Ok, so you bought a 4700 square foot home right at
the peak of winter not really knowing your heating system. What you say you
bought a house not knowing the heating system? Sure we knew it had a wood stove
and base board heating, but we weren’t sure about a forced air system without a
furnace.
Rich grew up having a wood stove in his house and he
said it warmed up pretty much most of the house. We thought this would be a
great cost saving way to stay warm without breaking the budget. Little did we
know exactly all the costs involved.
First, there is the notion of getting wood. Where
does one get wood during the winter time? It is not like you can go to Walmart and
ask for a cord of wood. Hey Walmart—do you sell wood and can you please
deliver? Moving to a new town far away
when you don’t know anyone can be a disadvantage. We found a nice guy on
craigslist who would deliver the wood for a “going” rate. We had no idea how
much wood we needed and how long it was going to last. We didn’t even know what
kind of wood we were getting and if it was the right kind. We sort of just
jumped into it blindly and hoped it would work itself out. Luckily, the guy we
hired was very kind and gave us a tutorial on wood. The down side was that he
would come and dump the wood into a huge pile. A cord of wood is 4 x 8, can you
envision how much that is? You then had to stack it up into your lean-to.
Yup, a lean to. You say what is a lean to? Websters
definition: is a shack or shed supported at one side by trees or posts and having an inclined roof.
We stack the wood in our “shed” which is about 40 feet away from the house.
Then we must somehow transport our wood into our house and then downstairs to
the wood stove. Rich decided we should put as much wood as possible into our
SUV and drive up as close to the door as possible. Then we would fill up our
wood pile on the first floor by our fireplace.
Are you tired yet? We
certainly were after hauling the wood in the lean to, putting some into the car
and then on the first floor of our house. We still had to get the wood to the
wood stove by hauling a few logs at a time down a flight of stairs. I could
only manage to carry one or two logs. The wood would get all over me and inside
my clothing. This was a rough process, but having the wood stove on when you
are cold is incredible.
Rich found a few items
that would assist in our log hauling duties. He found a log caddy which is very
helpful loading up and bringing it into the house. Rich then just loads it up
and makes a few trips down the stairs. He also purchased a leather log carrier
to haul the wood down as well. I can carry about 4 logs and not get any of the
shavings on me. Are you thinking what I am? This is a lot of work for heat? The
answer is yes as our heating bill was much less the second month.
At one point, we
thought is this worth it? I said that we needed to get through this first
winter, make mistakes, make corrections, and enjoy the stove.
What mistakes have we
made? We bought a cord of wood from a new person and it was not cut. Rich had
to purchase a splitter and chop by hand. This is where we felt like we were
really living in the woods. Although, Rich felt as if he needed a chainsaw and
well we ordered one of those as well. We still had to navigate a few weeks
before we purchased the chainsaw.
Lessons: Try not to
shove as many pieces of wood into the stove if you have glass doors. That
happened one fateful morning before Rich headed off to work. We only have one
car and he needed to leave right away. We had a day and ½ without the stove.
It is really nice to
sit by the woodstove. I compare it to a campfire that produces heat with all
the campfire smell.
Downside: it does not
fully heat our entire home. Perhaps if it was centrally located and we had a
smaller house, it may do the trick. We did have to use our baseboard heater in
our room and set the kids heater to turn on at a certain temperature.
As the weather here is
starting to warm up, we no longer need to charge down the steps to load wood in
about every hour. Although I have to admit this was a great way to get some exercise.
We still are using it at night and in the early mornings until it warms up.
Once the season
changes, we reevaluate what we have learned and see if we can be proficient in
our logging and hauling. At least we are toasty and warm!
