have it any other way! Something extremely rewarding about heating your house for nearly free, getting a good workout in and lounging around in your underwear in front of the fire when its -10 out.

Hahaha, that's great! Thanks for the visual. But yeah, I get what you and others are saying about wood. Definite pros and cons. Oil is definitely the cheapest.

[Nonesuch]

Originally Posted by NorCalMan

I get what you and others are saying about wood. Definite pros and cons. Oil is definitely the cheapest.

I'm very happy to have oil, though there were a few years where snowfall and ice buildup were such that my dealer couldn't get their truck up my driveway, and I had to ferry cans of diesel fuel from the gas station

Now I have more uses for diesel and more ORD/HHO storage. And I still burn a lot of hardwood and compressed superlogs.