Bub got a wood splitter for Father’s day. For the past two wood seasons, he split all our firewood by ax. Well, not all. I can split wood and I am good at it, so I will pick up the ax once a year and prove I have good aim. But I hate splitting wood by ax, so I don’t. I have left it to him, just like he leaves holiday preparation to me.
We figure that the savings on oil this year will pay off the splitter pretty quickly. We put oil in the tank about 2 weeks ago and the cost was 4.67 per gallon. That is $ 1167.50 for a full tank. The wood splitter cost $1126.30 plus the gas in the truck to pick it up and bring it home. We think the cost is equal to tank of fuel oil.
Three years ago (two heating seasons) we took our tax return and a bit of our savings and put in a wood stove. About $4000.00 for the stove and building materials. Bub did it all himself. We ended up heating the house on one 250 gallon tank of oil. We heat our water with oil as well as have hot water baseboard heating throughout the house. The savings we had with the oil paid off the stove investment in two years.
We would fill the tank about once a month in the months of December through April. Then figure two more times in the off months for a total of about 6 tanks or 1500 gallons. Teens in the house with hot showers and tons of laundry adds up.
We burn about 5 cord each year. All of the wood comes off our land and we harvest it ourselves. It is a huge job and most of our “spare time” is alloted to the cutting, splitting, hauling and stacking of wood.
We live on a 20 acre lot that is mostly wooded. There is a beaver pond at the bottom of the land which is about 4 acres and our house and drive take up another .5 of land. We are slowly converting forest back to pasture. The land was pasture 70 years ago and has grown back. There is a deer yard on our property, which will not be harvested. If you cut correctly, one acre can produce one cord of wood per year, every year.
That translates to having a good bit of our heat being sustainable. It would be terrific to save enough to go “off the grid” but that will take a few more heating seasons to save up for solar panels and a windmill.
One small step at a time.
