I'm so glad I heat with wood !

[woodsy]

Really I am.
Heating with wood here over the last 20 years , with mostly wood cut from the property has actually saved us enough to recoup the cost of the property
Thats right the land has actually paid for itself from heating with wood.
And its always toasty warm , with or w/o power.
And, its good exercise
And its renewable energy
And, its almost free
Anyone else?

[luv2farm]

I'm tickled to death with our wood heat. Last year when freiends were complaining of $400-600 A MONTH electric bills........mine was 159. Only went up about $40 a month...mostly because of the dryer, and I cooked more things in the oven (to help with the heat). All the wood comes from the farm.....which helps clean up the 'ole place. Good exercise for us and the kids. And.....this is all the heat we have.

[ricky]

wood or other wise.

[edcopp]

I really like using a "renewable" resource. Wood grows on trees don't 'ya know, propane does not. Wood grows back year to year, too.

When I get too old to heat with wood, I may move down south.

[G8ful]

Originally Posted by edcopp

I really like using a "renewable" resource. Wood grows on trees don't 'ya know, propane does not. Wood grows back year to year, too.

When I get too old to heat with wood, I may move down south.

I love this answer.

We use the deadfall too and our heat costs are only the small amount of power the pump takes to pump the glycol/water through. We are experimenting with our flax bales (also renewable and a byproduct that has to be burned off anyway) and I must say that I love them almost as much as I love this wood boiler! I use a bit of wood to get through the nights but just a fraction of what I used before these bales. Works for me.

[Beeman]

I'm really glad we heat with gas and wood. Use the wood for the main heat source but have a natural gas furnace for when we're not home or when the weather is just slightly cool. We like the house warm.

I am amazed at some of the bills people quote. Our electric for last month was $47 and we have 2 kids that don't shut things off and that even includes one of those yard lights the elec. Co. installed. We use gas for hot water and cooking and last month we used the furnace some days because it wasn't cold and out gas bill was $35.

[miboje]

Yes, yes, yes! Love it!! This was me with oil hot air:
Turn the heat down at night
holler at the kids for opening the door
Walk around with a sweater on all winter
Cold hands and feet
Worrying about how much oil is in the tank
Run out of oil on a really cold night
Run out in Feb., just when oil is highest
Shivering til the bed got warm
And now I don't have to worry about how much oil costs!

No more of that! It is hard work but well worth it!!

[highlands]

I love heating with wood. Particularly backed up to passive solar.

I've heated with wood almost all of my life with brief times with
propane, oil and coal. I don't like propane because of the explosion
risk and the smell of the additive - it always leaked despite the
propane company's repeated fixes. Coal smells and is dusty but does
burn a long time - great if you have a local source. Heating oil also
smells bad to me, well, like diesel. Wood is a smell I like. Wood has
the additional advantages of not exploding and I can grow & harvest
my own.

The risk with wood is chimney fires (very manageable) and living in a
house made of wood which means living inside fuel. Our old farmhouse
was a 230 year old tinder box - talk about living in a death trap...
When we built our new house, our tiny cottage, I built out of stone
and masonry in a big part to avoid the fire issues.

Our wood stove is very tiny and we only burn about 3/4 cord of wood a
year to heat our cottage. The cottage is pretty small at 252 sq-ft
plus it gets solar gain. The high thermal mass around the small wood
stove at the center of our cottage soaks up heat and stores it so we
burn hot fires. The entire cottage is about 100,000 lbs of thermal
mass within an insulating envelope - this helps to temper the heat
swings.

Cheers,

Walter Jeffries
Sugar Mountain Farm, LLC
Orange, Vermont
Save 30% off Pastured Pork: http://SugarMtnFarm.com/csa
Butcher shop story: http://SugarMtnFarm.com/butchershop

[barnyardgal]

I am glad i heat with wood cause i like staying warm and don't like high gas bills and can't seem to stay warm heating with gas like i can with wood...especially this morning at 2 a.m. when my electric went out for 4 hours !! i still stayed warm...

[Forerunner]

They can have my wood stove and poker when they pry my cold, dead fingers therefrom.

[timfromohio]

Glad to know I'm not the only one out there with the wood addiction ...

I love harvesting wood, splitting wood, stacking wood, gazing at stacked wood, gazing at rows of rounds stacked up to be split at a later date, and that's even before it gets to the stove.

If any of you feel the need to further feed your addiction to burning wood, I highly suggest you check out www.hearth.com

Excellent forum where there are folks who will be happy to discuss absolutely everything related to wood burning.

[woodsy]

Great responses !
I forgot to mention how much i like being in the woods while cutting , twitching trees w/ tractor etc..
And how i pre-heat water from the woodstove coil attachment before it enters the conventional water heater.
And can cook on the wood stove
benefits are endless it seems.
Independence is one of the best benefits of it.
I stoked the stove before bed last night, got up to a 68 * house at 7 this AM, -8 * outside.

[Frenchy]

Well by next year we will have a wood stove again........my folks took their wood stove out several years ago an went to propane well since I have moved back home I have decided to put a wood heater back in .......didn't get the chimney an flue checked out before winter this year but will be before next winter........ our chimney is very old so I plan to run a pipe liner up it an then thru the wall to the stove an have everything double checked for spacing ect. by next fall brick floor pad an back wall are still in place for a stove........besides I have 51 acres of mixed hard woods so shouldn't have any trouble getting enough wood to burn hahahahahaa .............and then all we will need is maybe the one tank of propane for the year to cook with an maybe warm the house on very mild days ...............

[tamsam]

I also stay cool with other heat sources. Right now it is 3 degrees and we are toasty warm. We also burn a lot of coal when it is really cold as it is now. Stay warm and safe. Sam

[romysbaskets]

I have quite a story about firewood to share....on the island, the logging companies float logs out in the water bound together loosely to the mainland towed by a tug.....then of course all the good logs that get loose float over to the island to be washed on shore or in the marina.... They are left here and often float back out to get in the way of boats which can be dangerous. I will never have to cut down a tree to get wood, it is all on the beach. I recently discussed with my hubby how if we wish to refill our woodshed in the coming month when it has some room...there is an endless supply on the beach. It is not drift wood but very long logs meant for the lumber mill. A chainsaw in hand would get you all the wood your property could hold and not make a dent! The wood in my woodshed has all been free, fallen trees, left by the road to be picked up, my kindling was a clean up job we did to help a friend and it was the old cedar shingles off a roof. My neighbor across the way had me take all his construction scraps when building. He just had a tree fall on his property but away from his home...that tree will probably be offered to me since he does not burn wood out here....we like to trade with one another. He will be happy I called him...a wild wind could possibly whip it up towards his house, we are expecting a storm.

My 78 yr old neighbor splits wood by hand for exercise, says why get a splitter this way I stay fit....how old do we have to be to be too old to use firewood? That is funny..... I hope I don't get that old and feeble.... Maybe that is what will keep us more able bodied? I love getting up in the morning and with a stiff cup of coffee in hand, I light up the woodstove and sigh....look at the water and breath in the scented air.....oh I do so love a fire!