Wood stove

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!