Wood Heat Wrapup

We got our gas bill for the month ending mid-May, and this is the last heating bill for the season this year. During that month, we didn't run our furnace at all, using wood heat to heat the house as needed on cooler mornings. Our natural gas usage was 0.9 therms/day, as compared to 2.7 therms/day I predict we would have used given the temperature.

So that's about $45 saved that month.

For the entire heating season, the total is....

956 therms of natural gas saved, for a savings of $1,093.50. We kept 5,256 kg of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere.

We saved about two-thirds of our total heating for the season: given how cold it was, we would have expected to burn 1,640 therms, but we actually burned only 684 therms.

The highest price we paid for gas this winter was $1.35/therm in October/November, and the lowest price we paid was $0.91/therm in April/May. The gas prices we paid never quite spiked to the level I was afraid they would hit, partly because of the warm winter.

Now we're getting ready for next winter. I've already got several cords of high quality firewood stocked, and I'm getting the stove back into shape. The firebrick which came with the stove appears to have been fairly poor quality, and it is spalled badly in several places. But firebrick is cheap and easy to replace (and specifically excluded from the manufacturer's warranty--grrrr), so that will be a simple chore.