As Fuel Prices Rise, and Temperatures Drop, Heat Up the Home With a Wood Stove

Burning wood for heat is as old as the discovery of fire. Now 21st century technology is giving a new twist to heating by wood. With the high cost of fuel oil, many homeowners are turning not just to wood stoves but wood pellet stoves, which burn compressed pellets of hardwood.

“There has definitely been an increase in the sales of wood pellet stoves,” said Marie at Kaufman Allied Patio and Fireplace on Route 58. “The pellets, the size of rabbit food, are fed into a hopper; they’re burned by the self igniting unit, which needs electricity to run. The advantage is that the burn is controlled with a thermostat.”

Anyone just now purchasing a pellet or the usual wood stove is planning for the long term. Marie said, “The pellet stoves run about $2500-2800; then you have to buy the piping. If you have us install it's about $3500-4200. Of course you can go out and buy the cheapest wood burning stove for $400.” At any rate, the good news is that there is a tax rebate until the end of 2010 for buying an EPA approved stove.

“You see very little smoke with the new pellet stoves.” Marie added. “The smoke is literally reburned.”

The forty pound bags of pellets can be purchased at stores such as Riverhead’s Agway, which charges $7.71 a bag; a ton of the pellets (fifty bags) is $310.50. Agway will deliver this for another $45.

Technology has also changed what can be fed into the traditional wood burning stove. The Log Splitter, a Massapequa company that delivers from Manhattan to Montauk, has Envi Firewood Blocks of compressed recycled sawdust, which is basically the same composition as the pellets, for pellet stoves. The compression of sawdust into blocks— ¼”x2 ¾”x9 /12” or 4”x4”x10 ½”—results in a product that is less than six percent moisture and less than five percent ash.

Harry Lozada, Log Splitter’s owner, said the pellet blocks are of wood that comes from the northeast: oaks, cherry, maple. “They are a better burning woods than most trees from, say, the south.”

He cited the advantages of the Envi blocks over chopped wood. “First of all, wood has to be stacked right, I don’t mean just piled, for a year to be properly seasoned. Air has to circulate, wood has to dry out. Even then wood has more moisture (20-25 percent) than the blocks, which are also insect free. The blocks also take up much less space than stacked wood.”

He cautioned those who buy cords of wood to make sure their suppliers make a full delivery of seasoned wood. (A cord measures 4 feet by 4 feet by 8 feet.) “Some people aren’t above putting unseasoned wood—which doesn’t burn well—at the bottom of the cord, the seasoned on top.”

However, Long Island Firewood on Sound Avenue promises their kiln-dried wood is well seasoned. A half cord of ash or birch runs $275, a quarter of a cord is $145. A half cord of cherry wood is $255, a quarter of a cord $135. The company delivers to anywhere in Nassau and Suffolk

Whether wood pellet stoves, pellet blocks or traditional firewood make economic sense, is of course dependent on the wants and purse of the homeowner. The day before Thanksgiving, Jerry Mapes of Mapes Fuel said fuel oil was $3.20 a gallon. Like gas at the pump, the cost had risen recently from the $2.90 range.

His prediction for the winter? “Depends how harsh the winter is, but I could see it being $3.35.”