why not look into pellets then if you don’t have time to cut wood, i have a buddy in Akron that heats his whole house to 70* with pellets all winter and he goes thought about 2 tons. thing is so hot i can’t even stand in front of it without sweating, and his pipe goes right out the all then up the side of the house. shop around after winter to get left over stock ov pellets cheaper than buying b4 winter
Man, if you’re paying that much now I’d be really scared what those bills will look like if we get a real winter. I’m usually around $200 a month with my natural gas furnace in January/February but this year it’s been about half that because it’s been so warm.
I’d say start with a home energy audit. For less than $100 they’ll come in and find any drafty spots and suggest what you can do to better seal the place up. If it turns out you’re well insulated and sealed guess it’s time to look at pellet stoves.
People who say you don’t save money by buying wood are ABSOLUTE morons.
It’s fucking rubbish. http://www.buildinggreen.com/calc/fuel_cost.cfm
Use something like this.
Figure ~$200 per cord. Buy wood by the CORD. Not the face cord, rick, rack, thrown cord, bush cord, or any other made up bullshit. a Cord is a STACK of wood (stacked all the same way, not criss-cross like some asshats do). If the wood is Unsplit, add about 30-40% to them measurement. One cord is 128cu/ft. 4’x8’x8’.
So, let’s do some math.
$200 per cord (EASILY findable), $11.36 per Million BTU (80% eff)
Propane… $2.65/gallon (what I just bought 277 gallons at) (80% eff)
$37.01 Per Million BTU
How the fuck is wood not saving you?
Am I not seeing Propane being OVER 3 times more expensive? Even if you get a less efficient stove, or anything else…
The same people who say that, are also the ones that say Pine and other softwoods cause Creosote and chimney fires. They’re fucking stupid fucking morons who just repeat what someone who has no idea how to wipe their ass once told them.
If you don’t want to deal with wood, go for pellets.
Pellets are expensive and will be about on par with Nat Gas prices. Still a bit of work with pellets, since you have to empty the bag in the hopper and still clean out your stove every so often… But still pretty easy.
Make sure you research man… pellets/wood are both a lot of work. If you don’t want to do it, you’ll hate it and think these stoves are the worst heating set up around. I get all my wood for free off craigslist, and the house sits at about 72-74 all the time. No heating costs at all, except maybe a little electric (maybe $.25 for the entire year) for running the blower on it when I want to warm it up in here fast.
You might get SOME of it back if you sell the house. If you have a back up heating system (propane forced air/boiler) set up, you’ll probably get some back. People seem to really enjoy wood/pellet stoves… Some like them to save money, some like them just to look at.
Jay - If your house was out using Propane only, you’d be paying a similar price. Propane is usually 2-3x more expensive. The benefits of living in the city/suburbs… 
If you’re honestly serious about heating with it… Go to hearth.com like I said, those guys are pros and take this stuff seriously. They’ll set you straight, no bullshit. Give you the pros-cons of both for your set up… If you give them a floor plan of your house and a couple locations where you’d like to put it, they’ll tell you what’s best. You post up a couple pictures of your house, they’ll tell you exactly how to install it. They cover pellets, outdoor boilers, gas furnaces and wood stoves. Majority of them there are either wood/pellet users.
edit;
I’m surprised nobody has suggested using a vent free LP heater for the 100% Efficiency! (DON’T DO THIS)
I know natural gas is much cheaper, but I grew up in fuel oil country which is supposed to be pretty close to propane in terms of cost. I don’t know any of my family running $400/month+ fuel bills. Just seems like something is wrong if he’s keep his place that cool and it’s less than 2000 sq/ft.
Not sure if it’s still going on, but if your home is under a certain income (@ $170K/yr sounds familiar) they will do it at no cost to you. I had mine through John Betlem in Rochester and had favorable results.
I think I’m going to get in on what Dan’s doing - year long, flat rate. I typcially don’t have any propane bills from the tail end of May to beginning of November, one fill in the summer / fall months usually lasts me, so average those bills over 12 mo. and I’m going to guess I’m pretty close to a natural gas cost.
If you can run the wood stove and have the storage for the cordage, it’ll be the cheapest possible. That said, I have a cast-iron wood furnace sitting in my garage just waiting for usage. It originally heated the whole home as a backup, the previous owner finished the basement and relocated it to the garage’s addition.
Worth bringing back in?
We use Phelps Sungas, which is close to you as well. Our 500gal tank is buried so we are forced to buy gas from them. So far they have been pretty decent to us ( over almost 9 years). It sure beats having that stupid ass tank sitting in your yard.
Dan
Yeah, mine are twin Griffith 120 gals, and they hide on the side of the house so I can zing rocks off of them from the lawn mower. 
Airhead, and anyone else interested:
FREE/Reduced-Cost Home Energy Audit
Home Energy Audits normally cost $250 but right now, New York State is offering free/reduced-cost energy audits.
To qualify for the free/reduced-cost audit you must apply. The following documents are provided here to assist you:
Audit application:
http://www.2718888.com/content/images/final-gjgny-audit-application-v1-2-1.pdf
Income chart:
http://www.2718888.com/content/images/gjgny_area_median_income.pdf
From here:
http://www.2718888.com/energy_audits.asp
Free energy audits. It’s worth it, fellas. :tup:
They call those things a smoke dragon. Mainly because, they smoke… kind of like a dragon. Then you have a chimney fire because of all the creosote caused by the smoke/smoldering fires when people turn them down for an overnight burn… Causing your chimney to shoot flames… like a dragon…
I would scrap it, and buy a new EPA certified stove. They can be had for as little as $600 for a good one. Englander makes some nice stoves (NC-13, 17 and NC-30). Home Depot even sells them, will run sales on the NC-30 for $649 online once and a while (normally 1100 or so). Those will heat 2k+ Sq/ft. Burn clean and efficient. Smoke = unburned fuel. More smoke = Money/time/effort wasted up the stack. New stoves convert all that smoke in to heat (secondary burn tubes, catalyst, etc…). Cuts your wood consumption in half in some cases if you buy an efficient enough stove.
The chimney setup is usually the expensive part, so if he left all the piping there… and it’s triple wall or a masonry chimney w/ liner… I’d waste no time getting a stove in there… Maybe not this year, but next year at least. Your wood needs to be dry and seasoned anyway so you couldn’t use it this year… Wood dealers around here are fucking idiots and sell dripping wet wood as seasoned, so you can’t ever rely on buying dry wood ready to burn. Gotta get it split and stacked up at least a year, 2-3 years for woods like oak.