Heating Cooling Units

What is the price to install a indoor wood furnace? How muc do you save in comparison to oil or electric heat?

For FST i needed to make a brochure on indoor wood furnaces and i have searched around online for the answers and these are the only ones i couldn't find.. does anyone know the answers, or where i could find them?

Well your question is open ended, but I resently installed a wood burning insert in my home, and I previously used propane/electric for heat so I can tell you about my experience and mabe that will help. I had a 36,000 BTU propane heater in my living room, and electric furnace. In a year, the gas bill was around $900 and the electric bill was around $1200. These figures are from last year's winter. For this years winter, I cut 4 trees up, and split them, stacked the wood last spring. I found and old buck insert. I striped it down, and installed new fan motor, all gaskets and seals, and new glass in the doors and repainted it. After all this the insert was too big to fit into my fireplace....it wasn't deep enough to accomidate the fan which is in the back of the insert. I had to take out the firebrick out of the back of my fireplace and replace that with fire proof insulation, and sheet metal. I simply welded the sheet metal in. Taking the firebrick out gave me about 4 more inches of depth to my fireplace which was more than enough. I simply slid in the rebuilt insert. Works great! So far, my light bill hasn't been over $70 a month, and no gas bill. The gas heater just wasn't big enough to heat my house so it was always on, burning gas and the electric furnace would come on from time to time. This wood insert gets very hot and heats my home well. I haven't even turned on the electric heat. So doing the math, it has saved me quite a bit of money. Understand that I did all the work my self, the rebuild on the insert, the install, cleaned chemny, and cut all my own wood. I bought a $600 chainsaw a couple of years ago for a different project and my dad has a smaller saw that I use also. I don't mind the work for the wood knowing how valuable it is. Saying that I have spent my last two saturdays cutting down 2 big red oaks and bucked them to length yesterday. Plenty of wood for next year, but I like to season it for about a year before its ready to burn. Hope this helps.

Cost of gas insert $600

Install of gas insert $1200. Copper piping, fittings, mini excavator rental, (2) new 50 gallon propane bottles, plywood. testing equipment to check for leaks.

Cost of wood burning insert used condition 85' model $250
cost of rebuild $250
cost of instal if you think of my labor for re working my fireplace @ $30 hr 8 hrs= $240.00
clean chemny and inspect $ 125 is the going rate in my area

Yearly cost for gas/electric somewhere around $1800
Yearly cost of wood burning insert if you include fuel for saws, sharping chains, gas in truck for transport, and electric fan motor on insert probably around $200.
Yearly inspection of chemny $125

As the math shows...wood is cheaper..and more efficent.

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