Tuesday, December 17, 2013
Wood stove exaltation
Okay, please Jenna...please please, stop exalting the wood stove. Seriously. I think back to my days of feeding it at a *real* farm out in Sullivan County NY, and how much work it is. And that bun burner is nothing more than a play thing. You cannot get enough wood in it to leave it more than an hour or so. Your "few gallons" of oil to heat your water? Guess what happens when you leave only a few gallons in your tank? The lines freeze. Well, I guess you will find that out soon enough.
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I heat my house completely and 100% with wood, and have since I bought the house 3 years ago. My house is 1500 sq ft, and my stove heats it all to 72+ degrees, most of the time hotter! Jenna constantly speaks of waking up to a cold house, or the house only getting up to 65 degrees. Either she doesn't have the proper stove for her house, or she doesn't know how to start or keep a good fire going. We light our fire in October, and keep coals from that same fire going til April or May when we don't need the stove anymore. I think Jenna must be starting fires all the time, what a waste of time, and how innefficient!
Wood stoves can be great if used properly, but I agree they are a LOT of work. But for us, all the wood chopping year round and stove feeding over winter is worth it for all the thousands of dollars we save on heating costs.
I should also add, that I live in a climate just as cold (or colder) than Jenna!
You sound like how it was at my grandparent's place. We kept it going but we *could* go out to Church or other functions for a few hours. How do you heat your water? My grandparents, I think, like me had a propane heater- which is nice to just have propane for hot water and other source for heat.
Also, if, as Jenna said, she only takes "irregular" showers during winter, that is simply not a choice most of us (who want to live with other humans) can make. I may not wash my hair every day, since I'm not breaking a huge sweat this time of year, but I do make my body is scrubbed clean of farm/kitchen gunk at least one time each day. But, you know, when you have to prove how different and special you are every day, it can lead to some odd behavior and beliefs. Why you'd want to live in a house that gets down into the 50-degree mark regularly is beyond me.
Oh, and I should add we use a combination of propane (hot water) and a pellet stove to keep us warm here, and rarely go below 60 degrees inside the house. Once we fire up the stove each morning, our interior temperature sits at a comfy 71. Perhaps her home lacks proper insulation or double-paned windows.
I have an oil hot air furnace. When I needed to replace the old one I looked into all options- even the Yukon oil/wood furnace. I was lucky that my bil installed it for me. I go through very little oil for my little house- on average probably 300 gallons a year. I keep house cooler because the supply ducts are right under my bedroom and the heat coming off them helps keep my bedroom, where I am at night, warm.
We heat with wood, we don't have gas run to our home so our only emergency backup option is to run electric space heaters.
I have to agree, she must not use the stove efficiently. We live in the northern Midwest, and our 100-year old house stays reasonably warm, even when we leave for the day to go to work. It hit -8F last week, and I was not concerned about frozen pipes or frigid mornings.
It takes a lot of work to haul, split and stack good quality lumber. And it takes diligence to keep a good bed of coals. We are fortunate to have family who own wooded land where we cut and harvest our own standing dead timber, so our out-of-pocket expense is only the fuel for the chainsaw and truck. After the time and sweat equity is spent, our house is comfortable, our appliances work just fine, and we both work full-time and don't worry about leaving the house unattended for the day.
Our water heater is electric which isn't ideal, but after a long day of outdoor work I'm not willing to sacrifice a good, hot scrub. I'm pretty sure my husband would be alarmed if I announced a "Cease-Shower".
~ A.
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