buying wood vs. buying fuel oil

[jrthe3]

was wondering about buying fire wood vs. buying fuel oil witch would be cheaper to make same amount of syrup

[Thompson's Tree Farm]

It will depend on wood sources and prices in your area. Do you have the time available to cut up and split the wood or do you need to buy it all processed? If you can bu truckloads of cull logs and cut and split them yourself, wood will probably be cheaper. Are there ever opportunities in your area to get free or inexpensive wood? Clean up from a construction site or the like.
Oil has the advantage of little additional work involved. No wood to handle or ashes to clean out. Keeping an even fire with wood is a challenge when you are trying to watch the pans, drawing, filtering and canning syrup. It also can make boiling a bit easier...if a pan starts to get too low, just turn the switch off. Can't do that with wood. Same with shut down at night, boil 'til the saps all in and then turn it off. No need to worry about flooding the pans deep enough to prevent scorching with the remaining heat in the firebox. All that said, I would never switch from wood to oil. Time in the woods to me is like vacation time......

[Haynes Forest Products]

I went from wood to oil back when oil was $1.85 gal and a cord of wood was $120.00 cord. Now oil at $4.00 I spend about $2200.00 last year to make 160 gallons of syrup. If I sold the syrup bulk at $2.05 going rate last year in Wisc. I would have cleard about $1400.00. This year I spent alot of time looking at other options. Back to wood= new arch and alot of work time on cutting,splitting ,storage,firing,cleaning,shut down time. Waste oil=bigger storage,chasing used oil,cleaning,new oil guns,maintance problems,. Im going to bite the bullet and stick with new oil and try and be more efficient. I would say if I was to start all over again I would end up in the same place CUZ this hobbie drives you into a crazy sap sucking fool running around the woods yelling MORE MORE **** IT I NEEEEEED MORE!!! I dont know what to tell ya stay small have fun? Or lay awake at night and dream of more taps. I think its like race cars or speed boats or women one more part and thats all i need to get this thing working just the way I want. GOOD LUCK

[MaplePancakeMan]

Hop on craigslist and search for firewood. You'll find that people had trees go down on their property and are too lazy and cheap to do it themselves or hire someone. They will let you cut it all up for free and haul it away. I had 4 large locusts fall this year and that should be all the wood i need this spring. I found another guy who had 5 large hardwoods come down and i might just go over and haul it all away and sell it or keep it for next year.

What i have been contemplating is that i should gather and split all the wood and sell it and use that money to fill the oil tank and i have the added convenience of oil for the same price as wood essentially. i would need to sell 6 cords of wood to pay for my oil during the season i currently use about 4 -5 cords during the season.

[PATheron]

Haynes- If you felt you could afford or justify an ro that could be a pretty big cost savings. Might not take long to pay for it with the price of fuel. You could make a lot of syrup on a little bit of fuel if you concentrated a bit high. Im sure you know that already, big thing is the price I know, I kind of had to warm up to the idea of spending that kind of money myself. Theron

[Clan Delaney]

The size of your operation will affect the decision as well. For example, I made 9.38 gallons last season on 3 propane fired burners. I spent $222.95 on propane, making each gallon I produced cost $23.76 in fuel alone. I'd rather have had that $222 as a profit than an operating cost.

From what I'm reading, a cord of wood should be able all I need for the same output again this year on a homemade wood fired block arch. For me, with a year to prepare, I've got no problem shopping around for free wood fuel. Even if I were looking at needing multiple cords of wood, I'd still likely buy rounds and split them myself to save some $$$.

Besides, even at the cost of oil last winter we were keeping the thermostat at 55-60. This winter it's gonna be even more. I think my family would lynch me if I were asking them to put on another sweater so I could sit out in a toasty warm sugar shack and boil with oil.

[jrthe3]

here is where i coming from come the first of the year i am going to take a new job witch will pay me more then twice what i make now but it will cut my free time in half so i will not have the time to cut the wood my self if i could i would but i can't so i was wondering witch everyone thought would be better

[brookledge]

jrthe3
To estimate with oil and raw sap figure 3 gallons of oil to make 1 gal of syrup. 1 cord of wood will make approx. 20 +/- depending on effic.
So 60 gal of oil at say 4.00= 240
If you are not going to have the time to cut your own wood then you are probably better off going with an RO and oil fired evap.
For me I enjoy working up all my wood. I get it for free or next to free so the 20 or so cord per year is not a big deal.
Keith

[Haynes Forest Products]

PATheron
One of the problems I face is I dont live near the syrup operation so storing the membranes in a heated area is out of the question unless i get a friend to store them. Plus it is about the upfront cost. Maybe Jrthe3 with his new job and getting of the night shift will buy me one. how about it there only $11,000.00

[jrthe3]

haynes i make you a deal i buy you one if you buy me one then you can use mine and i will use yours that will save use the trip to give each other to esch other


i could only wish this new job would get me off night shift but it not i think i will be on night shift till i die

haynes you could do what alot of people do around here to store there membranes they build a tube out of PVC pipe with caps on each end put there membranes in them with the preservitive and take them home with you

[MaplePancakeMan]

buy the insulating foam board, build a box that slides snugly over the RO and install two lightbulbs to fit on eachside near the bottom. These with the insulation will keep it from freezing, it does here, now that i learned the hard way two years in a row.

Steve

[Clan Delaney]

i could only wish this new job would get me off night shift but it not i think i will be on night shift till i die

I was on night shift till I died. Then I was reborn into the world of the living. I feel your pain... and lack of sleep... and missed family get togethers... Gaahhh! It's all coming back to me!!!

[Haynes Forest Products]

I tried that for 6 months back in 69 just out of high school and went to jr collage during the day to keep my draft deferment and after 6 months of forgetting to go home and sleep I quit my job and flunked out of school and got drafted into the army and then they told me they didnt need me. So I kept my pony tail and got another job. end of story

[Justin Turco]

I believe I heard Glenn Goodrich say that one cord of wood has the same number of BTU's as 200 gallons of fuel oil.

[brookledge]

Heating oil has 139,000 BTU per gallon
Red Oak 24,000,000 BTU per cord
White Pine 14,300,000 BTU per cord
Doing the math 172 gal of oil = 1 cord of Red Oak and 102 gal of oil = 1 cord of W. pine
So with oil bouncing around $4.00 that would mean cord wood (red oak)would need to be at $688.00 to be equal. Of course that does not take into account that there is no labor involved with the oil, whereas the wood needs to be handled.
Keith

[mapleman3]

I'll let ya know how it is, I'm coming off a oil fired 2x6 to a wood fired 3x8... uggg the extra work!!! BUT more$$$ in my pocket

[Sugarmaker]

Have made almost all our syrup with "free" pallets. Which are a lot of work to haul, cut, stack and move again. Oil is nice but since I can still cut wood thats what we will do.

Regards,
Chris

[mapleman3]

Chris just curious how do you deal with all the nails? Do you have forced air grates

[Clan Delaney]

I'll let ya know how it is, I'm coming off a oil fired 2x6 to a wood fired 3x8... uggg the extra work!!! BUT more$$$ in my pocket

I could give you a hand with all that wood.

Okay, I really just want to play with the hydraulic splitter.

[mapleman3]

Well Pat, if your around on Sunday I will be both in the sugarhouse working on the addition and outside tackling some more wood ! I should be at it all day! Love to have the company.

[Mike]

Another addition JIM!!!!!!! How big are you going? Make it big enough and if i sell my 3x10 it'll fit.....LOL......Hows things going in in your neck of the woods? Where planing on 10-12 barrels this year....We should be up to 1200 taps....Ill let you know hoe the new auto draw works for me....

[Sugarmaker]

Jim D,
First I try to pick pallets that have not been re-built. You never know where a nail may have been in those. Second I try to miss the nails as I chain saw them into chunks for the 3 x 10 to consume. Third, Each day befor I go to gather sap I clean the forced air grates by dumping off any nails and then shovel the nails into old sap buckets. Expect a sap pail of nails for every 10 gallons of syrup. I took about 20 buckets of nails to the scrap yard and got $40.00. BTW a cord of pallets only makes about 10 gallon of syrup.

Then take the wife out for a nice dinner.:) Thrown away pallets, a renewable resource, used to make quality natural maple product, and nails are a recyclable by product that you can get a little cash back from . Its the ultimate recycling adventure.
Chris

[brookledge]

When I burn pallets I usually cut as I burn or will cut some in advance. I burn pallets after my shed that is full of wood is gone. I keep them stacked outside and bring them in as needed. Like Chris said repaired pallets are usually the only ones that you are likely to hit a nail other wise on a good pallet there is no need to cut near nails.
On my 3X12 I burn about 6-7 pallets per hour
I have forced draft and will rake them out each day unless it is a long day say over 12-14 hours then I will have to rake (I use a hoe)them out a little to keep going.
Keith

[mapleman3]

I may throw some in every now and then bit like Keith is saying, mostly when the other wood is gone.

[royalmaple]

I use a cheap magnet on a stick that you can get a lowes or home cheap-o. Look in the roofing area, they are used to scan the ground for nails after a roofing job, construction site etc.

Don't try to use one after a siding job, don't seem to work as well on those aluminium nails!!!????

[mapleman3]

Thats a good idea just shove it into the firebox and pull out the nails... I think my air grates are a heavy steel though but still may work.

worth a try for free wood!!

Oil prices are at 2.99 here today... they get much lower and may go right back to oil HMMMMMMMM 3gal/1gal syrup= appx 9 bucks /gal syrup sell at 55 bucks. it may pan out that way.... better insulate the shack more now to keep the heat in if I go oil.

[jrthe3]

how about coal anyone looked into that lately

[Dennis H.]

Yeah I been think coal myself, I read some old posts and everyone who tried it said they wouldn't do it again.

I am wondering what kind of coal and how they where firing it.

I am thinking that if you would set it up like a coal fired stoker that it would work but not sure. Self feeding with blower for combustion air blowing up thru grates. I know when our stoker boiler is running it makes some serious heat.

I also read that the biggest problem is you don't have the big flames off of burning coal like wood to get up into the flues of your pans.

Down here I can get a ton of rice coal for $160 and locally if you had to buy wood they want $150. Ouch!! Hard coal has more btu's than wood also. If I had a truck load of spare cash lying around I would love to try and make one, that's the tinkerer in me coming out.

[mapleack]

I've only ever seen one arch using coal, they were mixing wood and coal. The whole operation was pretty antiquated. I think the problem with coal is that there isn't enough volume of heat. It has more btu's, and burns hotter, but as Dennis said, you don't get the flames or volume of hot gas as you do with wood. Though thats just opinion, we need someone with a better understanding of thermo-dynamics than me to chime in!

[brookledge]

I would agree that coal would not be good because you need flame. Coal is a slow burning fuel good for a stove or furnace. Evaporators are really not designed for coal.
As for oil as Jim said back under $3.00 I'm getting a delivery tommorrow at 2.99 Still more than I payed last year at pre-paid 2.47 But better than it was over 4.00
Keith

[Dennis H.]

The only thing I would like to see is how much of a fire/flame is there in an oil fired evap. In our oiled fired boiler in the house there really isn't a huge ball of fire, for what I would say it isn't much larger than the flames in our coal stoker boiler.

So how does an oil fired evap do as flames goes? I never have gotten the chance to see an oil evap let alone in action.

I can see a stove that uses large stove coal to be a slow burner but I have to say from personal experience that a stoker using rice coal really puts out some heat and burns fast and I can shut the stoker down and the fire will be out in 15 mins because it uses forced draft, turn off the blower and no combustion air.

With all this talk, do I ever want to try and make a coal fired evap. Maybe this could be a next year project, steal the stoker out of the house boiler to make a coal fired evap!

[3% Solution]

Hi guys,
Just got the calculator out ............
If I bought oil at $3.00 a gallon, I would need $360 worth to make 40 gallons.
Now, I can buy Hemlock slabs for $10 a bundle (somewhere around .75 cord per bundle). Trucking would be around $50.
We use around 2 cord per year.
So that leaves me with $290.
We don't pay our help to cut and stack cause that's part of the deal to get syrup.
We can saw a couple cord of slabs pretty quick and we can buy a lot of "Sawing Sodas" (hey Russ, there's a new one for ya!!!) for $290.
Now, without even thinking about the money here, this is a family get together and no matter what your doing with family it's all good times!!
It's good exercise too!!
Did any of that make sense????
I understood it!!

Dave

[Amber Gold]

I'm getting a ton of free slab pine this year and I may have enough to carry me over to next year. Will know for sure once I get it all cut. Once the slabs run out I should have a source of free pine, all that I need. My dad works for a site contractor.

Even though oil is nice because it's labor free, it's expensive and all the money and resources come from the Middle East...not a big fan of supporting them...much rather support the local economy, even if I was to buy grapple loads of hardwood to burn in the evap. I heat my house from grapple loads of hardwood, cut/split/stack...it heats you twice.

[3% Solution]

Amber Gold,
Get yourself some Hemlock to mix in with the Pine.
There isn't alot of heat in Pine, that is compared to Hemlock.
Or get some hardwood slabs to mix in!

Dave

[jrthe3]

last season when the wood ran out and i had to fire with wet wood i got some soft coal to put in with the wood worked pretty good

[paul]

Dennis

We burn oil in our 5x14 rig and I`ll tell you the flame is intense. We burn 17gal an hour, we draw off between 18-23gal an hour so burning oil can be good, that is if you have the RO to consentrate 8%to 15%
It Isn`t like your house burner which only burns between .50-1.25gal per hour.

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

Never tried to burn pine in an evaporator before. Just wondering what are the consensus of burning pine wood from say a 20" tree that has been split. I was always concerned about the cresode building and stack fire???????

[RileySugarbush]

Brandon, at your rate of firing, the creosote wouldn't stand a chance!

I think it is more of a problem with slow fires where the stack doesn't get hot enough to continually burn off the creosote and it condenses on the sides of the stack. I doubt it is a problem in an evaporator, with the high stack temps.

[Valley View Sugarhouse]

I burn alot of pine, if it is dry, 2 plus years is best, and split small enough, it burns good.. I have never had a soot problem, the problem you have is a lot of sparks coming out the stack, something to be aware of..

[tuckermtn]

we also burn a lot of pine...we started with lumber cut-offs, but now mostly burn cut and split pine "cord-wood" that is mixed in with the hardwood...we burn probably 35-40% pine and rest hardwood...

[WF MASON]

I was always told pine is the only thing to burn , it doesn't coal up on the grates and ruin them, pine burns hot and fast with only ash left , but now days most run blowers of some kind and even the mixing of hard wood is burned completly and blown out the stack. Unless you have a powerful blower, burn pine.

[Russell Lampron]

I have always burned alot of pine in my evaporator and for the up coming season I have more than I usually do. The hardwood used to go into the wood stove. Now that I have an outdoor furnace anything with bark on it goes in either one. The small stuff that don't need to be split is sugar wood and all of the rest goes into the furnace. I have never had a creosote problem. Just have to fire more often when burning pine. It burns hot and fast.

[Haynes Forest Products]

In my 3X10 the flame is about 3 1/2 ft long under the syrup pans and then all you see is heat waves under the fluepan. This year Ill be putting temp guages all up and down the arch,pans and stack so i can tweek it as I go.

[mapleman3]

Oil has an intense flame the whole time it's firing. my 2x6 used 3 gallons per hour of oil in just a little bit bigger firebox than my house boiler... that house boiler ran at .65 if I was to run 3gph in there it would have ended up a STEAM boiler instead of a hot water boiler. heat in about 2 minutes YIKES

Oil keeps dropping and it's killing me ......wood/oil? wood/oil?? wood/oil??????

[Dennis H.]

Tonight on the news they said down here oil is averaging around $3.40/gal and they are still saying that they expect oil to cost around 20% more than last year.

So since they said it will cost more we are sure to expect it to cost more!!

[hard maple]

Jim
just go back to oil
the wood thing doesn't sound like it's your cup of tea!!!

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

With talks of production cutting, I doubt this will keep dropping, it may level off for a while, but likely sooner than later, it will go back up. We need to get energy independent and let that rogues in the middle east rot.

[Clan Delaney]

With talks of production cutting, I doubt this will keep dropping, it may level off for a while, but likely sooner than later, it will go back up. We need to get energy independent and let that rogues in the middle east rot.

I don't want to de-rail the thread, but I gotta say - just the price of gas - I saw it for $2.77 today. Makes me want to fill every empty container I own with it, cuz I agree, it IS gonna go back up. Likely when we least need it to. I've got like, 4 or five garbage cans. I can just fill those. I'll just need to buy and post a NO SMOKING sign. Ha!

[Clan Delaney]

Jim
just go back to oil
the wood thing doesn't sound like it's your cup of tea!!!

Yes. And I'll be happy to take all that wood off your hands, Jim.

[MaplePancakeMan]

Westvirginia, agreed... kinda is ironic that finally when oil goes down and gas goes down which would help the economy a lot OPEC steps in and says " well we will just cut supply down to drive the price back up" Ridiculous


i find that oil fired is for either the Really big guys who make tons of syrup or the small guy who just wants convenience and isn't selling. The in betweeners seem to generally use wood.

[Homestead Maple]

Check out www.oil-price.net for some interesting blogs on the oil industry and the current barrel price for crude, plus trends in the industry.