BDN article about Maine heating fuels. (Hope: 2015, house, buy)

[Submariner]

Here is an interesting article comparing heating fuels.

Census: Maine homes continue switch from heating oil | Widgets and Digits

I can certainly understand why people are moving away from burning oil, though I am surprised that so many homes still use oil.

Given that 92% of Maine is forest, it seems odd to see such a disparity between oil and wood consumption.

Aside form Oil, Wood, bottled gas and piped gas, it is also interesting to see the increase in 'other' heat sources.

[znlwovuhrjw]

I think about it in terms of convenience. Which option is the easiest? Naturally people choose the most convenient option.

[TheKezarWoodsman]

My goal is to oneday heat with all or mostly wood (you can buy some and cut the rest). Seems much cheaper (assuming you gather it all youself) to spend a couple weekends and days off work gathering wood for winter (8-12 cords max im assuming for a a average home).

[Submariner]

We go toward the lowest cost option here.

We have heated with peat, coal and wood. For now we are just heating with wood. Our 2400 square foot house consumes a little over 3 cords of firewood each heating season.

Hopefully we will have an Active Solar-Thermal system in-place next year. That should reduce our fuel need. We would like to bring our wood consumption down to one cord per year.

[maineborzoi]

Last year, our first winter here in Maine, we used our two woodstoves only. We did not burn a single drop of oil all winter. We used 5 cords of woods but that is also factoring that one of the stoves is an Older Benjamin stove that really should be updated to a more efficient stove.

[Northern Maine Land Man]

Pellets are around $245 a ton right now.

[roadrat]

I burn wood pellets and oil, depending on price I burn one or the other more or less, Right now oil is $1.69 that is the equivalent of pellets at $169.00 a ton. With pellets at $245.00 it looks like oil is the winner this year. I do love the heat and flame from my pellet stove, so it will get some use this year no matter the price.


Bill

[399083453]

Originally Posted by Submariner

Given that 92% of Maine is forest, it seems odd to see such a disparity between oil and wood consumption.

Few Mainer's have access to free wood. So they must buy it from someone else with forest. Seasoned wood is not cheap, nor is it always available.

People can get oil by simply calling any oil company on a long list of local companies.

[Submariner]

Originally Posted by 399083453

Few Mainer's have access to free wood. So they must buy it from someone else with forest. Seasoned wood is not cheap, nor is it always available.

People can get oil by simply calling any oil company on a long list of local companies.

Good point.

That reminds me. I have made this offer before.

If anyone wants access to woodlot, to cut firewood, contact me. We are willing to allow anyone to cut wood on our land [with the understanding that your not doing it for resale].

We have allowed folks to cut so they could get logs to build a cord-wood house.

[TheKezarWoodsman]

Whats a cord of wood cost up there? Down here its about 200ish per cord. Im assuming either way cheaper due to supply, or really expensive due to demand.