Comparing fuel prices: is wood cheaper than electricity, gas, oil and coal?

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Do wood-burning stoves save you money? That topic is often up for debate, so we’re going to attempt to cut-through many of the preconceptions and give you some figures in this post.

Unfortunately – and this explains why there is so much debate – it’s impossible to make it clear-cut, especially when it comes to working out the cost of using wood fuel to generate heat. There are so many variables when burning wood:

• Which type of wood are you burning?
• Are you using seasoned wood?
• Are you running your stove efficiently?
• Are you collecting your wood from a free source (in which case it automatically becomes the cheapest form of heating)?

First of all, a word in defence of electricity. It sticks out like a sore thumb on the list above as being by far the most expensive form of heating. However, it is the only fuel that is 100% efficient in your home. All the costs given are the prices at input (i.e. before you’ve actually used them), but gas, oil, coal and wood all involve burning something. That means heat is lost. With electricity, every pence you spend goes directly on heating your home. With all the others, a percentage of that pence will be wasted.

It’s no secret that the prices of gas, coal and oil are rising and will continue to do so as supplies diminish even further. In fact, the prices given are probably already out of date by the time you’re reading this. So, it’s worth factoring into your equation that you can expect the amount of pennies per kWh to continue to go up.

The price for wood is based on buying firewood. As we’ve already mentioned, you can bring that cost down dramatically if you are able to source some or all of your fuel at no cost.

In summary, wood is cheaper than most other fuels. The money you spend on buying and installing a wood-burning stove is not inconsiderable and will prevent you seeing a true return on your investment for a few years.

What you do get is freedom from rising energy prices, fuel costs that you can control and lower heating bills with immediate effect.

Let us know if you’re paying more or less than our average prices.