how many use wood stoves for heat?

[tuco1963]

hi gang
how many of us use wood stoves as theyre main heat source?
lets go one better how many of us cut split and stack they're own wood as our ancesters did?

 

[MPicciotto]

I'm younger here than a lot of Loungers, I'm 31 and grew up splitting, stacking and burning wood to heat. It was our primary source all through the 80's and our secondary all through the 90's.

Earliest I can recall splitting wood myself is probably about 6 or 7 years old. I was given wedges and a mini maul (sledge hammer) to use, my father used the splitting maul. He also operated the chain saw to fell the trees, I didn't use the chainsaw until about 16 or so. At first I just pulled branches, but by 10 or 11 I was limbing the felled timber with a 3/4 axe.

So yup. In our house we did it all from standing tree to shoveling out the ashes (in a metal bucket, embers melt 5 gallon plastic pails).

Matt

 

[vintageTink]

We have central heat but do use our wood stove.

 

[One Bullet Barney]

I currently have a wood stove and a kerosene Monitor stove! This old place is too big and this High Desert is too damned cold for either to be truly effective! You got to admit it though! Cutting, splitting, hauling and stacking the wood definitely warms you more than once! And I love the smell!

I'm looking forward to the move south though! I'll probably be whining about the heat in a year or two!

 

[RBH]

Yep I used to get two heating's out of my wood.
Once when I cut and split it and 2nd when I would burn it!

At my other house we had both a Franklin stove and fireplace.
At our current home I have put gas logs in the fireplace.... the first year we were here
an ice storm left us without power for two weeks. The wood burning insert did not put out any heat without an electric blower!
So out came the insert and in went the gas logs!

 

[tuco1963]

we heat solely with wood .
i have a country hearth wood stove and 3 chainsaws .

 

[Renault]

Posted before but here is the stove in my mountain cabin;



We used a wood stove as primary heat at home from 1978 to about 2003. And I still cut firewood even tho we only use it now for other occasions.

 

[Michaelshane]

Toasty in here....

 

[Atticus Finch]

I have wood burning insert...it is basically a wood burning stove that conforms to the inside dimensions of the fireplace. But there was a "knockout" in the side to make it convertible to gas logs and that's what I did. The problem with wood is that it can't be burned ventless, so it ends up sucking all the heat from the extremities of the house. Burning wood kept our greatroom nice and toasty, but one could have stored meat in our master bathroom.

So, to waffle an answer to the OP's question, I frequently supplement the heat in my house with my old wood burning stove. But now it burns gas.

AF

 

[Shangas]

Stove? No.

Fireplace? Yes:

 

[EliasRDA]

We have central heat but when the house was built in the early 1980's my folks decided to add a wood burning stove to the fireplace hearth, so the stove sits outside the fireplace.
We still use it to help heat the house some days, my brother in NC uses his more than his central heating.

But this brings up an interesting tidbit.. not being political but are any of you aware of the proposed wood stove bans that the EPA is trying to get passed us? I tried picking the least political site discussing it, along with 2 government sites..1 from the state of washington & the other EPA own site.
This is just being put up as food for thought & awareness.

http://www.inquisitr.com/1034220/epa-wood-stove-ban-designed-to-reduce-airborne-fine-particles/
http://www.ecy.wa.gov/programs/air/indoor_woodsmoke/wood_smoke_page.htm
http://www.epa.gov/burnwise/ordinances.html

 

[Michaelshane]

 

[Shangas]

Michael, that is a beautiful fireplace!

Here's a couple of shots showing mine, a little further back...

 

[tuco1963]

renault my wife and i think your stove rocks

 

[tuco1963]

elias your links to the epa were eye opening
but the epa needs to realise that more carbon emissions come from decaying trees than from burning them
and as far as soot goes has anyone blown they're nose after a night of burning a kerosene heater:eeek:

 

[Michaelshane]

This is my studio...Where I paint and make jewelry.

 

[EliasRDA]

Tuco,
I know
I'm not going to go into a debate about the gov't, I used to live in a old house that we used oil to heat with, up until 1984 when we moved to DE. The house still heated with oil until oh, early 2000's if I remember right when my parents had it converted to gas. And that was in CT, so go figure. [huh]

This house in the early 80's we would hook up propane heaters on the backporch to warm it up, since the master bedroom walk-in & back attic overhung the backporch (our house is a styled New England saltbox, custom stick built & small) so we still have some stains out in the attic where the fumes would come up though the ceiling. Not a biggie & you really have to look to find them, now the backporch went from being screened in to being a 3 season room so its much warmer unless we get a ice cold day & the concrete floor gets cold.

I know some states are really gung ho on banning any sort of burning, but I wish they would get those oil burner junk cars off the road first. The car trade in helped some here, but all that really happened is quite a few of them got "resold" & back on the road. And yes, I know that wasnt supposed to happen but human greed being what it is, it did happen here on a very small scale.

And I wonder what the "forest" fires do to our air, I know it helps regen the ground a lot of times, but the massive fires the west has had sure as snow goose poop probably didnt help any. Oh well, I'll stop here before I say something that gets me in trouble.

 

[Horace Debussy Jones]

My brother had a house across the road from us back in the 80's in which he had installed a wood burner in the basement level. He gathered wood from job sights as he worked for the city surveying new subdivisions. His gas bill would be something like 6 dollars a month or less, low enough to arouse the suspicions of the local gas company. The little wood burner he installed heated both floors of his house quite nicely and very inexpensively too.

 

[ebonysw45]

Nothing like a roast out of a wood stove. I have central heating, gas fireplace and a wood burner. I usually use the wood burner because my wife likes the fire. As mentioned already during a power outage a wood burner is as good as it gets, My central heating and gas fire does not work when the power is cut. You got it the gas fire uses a blower and electronic ignition.

 

[Dan Allen]

I am currently installing a new wood stove as a secondary/ backup. The wet, snowy, icy winters we are now having will surly result in power outages in the future. As far as heating you twice, Last time I cut and split wood I was heated three times---don't forget the Ben Gay.