Any winter changes?

[Tradd]

Anyone making any changes for this winter due to continually increasing costs?

Natural gas prices are supposed to increase by 28%.

Landlord just replaced my unit’s 40 yo beast of a furnace with a new one. Will be interesting to see how much more efficient it is. I keep the heat low as I don’t like being hot, but I love hot baths and use a lot of gas heated water. Trying to take shorter baths. I don’t do showers.

Got another nice blanket for my bed. Amazon has fab blankets that are plush fleece on one side and fake sherpa on the other. They are very warm.

[Teacher Terry]

About 4 years ago the boiler system was replaced in both buildings. Heat and AC are included in my fee. I try to be a good steward of it but there’s 150 condos and some are rentals.

[catherine]

We have our new heat pump and our wood stove, so oil and gas heating price increases don't hit us directly, but they do indirectly (i.e., the guy we buy wood from charges us more to deliver, and I'm not quite sure how much fossil fuel is tied in with our electric company's power generation.). Because we buy our wood, unlike our neighbors who fell their own trees and chop them up, I'll be interested in figuring out whether the wood or heat pump provides cheaper heat.

[happystuff]

I joined (free) a capping program for our oil. We won't pay above a certain price per gallon and we still get whatever the lower price may be at the time. Otherwise, same as always - keeping heat on low, bundling up, etc.

[bae]

I'm going to be heating almost entirely by wood this winter, and not using the electric system for convenience. That'll save $3-400/month.

[Tybee]

I'm going to be heating almost entirely by wood this winter, and not using the electric system for convenience. That'll save $3-400/month.

I think we are going to break down and pay to have our chimney lined and our stove put in to meet insurance requirements so that we can go to wood heat--it will cost about 4000 dollars, but we were having to pay a thousand dollars a month for oil last winter. We already have the stove; we brought it with us, just needs a new baffle and fire bricks and blanket. Oh, and hearth pad.

We have endless free wood so long as my incredible husband gets out there and cops and saws and splits, which he actually does for fun--we had a full woodshed in Michigan and no hooked up woodstove. We heated in NY with wood and only supplemented with electric. So I know it's doable. But the 4000 dollars is very daunting. But so is living in terror of power failures.

[catherine]

I'm going to be heating almost entirely by wood this winter, and not using the electric system for convenience. That'll save $3-400/month.

Do you chop your own wood?

We pay $400 a cord.

[Tybee]

Holy moly that is a lot per cord.
Yeah, he chops his own wood. We have so much deadfall in our woods that we can clean that out for a bit. Though we might need to buy a dry cord to start us out. I have not priced a cord here.

[catherine]

Holy moly that is a lot per cord.
Yeah, he chops his own wood. We have so much deadfall in our woods that we can clean that out for a bit. Though we might need to buy a dry cord to start us out. I have not priced a cord here.

It was $350 until the gas prices went up (and maybe the local market for firewood has dictated the price a bit). Last year we spent $700 on 2 cords of wood for the winter and we also paid $500 a month for electricity. I can hear the gasps. I know the heat pump will help with the electricity. Our neighbor found a guy near the Canadian border that sold scraps of hardwood for $30 for a sizable bundle. We all chipped in and grabbed a trailerful. So we are looking around for better priced wood, but we don't have any of our own to chop.

[bae]

It’s about $400/cord here, fir, delivered, not stacked.

I produce more wood on my own property each year than I could possibly go through, so wood is “free” for me.