Jessica George
With winter just around the corner, and faced with higher natural gas and hydro bills than last year, many people are turning to wood stoves to heat their homes.
“The main difference is on one [the furnace], you just turn the thermostat and you have nice heat right there,” noted Joel Morris of North American Lumber, one of the local retailers that sell wood stoves.
‘The other option means having to find the wood, store the wood, season the wood, and some people don’t agree with the bark. Some people would call it a mess,” he laughed.
Morris admitted that moving to wood heat really is a trade-off where time and effort is necessary, but insisting the money savings definitely are worth it.
Ross Caul sells wood, both “green” and processed (i.e. cut, split, and seasoned), off his family farm out in Devlin. He noted one cord of mixed firewood (128 cubic feet stacked 4x8x4) sells for $65-$90 a cord in 100-inch form.
Only about five or six cords of wood are needed per winter season, meaning anyone could do the math and see the savings.
For some, these savings are great—but the work involved is a bit disconcerting.
After all, for unprocessed wood, you need to account for needing a good strong arm for splitting it, eight months of seasoning it, and room for storing it in your yard, preferably under a roof with sufficient airflow to help the seasoning process along.
However, for a slightly higher cost, purchasing processed wood from Caul is possible, which eliminates the back-breaking work. However, you’re still responsible for having a storage area.
Even though a wood stove can be a great option for heating your home, while there are no town bylaws prohibiting their use, you may get complaints from your neighbours about the smoke rising from your chimney.
If this doesn’t work for you, another option for heating your home more cost-effectively is to invest in a pellet stove.
A pellet stove is a stove that burns wood pellets made of compressed sawdust. It is equipped with a hopper in behind that allows you to fill it, leave it alone, and let it do all the work.
The hopper is fashioned with a dial that goes from “low” to “high,” which controls the speed at which the pellets are dropped into the furnace and subsequently controls the temperature output.
Pellets can be purchased in 40-pound bags, and the cost of heating your home over an entire winter only will be $700.
What makes this stove better for use in town over a wood stove is the fact that, since it is 90 percent efficient and has practically no waste, it does not emit any smoke. Rather, it puts out a clear gas much like a furnace does.
The only thing is that some black soot may accumulate on your siding, and perhaps (if your homes are fairly close together) it also may accumulate on the siding of your neighbour’s house.
Luckily, the soot only requires a hose-down to remove it.
Another benefit of a pellet stove over a wood stove is that if you are gone for a few days, you still can return to a warm home. The hopper in the back can be filled, turned to “low,” and it will run until it’s empty. It can run completely on its own for a few days.
Each option has its own merits, depending on your budget, your physical ability, and your personal preference. But before making your decision on what to do if your furnace breaks down this winter, or if you are just interested in making the switch, know that despite the method you choose to heat your home, there are several important things to keep in mind.
Buying a new furnace would cost around $1,500, a new wood stove would be between $600-$1,000, and a new pellet stove would run you roughly $1,500-$2,500 (depending on the model you choose).
Given the cost of each stove, it is important you shop around to all of the local retailers, like Ed Kaun and Sons, Tompkins Hardware, North American Lumber, and more.
As well, the efficiency for each option is different. A furnace is 100-percent efficient, a wood stove is 50 percent while a pellet stove can be up to 90 percent.
This means you may be getting more bang for your buck elsewhere. But always keep in mind the overall cost of heating your home with a 50 percent-efficient wood stove still may result in a cheaper bill than financing a 100-percent efficient furnace.
One other option is purchasing a combination wood and electric stove, which runs on wood until the fire goes out and then the furnace kicks in. This way, wood can subsidize the cost of heating your home solely by electricity.
If going the wood stove route, you also must remember to clean your chimney once a week. If this task is too daunting, there are alternatives to climbing in and giving it a brush. There are chemical options that just require you to sprinkle some compound onto the fire once bi-weekly.
Caul recommends using a mixed variety of wood as it will be best for combustion rates. He warned that using too many hardwoods, like ash, oak, or birch, can cause the stove to overheat, which will result in warped steel or a burned-out firebox.
Caul has noticed many people prefer to use these hardwoods since they put out a lot of heat, but that heat may ruin your stove.
He suggested opting for poplar as it also is a hardwood, but not as intense.
