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[Crow]

  Hello all.Newbie from Ontario here and really been enjoying this forum. I am wondering if a switch would be worth it for me. We have a 14 year old 1500 sqft bungalow with insulated bsmt and 570 sqft attached garage,unheated. We heat with oil (forced air furnace and DHW) and as you may well know it's not getting any cheeper! We keep the t-stat usually around 60-64 but will crank it all the way up to 68-70 and the really cold days.

  What I'd like to ask is at what point did you guys say that's enough and make the switch? We used about 1500L/400gal per year the last 2 years ( I don't think thats bad but we do keep the house less than "room temperature") Don't know how much we would use at 72.

[Scott7m]

If your using 400 gallons at 60 degrees, it would take 560-570 gallons to stay at 72

Comfort level would go way up

[Crow]

  Oil today ( just filled up ) was 1.169/L and I would purchase wood from FIL. Hopefully he would give me a good deal.

[willieG]

lets take scotts numbers and round them off to 600 gallons to stay taosty warm that would be about 83,000,000 btu that would be about 4.5 cords of good hardwood (hickory) and 8 cords of softwood or 6 of mixed hardwoods

this is just a first guess as we do not know what the efficiency rate of your current stove is or what efficenncy rate of the OWB you will buy is (gasser or non gasser) this guess is only  on how many btu are in a gallon of oil and how many recoverable btu are in a cord of certain types of wood

[Scott7m]

It's definitely worth it, the comfort combined with fuel savings

[willieG]

you say ontario, so you are dealing with litres. but i am not sure what gallons you deal with so i will compare to  american....600 american gallons is 2271 liters at 1.169 is about 2655 loonies and going up every heating season. canadian gallon comparison would be 600 canadian = 2727 liters...more loonies 

[johnybcold]

A ahh the question I played with for 3-5 years
To me it was about saving money and heating my house the way I want to not how I can afford to, at the mercy of the gov. And big oil

[Crow]

 Thanks to all you fine lads for your responses.  My wife grew up with wood heat 'till the day she came to work for me, HA HA! We have been talking and talking and talking about switching for couple years now but as spring comes around it gets forgotten untill october shows up - "You know we should have done something!"

[rick w]

hello crow we just purchased 24 cords of oak for 1320.00 thats enough wood to heat my house and polebarn for3 plus years and another 840.00 to get it cut and split i cant split and cut anymore, thats still only 720.00 per year and we can keep the heat in the house at 74 and the polebarn at 55to 65. so 720.00 dollars per year isnt to bad i couldnt heat with propain for that. think about it. and stay warm not juat comfortable. happy burning rick

[MattyNH]

 Its def worth the switch..The question is..Are you willing to do the work...The  cutting and splitting (if needed) the wood if you buy it by the grapple..Or buy it pre split where you just have to stack the wood (which costs more) Got your own supply even better!..Wood is always cheaper..Its just the labor..Its sure nice not hearing that oil boiler firing up and your thermostat is set at 74 and unlimited hot water  .. 7 winter years being offline to the oil man for me..I get oil every 2 yrs for the summer months for hot water..This summer I'll be getting a fill up where prices are lower..

[MattyNH]

hello crow we just purchased 24 cords of oak for 1320.00 thats enough wood to heat my house and polebarn for3 plus years and another 840.00 to get it cut and split i cant split and cut anymore, thats still only 720.00 per year and we can keep the heat in the house at 74 and the polebarn at 55to 65. so 720.00 dollars per year isnt to bad i couldnt heat with propain for that. think about it. and stay warm not juat comfortable. happy burning rick

wow that cheap for 24 cord..Where you get that???

[dwneast77]

I'm very happy with the decision.  My home would burn about 1k gallons a year.  It's a no brainer for me.  I only wish the technology on the gasser models wasn't so new at the time we purchased in 2008.  But Maine being Maine was one of the first to jump on the band wagon with the EPA Phase 2 emissions BS. Not knowing anything about OWBs, we jumped into it and bought CB's first model gasser (E-Classic 2300) which has had several issues to deal with.  That being said, I do not know where we would be at this time if we had not made the switch.  I now have 2 OWB's heating both my home and 4 of my greenhouses.  With current fuel prices, a ball park estimate would be somewhere in the neighborhood of $15 to $20k a year for the oil we would need each season.  I'm spending about $4k for 35-40 cord of wood tree length (5 pulp truck loads at $750 a load plus gas and oil to process).  Based on what we used to pay for oil prior to 2008 before fuel prices went crazy, versus 2008 to current prices, our savings on oil paid for the system in about 2 years.

[Trint]

Ours was a fairly easy decision, we would have been looking at 600-1000gal of oil to heat this 1860's house, so made the decison to before we finished fixing the heating system.  Moved into an old family house that had been empty a few years, so have to guess on the oil amount.  Either way 3 year payback even if we had to buy wood.

[Crow]

    I can certainly understand with older/larger home as my parents heat a large farmhouse about the same age Trint. They heat the original part with oil but in the newer addition they keep a fireplace goiing non stop the last 2-3 years so the 2nd furnace does not come on. (and they are telling me I should switch to OWB)

    Rick and Trint : I had talked to a portage and main rep and the local dealer at Christmas time and they have me leaning towards the 2840 (I
think) it replaces the ml30. How are you liking your ml 30 and 36, any problems or concerns?   

[Trint]

I have no problems with it so far, a season and a half or so at this point.  Main reason I went with it at the time was the forced draft, secondary heat exchanger, ash pan, and all steel.  If that new one is the one a flier showed up on here once, i wish it had been available when i bought mine.  This is assuming its the one with refractory bottom thats a conventional that burns with effiecency close to a gasser supposidly.