The use of wood for home heating in Connecticut increased 110 percent since 2005, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
Wood has as main heating source has increased across the country, but the notable gain has been the Northeast, where all nine states saw at least a 50 percent jump between 2005 and 2012, the last year data was available, according to EIA.
Despite the surge, wood still makes up a very small portion of homes’ heating fuel, just over 2 percent nationally.
In Connecticut, the dominant home heating fuel is heating oil at 46 percent of all state households. Gov. Dannel P. Malloy has launched an initiative to make natural gas the fuel of choice in Connecticut, as it currently is used in 32 percent of households.
Households converting to wood – either split logs or wood pellets – tend to be richer, as the largest wood use by income size is households making between $100,000-$119,999 annually, according to EIA.
