I'm so glad I don't heat with wood!

what surprises me is the posters that need to "defend" wood burning.

hey it is fine if you want it....but many situations thru life means different options.

Many frown on others saying they want a different heat....not a thing wrong with that needing differnt..LOL---what suits the need, the wants, the physical demand, etc.

As I said in the original post, sometimes life has to get easier. I do have big gardens, an orchard, and berries. I do can. I also raise all my own eggs, some of my own chicken, and all of my own lamb. But when I can trade less than 40 hours of work for a year's supply of heat, hot water, and cooking, I'm going to do it!

I now have the time to tend to livestock as I would like. Plenty of exercise lifting hay and manure. But I also belong to a gym. It lets me exercise muscles very specifically and safely that support a poorly done metal joint. Not like I can tie a piece of firewood to my leg and walk around with it!

I do have back up heat options and a very well insulated home, that will stay above freezing in all but the coldest weather. I'm still very glad not to have to mess with wood anymore!

Kathie

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www.littlebitfarm.net

Are you reallie Oggie in disguise?

Instead of putting up wood why not put up compost for heat? Or better yet a large sawdust pile for compost heat? One large sawdust pile puts out a lot of compost heat for at least 20 years.

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"Do you believe in the devil? You know, a supreme evil being dedicated to the temptation, corruption, and destruction of man?" Hobbs
"I'm not sure that man needs the help." Calvin

Interesting thread, since I have been thinking about installing a wood stove (saving $ for it now) and I heat only with propane.
Propane heat (only heating) costs me 700$ a year for a mild winter, maybe 900$+ on a very cold winter. That's keeping the house 65 to 68. The reasons I want a stove are
1. When the electric goes out the furnace doesn't work.
2. Wood is always available here, free or cheap.
3. I REALY like fire, too
4. I can always still have propane on hand and use my furnace if needed.
However, I realize, I have never used a wood stove, I have no idea of the amount of clean up involved. Still I will save my pennies

We used to heat with wood when we were a lot younger. We froze our butts off, and I hated the mess.
We use natural gas now and it costs about $70 a month average, since we put in a high efficiency furnace.
I'd love to be able to have solar heat.

[QUOTE=littlebitfarm;4216756]As I said in the original post, sometimes life has to get easier. I do have big gardens, an orchard, and berries. I do can. I also raise all my own eggs, some of my own chicken, and all of my own lamb. But when I can trade less than 40 hours of work for a year's supply of heat, hot water, and cooking, I'm going to do it!


I hear ya 'little'. All of our neighbors are Amish. I would LOVE to have a big garden, can all of my veggies, raise my own chickens. We are getting into sheep farming this March. I just don't have enough hours to do all the above, not while working 40 hours a week in my husbands office. I commented once that I didn't know how the Amish women managed to do it. Yes, they do work together, team work is everything. My husband pointed out to me that not one of them works a job outside the home. He was right. None of our neighboring Amish females do. Nor do they help the husband gather wood or do the outside work as I do.He told me to be realistic about my self expectations as far as biting off more than I could chew.

There is just so much a human being can do. Right now, we are concentrating on gathering wood and staying warm while we do inside repairs and wait for the thaw to come. I will plant a small garden this spring. Mainly peas, root veggies and (get ready to fight the Raccoons) corn. I will can what time permits and freeze the rest.

Most of all, I plan to take time to enjoy our new lifestyle. People are still looking at us in slack jawed wonder when we tell them we are medical professionals during the week and powerless homesteaders during the weekend. My favorite comment is 'OH! I could NEVER do that...' oh yeah you can, I tell them.

Last night on TV I heard somebody say that they were challenged to go without modern conveniences for one week. No comp, no electricity, no games, nothing and how HARD it would be. I started jumping up and down and said..I CAN DO THAT!!! ASK ME!!!

The way I see things, the more I can do the stronger I am getting physically, and whether that is splitting box wood for my stove or chasing down the neighbors loose filly, it's better than sitting around watching soap operas on TV.

But I'm going to be realistic too. If and when the day comes that we cannot supply our own wood, we will put in LP.

Life is just too short not to stop and smell the roses on occasion.

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I'm in my own little world, but it's ok. They know me here!

I can attest that he isn't. I can, however, tell you that considering Bill lives about 20 miles from me, I'll be able to hear the bang when his house explodes.

I believe where you are has everything to do with your decisions. We also use LP, electric, and wood for different things.

When our LP use was $2,500 in one year, not counting electricity? DH designed and built our wood stove. Since one of the reasons we bought this property was the 5 acres we could dedicate to our permanent source for firewood, it made sense to convert. What we didn't do, was get rid of our LP furnace. That is only a backup!

Woodstove replaced:

1- LP Furnace's job (highly efficient wood stove)
2- Water heater's job (just got modified to do it)
3- Dryer's job (nice steel drying rack suspended from the ceiling)
4- Heats all the water I need for tea, can simmer pots on it, etc...

So, our wood stove, doing multiple duties, has now not only decreased our LP bill dramatically (heat & also heating all the water we need), but has also decreased our electric bill by replacing the dryer!

Since splitting wood is hard work, and we had 2nd growth to split... DH also built us a wood splitter. In one day, two of DH's grown sons & he put up 5 cords of firewood for us (split & stacked). Next year's firewood is waiting to be split/stacked right there by the splitter. The goal is to have at least 2 years worth of firewood split/stacked & then just keep at it each year. That is probably the best we can do to be prepared if SHTF.

Since LP is readily available now, sure it is more convenient. I found it to be "cold" heat & was never warm enough. I have my little wood stove burning away in my home office and I am toasty warm. DH & I work from home, he in his Shop and me in my Office. We share all the work around here and that includes bringing in the wood and starting the fires. All the physical work I do is good for me, I figure.

We heat with wood and have electric baseboard back-up. Leave the baseboard thermostat high enough that if we miss a wood fire or two occasionally the place doesn't get too cold.

While I like heating with wood, I will be the first to admit it is hard work. I took a break so I could take a picture of my son last year while making firewood. Usually I operate the lever on the splitter while he handles the rounds and splits. It's tough work for me but it must be done.

Great Pic! Great helper you got there!

When DH got sick of splitting wood and after a long day whacking at 2nd growth, he built this Hydraulic Wood Splitter:

Here are 3 that show the splitter (sorry, couldn't make them smaller as they were already uploaded & too many pics on my drive):



Using it horizontally at his parent's house:

:

Using it vertically at home on 2nd growth dry hardwood (fir, I think):



Yes, the wood is hard work, but with a small team of guys who can work together got our entire year's worth of wood split/stacked in one day. Hope we can do it that way for next year...

The whole heating-with-wood thing is absolutely fascinating to me. I live where it really doesn't get very cold (if it gets in the high 20's at night we're in a panic) so I don't know how practical wood heating would be. We also have pollution laws that prohibit wood burning ("no burn days") that happen when weather situations are such that the warm air at ground level is trapped by cooler air (I think that's the proper definition of an air inversion) and a single fireplace burning in the middle of a neighborhood can leave a choking smoke hovering over the entire block.

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Ever tried? Ever failed? No Matter, try again, fail again. Fail better.

- Samuel Beckett

Between wind & rain? No problems with the smoke issue here We do have limits when there is no wind movement (very rare). That isn't usually when it is cold/wet, so no problem.

We took possession of our place on Nov 1 2008 and although we have a new LP gas furnace I was determined to heat with wood and we didn't have a single stick cut when we moved in. One of the first things I did was drop a dead Hickory to fuel the Fisher wood stove we had. Like you we had a battle staying ahead especially in January when we got hit with an Ice storm and a 5 day power outage and I gave some of what little wood reserve we had built up to the neighbor with 11 kids who thought he only needed LP to heat with. In late January we replaced the Fisher with a Hardy wood boiler and don't have the slightest regret. The Hardy may take a little more wood but takes a lot less time overall. We haven't used $10.00 of LP for heat last winter and this winter so far. Someone mentioned that the wood heat feels warmer and it is, we fired up the LP furnace and put a thermometer on one of the registers and it showed 115 degrees coming out and with the Hardy the air coming out measures 135 degrees.

Like I said we didn't have a stick of wood cut starting out last winter but this winter we had at least two years supply cut split and stacked before we fired the furnace up. BTW, my electric bill went down about $25.00 per month because the Hardy heats our hot water also.

"O"

Seems to be stating the obvious that propane heating is easier than wood.

If you want life to get even easier, get rid of animals and just buy food at the store. No manure, no moving hay, etc, etc.

When it was 0 here this am I was sure glad the old wood-coal stove was coasting along. It would have been a bit cool if the gas heater hadn't kicked on to help out. Well after pitching in a couple pieces of coal about the size of a soft ball and a couple nice pieces of wood on top of that the old girl as I call her was back to throwing heat across the room. Later in the day at the docs office several people were talking and saying they were afraid their furnace was going to melt down as they were running so long. This is the coldest it has been in 15 or so years so some of the old timers say. Wouldn't trade this old heater so anything. Stay warm and safe. Sam

What I like about my wood stove is if I am cold after coming in, I can back my cold cheeks up and get them truly warm, hot even!! Standing over a forced air vent just doesn't give the same effect. As a kid we had hot water radiators - those got you warm too!!

Our wood stove (DH's custom design) has graduated to heating our hot water, too. It was just completed, so a little more to do (a bit messy, too, due to the work...):


This wood stove also produce enough heat to dry all our clothing (steel rack suspended from ceiling)

Below, did someone say "radiator..." We were given an old rusty one...got reconditioned, powder coated, repainted, and installed in our coldest room of the home- our bedroom. The hot water from our wood stove is also sending the water to our radiator:

I thought it was head that was going to explode.


I can't handle long periods with wood smoke either, I have migraines and I end up sick with one at work during the first few cold snaps as one of the neighbors there runs a wood stove and the smell drifts into our house. Two of my uncles heat with wood but for some reason it doesn't bother me as much with them and the kid's godfather has a cornstove and it doesn't bother me either.

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I ask for so little. Just let me rule you, and you can have everything that you want. Just fear me, love me, do as I say, and I will be your slave. Jareth, Labyrinth

If DH was not able to cut and split the wood we use, I would have to depend on 1) others to deliver wood or 2) propane heat. The way our furnace ran during the recent bout with single and minus digits, even with the wood-stove heating away, this house would be too expensive to heat totally with propane.

I'm not OLD yet, but getting closer to it, and I must admit I'm hopeful that in my old age I can move to a nice NEW, well insulated house with efficient, non-wood, heat.

I do enjoy wood heat, it is sooooo comforting, and as WIHH said, the intangibles are very rewarding.

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For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring - Carl Sagan