Wood vs. Oil vs. Electricty (by cost alone)

I did the math to figure out the cheapest way to heat my house in Massachusetts. Assuming I need a 100M BTU's per year, which is typical, I determined that at $325/cord it only makes sense to buy firewood if it gets more than 19MBTU's per cord. So for Red maple I may as well use oil, but for white Oak well seasoned it's a decent deal. Here are the numbers and you can click the image to see it larger and clearer.




I noticed that at $600/cord even the very best wood is far more expensive than just using oil. There are a lot of hassles related to firewood like stacking it and shoveling soot and burning your house down. But wood is carbon-neutral so it doesn't make humans extinct. I did NOT attempt to evaluate any of that in my sheet.

If you want me to email you this spreadsheet just let me know.

Update: There is a huge thread started by this posting at http://www.firewood.com/cgi-bin/robboard.cgi?action=display&num=6466