Rob R. wrote:Hey Nosmoke, how do you guys produce hot water for the milking parlor?
We have an outside wood boiler to do that. Everyone thought it was a great idea because we got plenty of wood and its "free"...until they saw what a 40 cord hole in the woods looks like and so now we buy it. Another farmer with an even bigger farm up the road, did the same thing, but he consumes 150 cord per year. No joke. During really cold nights that outside wood boiler will go through over a cord per day! It is okay with me, I supply both farms with tree length firewood. It is almost a full time job just keeping these two farms with enough wood to burn...190 cord is a LOT of wood to cut!
My father, who has a 5000 square foot home to heat, got sick and tired of buying $4000 worth of oil a year to heat it, and so he put in a wood pellet boiler. In all these cases I was thinking, why don't you guys go with coal instead? I mean if you are going to buy wood/pellets, the cost is about the same for coal. People here do not even think of burning coal, they just keep doing what they have always done, because its all they have ever done. Sometimes it just does make sense though.