The Feel Good Factor

The Feel Good Factor ? Do Good, Feel Good

Burning wood as a fuel is far from antique, but like some traditions it should be maintained for many reasons.

Imagine sitting around a campfire on holiday: it promotes close family bonds, a feeling of community, and is a fabulous reward for hard work as it is not only a source of heat and light, but also a source of cooking. There is simply nothing more satisfying.

With wood you stay connected to the Earth’s natural cycle of life, it is a natural fuel, and you can feel its impact on the environment around you.

When you buy firewood, the money tends to stay local to where it was felled which strengthens the economy and is not be spread to large utilities on the outside the community.

Burning wood in your home, whether it be for heat, energy, light etc, means you are taking a stand for the Earth and its environment. When we burn oil, gas and coal, it releases carbon that has been buried in the earth for millions of years which is a by-product of combustion. This increases the carbon dioxide atmospheric concentration which is the main cause of the greenhouse effect. ‘But carbon is released when you burn wood,’ I hear you say. Yes it is, but this release would occur naturally if the tree were to fall and decay; this is the natural process.

Is It Cheaper To Use Fire Wood?

In a word…yes.

It has been calculated by Chesneys Stove Manufacturers that on average, it costs 4p per kiloWatt hour (kWh) to burn wood in a stove, and 6p/per kWh to use gas.

This will fluctuate seasonally and is dependant on quality of stove, age of stove and log price: But if you take the average household gas consumption of 16,500 kWh a year, then your approximate annual cost would be £990 to use gas, but only £660 to burn wood. This will give you an approximate annual saving of £300.

Using these figures, they also calculated a £630 saving if converting from electricity. (All figures collected from Source: The Energy Trust)

This all sounds good, but only those households who are either off the gas grid, rural, or have place to store the wood, would find this attractive.