Is it possible to save £300 or more using a wood burning stove? Depends on what you use to heat your house and how and where you can source your wood. This figure, was calculated by wood burning stove manufacturer Chesney’s, and based on the cost of wood pellets which cost 4p per kilowatt hour. This is compared to gas which costs 6p per kilowatt hour.
Based on the Chesney calculations the average household gas consumption is 16,500kWh a year, which works out at an annual cost of £660 to burn wood and £990 to use gas. You can however reduce this even further is you source your own wood, or live in a rural area and can find a good local supplier. The cost for logs can vary hugely, from nothing – if you have your own supply – to more than £100 per cubic metre of seasoned hardwood logs. It costs less if you have the space to store logs that need drying for a year or two, and that depends on having a good log store.
In rural areas especially, gas is not an option and in the UK some 3.6m households are not connected to the gas grid and these households could save even more by switching to wood based heating.
Next year will see the launch of the Renewable Heat Incentive scheme which will pay households to produce heat from a wood heating system. This could make biomass boilers as well as stoves more attractive. Wood heating once dismissed as a quaint way of heating your home is fast becoming the renewable fuel of the future, and as more and more consumers decide to try and become more independent of the big energy suppliers it is set to become more and more mainstream.
It is not just the money saving appeal of wood burning stoves that have caught the imagination. In a recent survey by the Telegraph 45% of those polled were interested in the money saving potential of burning logs, however 38% went more for the aesthetic appeal. Logs are not just warming they also warm your heart and lift your spirits.