Home fires are burning brighter

Oct. 2, 2005

JOEL DAVIDSON\Frontiersman reporter

MAT-SU - After a long decline, home fireplaces are again heating up in the Mat-Su and across the nation.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, in 1990, 22 percent of Valley residents burned wood to heat their homes. Over the next 10 years, that number dropped to only 6.4 percent. The decline was expected to continue until recent events turned the tide.

Already, rising costs for heating oil and natural gas, combined with the recent hurricanes on the Gulf Coast, have caused more people to stoke the home fire and return to traditional wood heat sources.

"It's phenomenal. It's not just Alaska, it's nationwide," Chris Neufeld said in a phone interview Wednesday. Neufeld is vice president of Blaze King Industries-USA, a woodstove manufacturing company that distributes to more than 600 outlets nationwide.

After a decade of flat woodstove sales and growing demand for natural gas, the trend was reversed in a matter of days.

"In August we had a warehouse full of products, and within four days we were empty," Neufeld said. "In the last decade every order would be shipped the same day. Now we are anywhere from two to three weeks backlogged."

Dan Michaud, owner of Alaska Fireplace & Accessories, sells woodstoves at his Wasilla-area shop. Three years ago, gas-heating supplies made up 90 percent of his sales. Since August, that number dropped to 50 percent gas, 50 percent wood.

"It's been a boom," he said. "People are sick of paying the high price for oil - they want an alternative."

Michaud said he's seen many more older people who changed to gas or oil heat in their old age but now want to return to woodstoves.

"Normally, (older people) wouldn't be buying woodstoves because of the work involved," he said.

On a national level, energy analysts say natural gas prices are expected to remain high and may increase again before the winter is out. Already-tight natural gas supply/demand balance ratcheted tighter due to recent hurricanes on the Gulf Coast.

"Without a strong dose of good news, prices should stay at higher levels until it is clear that the winter will not deliver a demand shock, and that will not be known until most of the winter has passed" Cambridge Energy Research Associates Senior Director Michael Zenker said earlier this month in a testimony before the U.S. House of Representatives.

Brad Fisher, owner of Fisher Fuel, said heating oil is also on the rise. Speaking from his office in Palmer, Fisher said the increased price that customers pay doesn't translate into more profits for him.

"I don't make any more money," he said. "My profit stays the same."

Fisher said the cost for a gallon of heating oil is now $2.68, a dollar increase from six months ago.

"People are more reserved with buying oil and gas now," he said. "They've slowed way down."

While high oil prices may affect some businesses negatively, firewood sellers are hard at work these days.

Talkeetna-area resident Debbi Brown is just now entering the firewood business. She put an advertisement in the paper this month and expects to start selling wood soon.

"I just started here last week, but I'm sure we are going to sell wood," she said. "It's going to be a full-time business in the winter time." For Mat-Su resident Jenny Wren, wood-burning heat has always been her preference. After paying nearly $750 dollars this month to fill her 300-gallon oil tank, Wren said she only plans to use oil to keep the house from freezing when she's not home.

"I've always preferred the woodstove to the furnace," she said.