Quote:
Originally Posted by CrawfordCentury
A cord of red oak contains about 23.6 million BTUs and weighs about 1.5 tons. If you need to buy your firewood, you're looking at about $250/per cord.
As noted earlier, I don't mess with pellets, so I don't know what the cost is per ton. But the above info might help you do the math.
One thing to be wary of is the potential for flue buildup if you don't spread the bunny food evenly enough. You might get some smouldering and the incomplete combusion in the form of smoke might lead to a little creosote.
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At about 8,200 BTU per lb a ton of premium wood pellets contains about 16.4 million BTU at a current cost of about $245/ton. If you buy green firewood and stack/season it yourself then firewood is less expensive per gross BTU.
Pellet stoves burn very low moisture content fuel at high temp so the gap with wood stoves is closed somewhat by higher net efficiency but burning quality firewood still has an edge in price. Burning pellets in a thermostat controlled pellet stove also has has an edge in convenience. Burning pellets in a wood stove gives you convenient dry fuel but not the efficiency of a high burn temp pellet stove.
Having burned 5 cord a year for 28 years, that is 140 cord cut split stacked and carried, I decided to go with the ease of the pellet stove. We still have a wood stove for heat over on the island so we get to enjoy that spring and fall.