//byAnnie Bernauer//28 Comments
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Heating your home with wood does not have to be expensive or overly labor intensive. In fact, we’ve found that wood heat is the best way to save money and efficiently heat our home throughout a long cold winter. Compared to gas or electric heat, wood heat keeps us warmer and is more cost effective.
We estimate that if we were to heat our house to 70 degrees during the day with just electric heat, our power bill would be at least $250 (and this is in an area with some of the lowest electric rates in the country!) Compare that to our actual cost of about $60 a month to heat our house with our wood stove to 70 degrees during the day. This cost would probably be even lower if we hadn’t been moving and would’ve had the time to go harvest our own firewood this year rather than buying a bulk load.
Nothing beats staying warm and cozy inside by our wood stove on a bitterly cold Montana winter day. We’ve been living in wood heated homes for years and have learned a few ways to save money on heating our home with wood.
Here are seven tips that have worked for us to save money on heating our home with wood:
1. Use an efficient wood stove:Upgrade your wood stove to an energy efficient wood burning stove. All of the local dealers who carry wood stoves in our area now carry several options for EPA approved wood stoves. These wood stoves are designed to burn more efficiently and actually require less wood to heat your home. They also put out a much smaller particulate in the air. The first year we upgraded to a more efficient wood stove (this is the one we have
), we were amazed at how much less wood we had to use to keep our home toasty and warm. You also may be able to qualify for a tax credit for upgrading which helps offset the cost.
2. Harvest your own firewood:For the cost of a $10 permit plus truck and chainsaw fuel you can harvest all the firewood you need on the public lands in our area. This was our primary way of getting firewood prior to becoming parents two years ago. I used to look forward to our “firewooding” adventures up in the mountains looking for dead standing trees to harvest. I have my own Stihl chainsaw and loved a hard days work to cut down a tree and buck firewood.
3. Scavenge:When driving in the woods, look for areas where others have cut down firewood. Scan the area for dropped pieces or wood left behind because they ran out of room in the truck. You would be amazed at how easy it is to gather wood this way. The best part? Someone else had to do most of the tough work already of cutting down the tree and cutting it in chunks.
4. Craigslist:Watch the local Craigslist ads for free firewood. Maybe someone is moving or no longer heats with wood and has a pile to give away to anyone willing to haul it. Last year we got a full trailer load of seasoned firewood (almost two cords) for free on Craigslist. It was cut in 12 foot lengths so we just had to bring it home, cut smaller lengths and split it.
5. Buy in bulk:Buy a bulk load of firewood from a local logger in the off season if you have the room to store it. Due to our move this summer/fall we didn’t have time to go up in the mountains to harvest any firewood so this is what we chose to do this year. My husband found a local logger selling a logging truck load of firewood at a low bulk rate on Craigslist. We ended up splitting the wood and cost with a friend. We figured out the cost per cord was about half the cost of the going rate for a cord of firewood during the prime season. We now have a big old stack of logs on the edge of our property we are slowly cutting, splitting and stacking in the barn.
6. Find local scrap wood:Connect with carpenters and wood workers in your community to have them give you their scrap wood to use for burning. A lot of wood working businesses have “free” scrap piles available. We know of one that we stop by anytime we’re in that area of town and load up on great hardwood kindling and boards.
7.Keep a chainsaw in your truck:We’ve learned to keep a chainsaw in the truck so when we’re out in the woods on other adventures we can harvest a tree if we happen to spot a good one. Whether we’re going out camping, berry picking or just for a drive in the mountains it pays to have the chainsaw along!
Using these tips, we’ve been able to save money heating our house with wood for a number of years. We’re able to keep our house nice and toasty warm for a fraction of the cost if we were heating with electric.
If you already heat your house with wood or are planning to install a wood stove, be sure to check out our post with tips on how to prevent a chimney fire!
If you heat with wood, do you have any tips to share?
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About Annie Bernauer
Annie Bernauer is a certified Master Gardener and Master Naturalist. She enjoys writing about her family's adventures in modern day homesteading in Montana and helping others to learn these skills.
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Reader Interactions
Comments
Great tips! Thank you!
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AnnieThanks for stopping by, hopefully these tips will be helpful to you!
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- christopher allen sutton
-talk to tree cutting companies [ you see,or hear working in your area ] sometimes they will give you wood [or even chips [ great for a garden ] FREE i have 2 years worth of fire wood free delivered to my house ……..also try to get oak \hickory \pecan or wild cherry first and formost then hack berry \elm\ a small amount of ceader and no pine!!!!! tennessee hillbilly!
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This was inspiring and I can’t wait to live in a place with no burn restrictions during the winter!!!
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- Annie
We’ve lived in an area with burning restrictions before and it is definitely frustrating. Ours was due to an inversion in the valley in winter creating poor air quality. That is another reason we were conscious of getting an EPA approved wood stove just to help reduce the particulate in the air.
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Found you on the The Frugal Days, Sustainable Ways Blog Hop. We are new to having a fireplace and have gone back and forth at putting a woodstove in or leaving as the fireplace, either way we use it your tips are super helpful, thanks!!
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- Annie
We actually have a fireplace built into the wall of our house but we don’t use it. We’ve found that our wood stove situated more central in our house is way more efficient at heating our house and uses less wood to do so since the fireplace is older and not efficient. The fire place looks pretty but not very functional for us!
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- SteveR
You can buy a “fireplace insert” which is essentially a woodstove which fits into the fireplace opening. These are efficient EPA approved stoves as well. I put one in last year and am now heating the house with it, whereas before the fireplace was just nice to look at but provided little to no heat.
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- Annie
Thank you for sharing that, I had no idea they made EPA approved fireplace inserts!
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We heat our house all winter long with wood heat. There just isn’t the same cozy, make ya feel good, warmth from heat that comes out of the vents from electric heat. The only thing I would add is keep those logs as big as you can. Don’t split them down too far. A bigger around log burns longer, using less wood. I love to get a good bed of coals going and then throw two big as I can fit em logs in the stove. Less times I have to get up in the night to check the stove and add more wood.
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- Annie
Yes, that is a great tip about the size of the logs! We keep the big chunks for night time. Our stove is actually so efficient that we can stick in two big chunks of wood and get up 8 hours later and still have a nice bed of coals to easily revive our morning fire. I’m actually sitting next to our cozy wood stove as I write this and you are right on about the feel-good warmth from a wood stove. It definitely doesn’t even compare to electric heat!
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Great tips and I couldn’t agree more on the merits of wood stove heat. I too was amazed when we bought a more efficient stove and lowered our wood consumption significantly as well as capturing more heat. The cost of propane is so high in this area that I do all I can to conserve in including hanging my clothes indoors in the winter to take advantage of that heat near the ceiling.
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- Annie
That’s a great idea to dry your clothes indoors near the wood stove to help conserve energy!
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- SteveR
Tip 8. Make sure your wood is bone dry. As a general rule, what you cut this year should only be used as firewood next year ( of course this depends on whether the wood you start with is already dry or not). Have the wood go through at least one entire summer of drying. Wood that is too green(wet) will smolder, create a lot of smoke, produce cool fires and generate more creosote in your flue or chimney.
Shelter your wood pile. Keep rain and snow off of it.
Ensure good circulation around your wood pile.
Face your pile towards the prevailing sun if possible and align your piles with the prevailing winds ( so air blows through it).
All these things will ensure that your wood is properly seasoned when you are ready to use it.
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- Annie
These are some really great tips Steve, thank you! We’ve also learned that using nice, dry wood makes a huge difference in how well our stove burns and produces heat. Plus if our wood is nice and dry, we don’t have to clean the chimney as often because there is less creosote built up!
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I love the smell of wood heat. Well, and the warmth too. Sadly our family has too many allergies and asthma issues to look forward to that when we own our own home. Great tips. Thank you for sharing with us this Fabulously Frugal Thursday.
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- Phil
I would only add that people might want to look into rocket mass heater designs. More efficient, when properly done, than wood stoves and the ducting can even be run through adobe-type masses which can be shaped into actual furniture. Make a nice toasty daybed or window seat.
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- Annie
Thank you for sharing that Phil, I’m not too familiar with those. I’m intrigued by something more efficient so will be doing some reading to find out more!
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We just bought a wood burning stove to be installed in a few weeks. I’m pinning your post for future reference! Thank you so much for sharing with us at the HomeAcre Hop! We’d love to have you back again tomorrow.
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- Annie
That’s so exciting you will installing a wood stove soon!
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Great points. We’ve had to use a wood supplier this year and with last year’s hard winter, it’s been struggle to find anyone with seasoned wood ready to burn. We decided that next year, we’ll be purchasing a vacant woodlot and harvesting our own firewood. Although the initial output will be high, I figure we’ll have the lot paid for within 4-5 years (sooner if we choose to sell off some of the excess). Thanks for the post!
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Thanks for such useful tips. I am glad you and your husband are so industrious in getting the wood for your home. We only use about two chords a winter here in Northwest Louisiana so I can’t imagine having to lay up so much wood as you do.!
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- Yvonne
My husband and I have heated with strictly wood for years. Here is a tip to spare wood, time and energy making kindling. In summer collect toilet paper tubes and stuff used dryer sheets and lint inside the tubes! Makes for fabulous fire starter and it’s all things that you would have thrown away or burned inefficiently!
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- marian
Instead of a wood stove we purchased a wood pellet stove. We are older and hauling/cutting wood can be hard work-I know-used to do it when we were younger. the pellet stove works great and WOW-never even use the propane furnace-
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