Comments on: Eliminating heating bills and cutting down on heating costs

By: » This weeks round up - heating costs are down Early Retirement Extreme: Financial independence, frugality, self-sufficiency, ecology, capitalism, and voluntary simplicity

Fri, 07 Nov 2008 05:36:56 +0000

[...] announcements If you’re new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!The heating strategy we recently implemented decreased the utility bill by $30 compared to last month. This is promising. Not only did we not [...]

By: MoneyChangesThings

MoneyChangesThings — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 00:42:07 +0000

We’re not doing the Little House on the Prairie thing like you guys, but hats off to you.
We do manage to be reasonably comfortable keeping the house at 62 degrees and using room heaters.
Here’s my post with some of the equipment that makes us more comfortalbe - silk long johns, a heated mattress pad…. Indispensible!
http://moneychangesthings.blogspot.com/2007/12/with-thermostat-set-to-63-these-are-few.html

By: Jacob

Jacob — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 21:51:45 +0000

My parents have been doing that for years. They use an electric chainsaw to cut them up. I’m not sure we could fit more than a couple of them into our car though, but for those with larger cars or trucks, it is a great idea.

By: Pip

Pip — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 21:42:44 +0000

Have you tried asking about old wooden pallets at big stores? (home improvement type stores, farm supplies etc)a lot of pallets are made out of untreated timber and most places will be happy to give them to you. Not sure which stores you could go to, I’m in New Zealand and I go to mitre10 mega and farmlands. A crowbar/big hammer/back of an axe makes short work of them.

By: Jacob

Jacob — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 20:05:01 +0000

I’m not sure. I imagine selling it locally would avoid the shipping costs which would be substantial thus allowing you to charge a bit more. OTOH there won’t be any bidding from victorious shoppers. Maybe you can re-gift it?

By: Brooke (Dollar Frugal)

Brooke (Dollar Frugal) — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 19:42:05 +0000

That is awesome…unfortunately, our fireplace is gas. We still keep the furnace set at 61 and DH has to wear layers. He HATES it, but he’ll get over it. I can’t stand seeing him and DS wearing shorts in January. It drives me up the wall.

My dad bought us a chainsaw at Lowe’s…any ideas how to get rid of it (i.e. the best way to make money on it)? Craigslist or eBay? We’ve had it for a year and never used it.

By: Jacob

Jacob — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 18:27:47 +0000

Thanks for the information. When we go and pick up free wood, we tend to stay clear of the difficult pieces. In many cases I would like to get a splitting maul, but the amount of wood I need to split is fairly small (a couple of pieces a day), so I don’t want to spend the money or space to get one.

By: Philip Brewer

Philip Brewer — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 17:40:34 +0000

A splitting wedge and a sledgehammer do the trick just fine, if you’ve got nice, straight-grained pieces of wood. But if you ever start trying to use (for example) a whole tree that has come down in a storm, you’ll find yourself dealing parts of the tree that branch and twist. For that you’ll want not only a splitting maul but probably a couple more wedges as well.

Fortunately, wedges will last roughly forever–my dad has some that belonged to his grandfather, I think–so they’re a worthy investment. A maul can last a generation or more as well, although you’ll probably have to replace the handle from time to time.