Practical considerations of the environmental and economic costs and pollutant emissions of different fuel choices are not always well-outlined in the literature and thus are not always considered or understood by consumers and planners. In this paper, we analyze data to compare various fuels used for heating in the northern New England region of the USA, an area heavily dependent on heating oil. Our results suggest that (1) current rural households using fossil fuels or electricity for heating could lower energy costs and contribute less fossil carbon dioxide to the atmosphere by switching to wood as a heat energy source and (2) in newly built rural schools and other comparable complexes, heating with woodchips can be more cost effective and less environmentally damaging than heating with fossil fuels or electricity. (C) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.