Is one more efficient than the other? Is it a matter of cubic footage? What’s the general value difference between wood and gas? I can’t buy a cord, so it would have to be a retail bundle.
Without being able to buy a cord I would say you don’t have a chance in terms of costs. Also you would need a wood stove as opposed to a fireplace.
Central air, which I assume you mean a electric heat pump is pretty efficient as it does not ‘make’ it’s own heat, just transfer heat from outside to inside (and ok it does make some heat in the process, but that’s not the main function). As long as the temp is above freezing this is a very good way to go.
Furnace, depending on the cost of fuel this is usually a good way to go to.
Please don’t. Wood burning stoves and fireplaces are gross sources of air pollution. See here. Even if wood was free, it imposes costs on your neighbors.
I live in a land of cold winters and tons of trees. A lot of people around here augment their central heating systems with wood stoves. A good wood stove can be very efficient - when I was a kid, we easily heated a 5-bedroom house with the wood stove in the lower level. One of my friend’s homes also had a wood stove, and the house was usually so hot that they kept the front door open a lot, and average temperatures in the winter here hover around zero.
Of course, most people here own land with a lot of trees, so they’re able to cut their own firewood. I’m guessing that buying it, especially if you can’t buy a cord or face cord, could get pretty pricy.
We used to heat exclusively with wood. Our only other choice was electric.
We would go through about 6 cords a year. About half of that was oak.
Even being able to buy by the cord and using a very efficient wood stove got expensive fast.
We finally switched over to propane. It’s not gonna be cheap either, but it sure is one hell of a lot easier and cleaner.
Unit per unit, wood is the least efficient in terms of heat gained via burning all that wood. The efficiency rating of the best wood burning appliance can’t touch an electric or gas/propane appliane.
If the wood is free, then any heat you get is free.
Indoor and outdoor air polution are factors to consider. Indoor polution is where I am willing to be that any short term gains are overcome by the effects on your health.
I would not recommend heating an apartment with a wood burning heater. There are not enough cubic feet in a normal apartment to dissipate all the BTU’s wood heaters generate, and it would usually be way too hot in there with a wood burner going.
We have a large house and heat entirely with wood on cold days. But…I have a truck and chainsaws for other purposes and own my own timberland so the wood is free. Works very well for me, but if the space to be heated is small or you have to buy the wood I don’t think you’d be happy with it.
??? A wood heater that is working properly does not create indoor pollution. If you can smell smoke in the house, there’s a problem with the setup.
Your point is valid, particularly for people living in a crowded, urban setting. On the other hand, most firewood is cut from trees or parts of trees that aren’t suitable for use in the lumber industry, so an otherwise useless byproduct is being utilized through firewood.
Also, trees are a renewable resource while virtually all other methods of heating, at some point, consume crude oil or natural gas that are not renewable. Electric companies burning oil to generate electricity also contribute to air pollution.
I guess there’s no free lunch, except maybe solar heat.
Prices will vary a lot, but wood bought by the bundle is nearly always much more expensive than wood bought by the cord (or reasonably fraction) - it could easily be 4 times as much per cubic foot. Where I live, the bundled wood often includes a fair proportion of soft wood whose heat value is much inferior to the good hardwood (oak, maple, hickory, locust, etc.) usually used for heating.