Most people have noticed that heating costs have gone way up just in the last several years. As of 2019, the average heating bill in the U.S. was between $500 and $1,500 during the winter months.
You can dissect all the reasons it costs so much to heat a home, but at the end of the day, if you’re not using a wood stove, you’re paying too much.
Here’s why you should consider getting a wood stove for your home, and maybe even move if local laws prevent you from using one.
1. Wood stoves are affordable and easy to install
Switching to a wood stove for heat will require an initial investment, although a small one. The cost of the entire setup will pay for itself in a month.
You can find a variety of wood stove options online for just under $1,500, which is what many people pay each month for electric heat.
You can pay someone to perform the installation for you, or you can do it yourself. Either way, it’s going to pay for itself very quickly.
2. Wood is a cheaper fuel
The cost of wood has been rising, but it’s still cheaper to heat a home with wood than with an electric or gas heater.
You can buy a cord of split wood (that’s about a stack 8 feet long, 4 feet wide, and 4 feet tall) for around $175-$250 depending on the type of wood and whether it’s seasoned, dry, or green.
If you’re using an efficient stove in a well-insulated home with good heat distribution, you could make a cord last all winter. However, most people use around 3 cords in the winter months. That amounts to between $525-$750 to heat your home for the entire winter.
If you want to get really creative saving money, buy green wood throughout the year and let it season. By the time you use it, wood will be more expensive so you’ll save money that way, too.
3. You can buy pre-split firewood
If you think in terms of how much money your time is worth, you probably don’t want to spend time splitting wood. If you had to spend just five hours each week splitting wood, that would defeat the purpose of getting a wood stove.
The good news is you can buy pre-split wood from just about anywhere. There are businesses that specialize in split wood and many people have side gigs selling split wood.
4. You’ll never have to worry about leaving the heat on while you’re gone
There’s a feeling of dread when you leave the house for the day or even for a vacation and you can’t remember if you turned the heat off. If you didn’t turn the heat off, your HVAC system will kick in throughout the day and drive your energy bills higher.
With a wood stove, you don’t have to worry about wasted energy. Unless you’re there to build a fire, your fuel (wood) won’t be getting used.
5. A propane torch can last years
If you’re worried about how much money you’ll need to spend on fuel to start your fires, it’s minimal. To start your fires, you can get a trigger torch for a small, 16oz camping propane canister and it will last for many years.
6. You don’t need to buy expensive kindling
One of the biggest expenses next to wood is kindling. The cheapest way to get kindling is to either buy it pre-split from neighborhood kids or split it yourself from your existing firewood
If you don’t have the time or energy to split kindling, you can buy fat wood by the pound. Fat wood is taken from trees filled with heavy amounts of sap, which makes it a perfect fire starter.
However, fat wood is getting scarce and has doubled in price since 2019. When fat wood is scarce, you’ll pay about $80 for a box that will last only a couple of months when you’re building fires every day.
Instead of using an axe to split kindling the hard way, get a kindling splitter instead. It’s a stationary cast iron device with a blade that you mount to a stump. You place a log on top of the blade and use a sledge hammer to split the wood into smaller pieces.
Save some serious money by using a wood stove
Given the average heating bill along with rising energy costs, there’s no doubt that a wood stove will save you thousands of dollars each year now and in the future.
