Outdoor Wood Furnace Info
All-Purpose OWF Discussions => General Outdoor Furnace Discussion => Topic started by: chadley on January 20, 2012, 07:38:06 PM
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Sorry to start so many topics but I have so many questions.
Is there anyone on here that has an all electric house and has a OWB that can tell me how much money they save a month? I realize where you live, how big your house is, how many residents etc. have a factor in it but I'm trying to compare apples to apples as best I can. My father in law doesn't think we will be able to make our money back in a decent amount of time to justify buying an OWB. I disagree but am looking for those who have done it. Thanks
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depending on how much wood you want to cut you should be able to and what type of electric heat you are talking about you can save likley 90 percent of your current heat bill
if you have electric base board and install hot water baseboard the only electricity you will use will be for likley 1 or 2 or 3 small pumps that might be 10 or 12 dollars a month per pump (a guess on my part for thier usage, others here can likley tell you the exact amount of draw they use)
if you have electric forced air and you switch to an OWB you will save (depending on how much wood you supply) 100 percent of what you would normally spend on the heating element (you will still need to run the blower)
if you have a heat pump you will (again) only need to run your blower
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I am total electric here. I have an electric furnace and the year before I installed my owb my highest electric bill was $450 a month. I had 2 months of that (Jan. and Feb.) and about $375 a month on each side of that. Since then it hits less than $200 a month and if I would turn off the computers that run 24/7 and a tv or 2 I could do better.
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My house is all electric. It is about 6000 square feet. I have 3 heat pumps with srtipe backup heat. Our bill in the past have been running around 750-900 a month in the winter and keeping the house at 70. I installed my stove on Jan.5 and have been keeping up with the electric usage on a daily bases. i am only using about 60 or less kilowatts a day so that would be 1800 in a month so that breaks down to 158.00 a month. That is keeping the house at 74 :thumbup: nice and toasty with an endless amount of hot water. Here in Kentucky I would say about 4 months of winter. So it will pay for it self in 2.5 years. We are cutting our own wood. Hope this helps you.
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Well, let me be a little more specific. Our house is 6 years old (as well as our heating unit). We have a 1700 sq ft cape cod house with zone heat. We are on forced air electric unit. It's me, my wife, and our 1 yr old daughter. Our daughter sleeps upstairs otherwise we don't use the upper level. We keep our house at 60 :bash: and our bill is 250/mo. Who knows what our bill would be if we kept our house warm at say 70. I'm trying to explain that we won't see as much savings with a 250 bill at 60 degrees as we would at 70 degrees. My wife is convinced our bill is high and I am convinced our house is cold so we are trying to decide what to do. I like the idea of an OWB and we are seriously leaning that direction.
I sell firewood as a side job and have a surplus of wood. We are planning on adding on a 3 bay garage in the future and finishing out our current garage into a family room. All of this will increase our heating sq ft to near 4000.
Will we save enough money to justify buying an OWB is the question we are currently trying to answer. What do you all think?
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chadley you could take a spring time bill (before you run the AC and the furnace and subtract taht from your january bill and that would give you roughly what you spend a month on heat?
then take a guess at what it would go up if you kept your house 70 degrees instead of 60 (perhaps 10 or 15 percent more? ((a guess on my part)))
60 is some cold in my house..72 ior 74 seems to sit well with everyone ^-^
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Willie- yea 60 is freezing to me. We have a heat blanket on (using electricity) with a comforter and a quilt, a space heater (using electricity), and a slab floor house which is cold on the feet. I can't wear shorts in my house much less sit naked and eat cheezy puffs watching football on sudnday during the winter cause its too freakin cold. I'm ready for warmer more comfy living conditions. I just have to convince my wife and her family that it will be worth the money.
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Willie- yea 60 is freezing to me. We have a heat blanket on (using electricity) with a comforter and a quilt, a space heater (using electricity), and a slab floor house which is cold on the feet. I can't wear shorts in my house much less sit naked and eat cheezy puffs watching football on sudnday during the winter cause its too freakin cold. I'm ready for warmer more comfy living conditions. I just have to convince my wife and her family that it will be worth the money.
the electric blanket and the electric space heater will come close to paying for running the pumps. if you were paying 150 for heat per month now and lets say you paid 200 if you were to turn it up to 70 if we said you heated at that rate for 5 months (average) that would be 1000 per year for heat adn also remember the price per KW is never going down. also if your hot water tank is electric your OWB can make all your domestic hot water as well (more savings)
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chadley.. according to the net 1 kw hour is equal to about 3412 btu (bear with me here) if we said your home would use 80 million btu per heating season (im not sure where you are but southern ontario says an average 1800 square foot home would use 100,000,000.
80 million divided by 3412 comes to 23,446 KWH if you can figure out how much (in total) you are paying for electricity you can find what it would cost if you were to heat your house to a normal temp, the you would know what you could save
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Of course there worth it, it's not just a hobby to have these. My nils used to be 550-600 in the winter and now there 80-100. Rates have went up 17% since I got a stove and are going up 31 percent each year til 2015.
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All electric here. Made some major changes in reducing my electric use since April. Not just the addition of the OWF. Electric bill has gone from 2200 kwh/ month to less than 1100kwh/month. Total savings $100 / month. You can review my electric use chart in my gallery photos.
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Well, I have propane for back up heat now with the OWB. Before my boiler in 2007 we paid $5544.00 and 2008 $4068 for propane. From 2009 till today we have spent about $1000. So if you average it out to lets say 4.5k a year, I have saved close to 12.5K in 3 years on propane. I'm already ahead of the game. I cut all my own wood but in my area I could have bought all my wood and still be saving over propane. My neighbor just paid $4.40 a gal :o
Oh, yeh to your question......YES they are worth it.
I forgot, 60 IS cold.......we keep it around 76
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Holy heck Chadley, 60 degrees is freezing! My wife would kill me if I kept the house that cold! I'm all electric like you also. 2500 sq' new home that has a lot of glass, with about $400-500 a month bill, in the dead of winter. The temp setting was around 68. Now with owb, the heatpump does not run, electric back-up stays off and temp is set around 73-74. The heat is now much warmer than the cool breath that the heat pump would put out. Now the wife is much happier . My set up is new and I'm waiting to see an actual instead of estimated electric bill. Your wife and little one thank you if you buy one!
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We like it warm in the winter. Our fuel oil furnace used to consume between 1200 and 1500 gallons/year. If 1350 gallons is the average times 3.69/gallon equals $4981.50. I will get a return on my $10000 investment in less than 2.5 years, even factoring in chains, gas, oil, fuel for truck, etc. I have an unlimited supply of free firewood to cut.
I'm not paying any interest on a loan, I already own a splitter, saws, and all other incidentals necessary to process firewood. My exchangers were already in place, as well as the insulated under ground pex. You will have to factor in all other necessary components before you'll be able to come up with accurate cost savings and a pay off time frame.
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You should be able to keep your house at 72 -75 and heat your hot water and get a payback in under 5 years. Also something to think about is if you loose power a small generator will run the pump and furnace blower and keep your family warm, it takes a big generator to run an electric furnace or heat pump.
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Payback on most installations in my area pay back in 18-24 months of heating.. 2 - 3 seasons
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All electric here. Made some major changes in reducing my electric use since April. Not just the addition of the OWF. Electric bill has gone from 2200 kwh/ month to less than 1100kwh/month. Total savings $100 / month. You can review my electric use chart in my gallery photos.
Wow ridge only 100/month??? No way would I have one or be in business if all I could save was 100 a month... Most of my customers save 3-500/month.. My bills went from 500-600 down to 80-100
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For you guys that have a all electric baseboard..What did you guys do when bought the OWB, like did you guys install radiant heat under the floors or rip out the electric baseboard and installed forced hot water baseboard or something else?..My parents have a all electric house.. Course the dial is off..Heat with wood stoves.. Parents are getting older..Lugging in the wood everyday is old..They have talked about a pellet OWB..Much easier...
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To me it's a no brainer, just the fact that you will be comfortable (warm) in your house would be reason enough for me.
I have a capcod with hot a natural gas furnace which I used for the first two years I lived here. The wife and I lived in three downstairs rooms while I renovated the second floor ( which was unfinished and only used for storage). I added an addition to the back of the house by extending the rear full size dormer 30 feet tripling the square footage to about 2,600 sqf. Those first two years I was paying 1500 a winter to the gas man and that was just heating three rooms. Like you I kept the therm down to 60 and burned wood in the fireplace when I could. I couldn't imagine what I would be paying now. I have not payed for gas in over six years now...I had the gas turned off cause they were charging me 30 a month just to have the gas hooked up.
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Sorry to start so many topics but I have so many questions.
Is there anyone on here that has an all electric house and has a OWB that can tell me how much money they save a month? I realize where you live, how big your house is, how many residents etc. have a factor in it but I'm trying to compare apples to apples as best I can. My father in law doesn't think we will be able to make our money back in a decent amount of time to justify buying an OWB. I disagree but am looking for those who have done it. Thanks
If you buy one, I wouldn't be one bit surprised if he was looking for one a year or two later. I have seen it before.
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Thanks for the replies guys. Here's gonna be my hang up. With electric bills at 250-325, my wife isn't going to see our savings even though we will be at 74 instead of 60. I almost wish she would let us keep it at 74 and have a normal electric bill so she could see how much we would really save. At 250-325 we wouldn't be saving much (in her mind) more than 175-250 per month max (5 mo of winter est) which would be 875-1250 per year which would take us aprox 10 years to make our money back.
She understands where I'm coming from and agrees it makes sense but her dad and brother are whispering in her ear that it won't be worth it. We'll see what happens I guess. Thanks for all your suggestions/opinions etc
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You don't need to go a full month, take a look at your power meter each day at the same time for a few days then turn it up to where it is as warm as you like for a few days. You will be able to get a close estimate how much the extra heat would be costing.
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you might as well bite teh bullet and get it now..your cost of electric won't be going on sale anytime soon i dont think. and turn the dam thermostat up to where you like it, not where you can afford it.
i heard the same arguments when i was building mine from some guys..i wouldnt spent 10
G on stove to cut and burn wood for. i can heat my house for the interest on ten grand...well they sure cant heat their home for the interest now..i think the interest the bank pays is about 1 percent or less and the cost of fuel for the house has gone up a bunch too. You think at todays rate it may take you 8 to ten years...wonder what the rates will be in two years..or 4 years?
its like not buying a house because you want to save some money..so you pay rent for ten more years while trying to save a little more..the house you want goes up in price as fast or faster than you save and all that rent money is gone, might as well bought it in the beginning.
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The side benefit of keeping the house warm is the little woman runs around half naked! Turn that thermostat up to 74, your electric bill will go up at least 3 times then you will have a leg to stand on. OK now back to the question. I would burn nearly 1500 gallons of fuel oil per season to keep this place the same temp. So by the end of this season my owb has saved me $25,000.00. 5 years ago it cost me about $7500.00 to self install the entire system. By far the best investment I have ever made!
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Chadley,
Here's my "take" on your situation:
You want to improve the quality of life within your home. Saving money while keeping your family warm and in hot water (DHW).
Wife is a bit leery about wether this will work out. FIL and BIL don't think it will work, and maybe afraid they could find themselves in the firewood business if you aren't around?
These things work as advertised! That's a fact.
You believe it can work and now you need to devise a plan to get all pieces in order. It is expensive up front. Hi ho hi ho! It's off to work you go! Overtime, liquidate some toys, whatever it takes to salt away the funds to get this project going. May take a year or 2.
You can use your energy in the mean time to learn how to install your system, start lining up some firewood, maybe find a splitter.
It is certainly a worthwhile project and will make YOU happy and proud of your accomplishment when you strike that first match!
Just go slow and it will work out.
Nuff motivational writing for tonight! Get er done....
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Had electric baseboard. Bill was 300- 400. Had heat pump and duct work installed without electric backup in heat pump. Left electric baseboard in place for back up if heat pump cant keep up. Ol lady loves owb and house at 74. By the way electric bill about 120 now
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All electric here. Made some major changes in reducing my electric use since April. Not just the addition of the OWF. Electric bill has gone from 2200 kwh/ month to less than 1100kwh/month. Total savings $100 / month. You can review my electric use chart in my gallery photos.
Wow ridge only 100/month??? No way would I have one or be in business if all I could save was 100 a month... Most of my customers save 3-500/month.. My bills went from 500-600 down to 80-100
$100 is half of what I used to pay. I contribute part of my savings to the better control of heating our home. With the indoor furnace our furnace fan would run by the temperature of the wood burner, not the temperature the house. So it was running a lot. Anything to keep the heat pump and heating strips from coming on.
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So you weren't all electric before then??
Didn't know u had a furnace before, I thought that's some discouraging news that you only saved 100 bucks over electric lol
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So you weren't all electric before then??
Didn't know u had a furnace before, I thought that's some discouraging news that you only saved 100 bucks over electric lol
Radiant heat? No. Total electric yes. It's the only utility I pay for. Well, septic, two street lights, and everything associated with maintaining a home. No gas, no fuel, no problem.
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So you had an electric/heat pump before? You install your boiler and only save 100? I'm not trying to be smart, don't get me wrong.... I just can't fathom you were heating your home on 100 bucks worth of electric
It's common here for heating to make up over 75-80% of a homes total use
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So you had an electric/heat pump before? You install your boiler and only save 100? I'm not trying to be smart, don't get me wrong.... I just can't fathom you were heating your home on 100 bucks worth of electric
It's common here for heating to make up over 75-80% of a homes total use
We never expirianced a winter relying only on the heatpump. We knew what we were getting into when we had a heat pump installed,but always had a indoor wood burner for supplemental heat. Now our OWF is our main heat and the heat pump is the backup.
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Well.... Without the woe burner I'm sure you'd been up around 400 or more
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bill,
your advice was direct to my question. Thanks. I already have a splitter and saw and sell wood as a side job. To me it makes no sense to do all that work and not even burn wood. :) Especially when we could be saving money with an OWB. I will take it slow and soak in all the info I get and relay it to the wife. I'm going to have her read this thread...minus the running around half naked post ;D That may discourage her a little bit. ;)
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If you already do the wood part, then it's a no brainer. Besides being warm and cozy at 70+, the free unlimited hot water is great. It has already been said but you know what the price of your wood will be, you can't say that about fuel or electricity.
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I too am in the same boat as you, I am ALL electric and it drive me nuts driving around seeing these Hardy's chugging smoke and people walking around in t-shirts and shorts in their house. I keep mine( 2006 Double wide 32x80) at 67-68. Electric bill ranges from 250-375 depending on the weather here in southern MO. I have my wife talked into one but i can't get her to accept the price to well. But she is very understanding considering she wants it warmer and the savings on the electric bill . I also have a 30x40 shop and 3 children who love to take long showers.I'm thinking i could save about 1/3 of my electric bill or so by what i have read on this site and have heard from owners of OWB face to face. Now the problem lies in which furnace is going to offer me the most bang for my buck and last me the longest as we are only in our mid 20's. Thats getting off topic and i need to research that more on here. What i'm trying to say is i dont think you'll be sorry with getting a OWB even if it does take 5 to 6 years to pay for it, the next 10-15+ years will be free and clear, and also nice and toasty.
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Hey slosh, with our electric rates it only takes 2-3 years to pay off, your home would run 550-650 here in the winter.
As far as what's the best, those hardys do chug smoke like a locomotive, there have been many advances in design since those were designed.
I know there popular in the south but the folks up north seem to know there stuff about keeping warm