Wood heat revival

Tag : wood burning tool
“What is also shocking about this high number is that mostHearthStone retailers were coming off a slow sales season in2007,” Romano said. “They were stocked with product andwere very conservative with their orders this past spring. Now,with fuel prices soaring, they have moved through their carry-overinventory as well as early buys and are placing heavy orders torestock their warehouses.”
Supply vs. demand
Brad Blaisdell, a Morrisville-based firewood supplier, saysbusiness is busier than ever.
“A lot of people have been calling,” Blaisdell said.“It’s almost impossible to get wood. Everyone’son such a long (waiting) list.”
With demand at an unprecedented high, most customers aren’tbeing picky.
“I’ve never sold green wood until this year andI’ve sold 40 cords of it,” Blaisdell said. “Woodis in such extremely high demand.”
He’s been getting wood “from house sites, loggerswho’ve been clearing hundreds of acres, anywhere I can getit.”
Although Blaisdell just received two loads of wood, he’swaiting for more to fill the orders his customers have alreadypurchased and says he’s 2,000 cords behind.
A cord measures 4 feet by 4 feet by 8 feet.
Blaisdell says most of his customers order anywhere from 2 to 8cords of wood for the winter.
Jed Lipsky of Stowe, owner of Blue Hill Logging Co., has beenlogging for 38 years. For most of those years, fuel wood hasaccounted for just 5 percent of the wood he harvests and sells;this year, it already accounts for 20 percent of sales and heexpects it to rise to 35 percent.
“My phone rings two or three times a day,” Lipsky said.
His customers have already ordered several hundred cords.
The firewood business has picked up just as demand for high-gradewood used to make furniture and the low-grade wood used to makepallets is waning.
“Most loggers are now shipping low-grade hardwood materialfor fuel wood,” Lipsky said.
Lipsky delivers log-length, 6-cord loads, typically enough wood toheat an average-size house for a year. Customers pay only about$700 because they must split the wood into smaller logs themselves.
“The difference between spending $700 plus sweat equity andspending $3,400 represents a big savings,” Lipsky said.
Of course, heating with wood has some drawbacks. The old joke isthat wood warms twice: once when you burn it, and once when you cutit. But it actually warms four or five times: When you cut it, andsplit it, and stack it, and lug loads of it close to the house, soyou can reload the stove or furnace more easily.
Plus, wood is fairly heavy, and you can expect a trail of woodchips and bark between your doorway and the wood stove.
Cost motivation
The amount of space that can be heated with wood depends on severalfactors — room size, insulation, layout — and the stovethat’s being used. Some large, good-quality stoves can heatareas from 1,200 to 3,500 square feet.
Depending on the size of the area you’re heating, you canexpect to use between 2 and 7 cords of wood during a typicalwinter.
Most homeowners who use wood heat find they must supplement it withpropane and oil. But, they still save money on fuel costs.
One cord of wood is 128 cubic feet of stacked hardwood, a pile 4feet wide by 4 feet deep by 8 feet long. It produces energyequivalent to 146 gallons of oil or 229 gallons of propane,according to the U.S. Department of Energy. Green wood is about 20percent less energy-efficient.
Pellets, typically made from sawdust, come in 40- pound bags; a tonsells for between $230 and $275. Households will typically use 3 to5 tons of pellets per heating season.
You also need to invest in a stove. Wood stoves cost between $1,000and $3,000 while pellet stoves range between $1,550 and $4,000.Prices depend on size and options, including the type of exteriorfinish and installation costs.
Lipsky is converting part of his home to use wood heat and knowsseveral people in Stowe who are doing the same.
“Many homeowners are converting oil furnaces to wood,”Lipsky said. “They feel that, even with the cost of a newwood heating system, the payback period can be as short as one ortwo years.”
Environmental benefits
Wood heat hasn’t been this popular since the oil-crisis daysof the 1970s. Back then, though, technology hadn’t caught upwith the wood-burning industry, and lots of low-lying communitieshad real smog problems.
However, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency set clean-burningperformance standards for wood stoves manufactured after 1988. Now,most scientific studies show that heating with wood releases lesspollution and carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than oil orpropane.
What’s more, responsible forest management offsets thecarbon-dioxide emissions that cause global warming. Healthy treesgive off oxygen while dead, rotting trees release carbon dioxide.
Lipsky believes the upswing in wood heating will benefitVermont’s forest ecology.
For many years, local and regional forests have been cut heavilyand high-graded — harvesters cut only the most valuable andbest-formed trees, leaving either a less valuable species mix orpoorly formed older trees, which have no value as lumber.
But that’s changing because of the increased demand forfirewood, Lipsky said.
“The new high demand for fuel wood gives woodland owners anopportunity to have their low-grade wood selectively cut, leavinghigher-quality growing stock, which in time will result in a muchmore valuable and healthy forest,” Lipsky said.“Before, it wasn’t economically viable to harvest junk.Now, you can leave sugar maple, yellow birch, black cherry and ashto mature.”
Wood aid
State lawmakers are looking to wood to help Vermonters stay warmthis winter.
A Harvest to Heat initiative, proposed in June, would expand theLow Income Energy Assistance Program to include payment for woodand wood pellet fuels; make wood and wood pellet stoves availableas supplemental heating options under the state’sweatherization program; and provide a retroactive sales tax creditto homeowners who bought EPA-compliant wood and wood pellet stovesafter July 1, 2008.
The initiative would also provide economic incentives to encouragedevelopment of wood pellet manufacturing businesses in Vermont.
Another initiative, Wood Warmth, would provide wood directly tothose who need it. The state would harvest wood from state and townforests and transport it to selected places around the state.Eligible Vermonters could then chop their own firewood at a deepdiscount.
The program would be largely weather-dependent; a rainy summerwould mean that the wood probably wouldn’t dry in time forwinter.
In Lamoille County, social-service agencies are working to supplywood to low-income families.
For instance, the United Way is partnering with the Retired andSenior Volunteer Program in Morrisville to pull off a new project.The agencies have identified possible wood suppliers —including electric utilities and the Vermont Association of SnowTravelers, which log forests to clear rights of way and trails. Theagencies are looking for donation of trees for the project.
The organizations will transport the donated wood to a processingsite, where volunteers will spend a week in late July chopping,splitting and delivering the wood to needy families.