Whether it's wood or gas, it's time to stay warm
As winter’s chill advanced on the Pikes Peak region Tuesday, David Parker of Colorado Timber Products delivered a cord of wood at 720 Bonfoy St.
The load, a mixture of soft pine and hardwood, cost $209, dumped next to Nick Fransioli’s home. For about 25 years, a wood stove in has been the primary heat source in winter.
Is it cheaper?
“I think so. I don’t know exactly how much,” Fransioli said, “but we usually just go out and cut our own.”
There is room for debate about whether it is cheaper to burn wood instead of using natural gas, but there are variables to consider. It depends on whether you own a chain saw and cut your own wood, or how high you set your thermostat, and so on.
There are qualitative factors, some favoring natural gas, some favoring wood. Included is the fact that a wood stove’s heat doesn’t diminish quickly, the way heat leaves a room when the gas furnace shuts off. Or the fact that you don’t have to clean a stovepipe when you simply use natural gas.
“I like the atmosphere of it,” Fransioli said. “I like the smell of it.”
According to Colorado Springs Utilities, any residential customer hooked up to the city’s gas infrastructure must pay about $9.30 in gas connection charges even if the gas is never used. So that’s a part of the cost of doing business with the utility, whether you burn wood or not. Utility spokeswoman Patrice Lehermeier said when gas usage and connections fees are factored together, the average residential customer’s gas bill is about $228 a month during winter.
If Fransioli burns a cord a month and pays the gas connection fees using no other gas for heating, his total bill would be right in that $228 ballpark ($209 for a cord of delivered wood plus the $9.30 in connection charges).
Based on wood stove installation statistics, the demand for wood isn’t growing much.
The Regional Building Department has issued 19 permits for wood stove installations in El Paso county so far his year; the number was 41 in 2008, 15 in 2009 and 26 in 2010. Traditional open fireplaces are becoming rare: Since Jan. 1, 2007, only 29 such fireplaces have been built in El Paso County.
Parker says the recession has increased competition in the firewood business, so his sales are down 20-30 percent. He’s been cutting pine in the Black Forest area and makes two or three deliveries a day.
“The economy gets down, guys pick up a chain saw,” he said with a shrug.
By late in the day Tuesday light snow fell in some portions of the region and a thick steam plume rose from the Martin Drake power plant downtown.
The idea of a wood fire was appealing, but so was the feel of warm air coming up from a vent in the floor.