In Praise Of Wood Stoves
This week the winter’s cold hit with a vengeance. The perfect anecdote is a roaring fire to warm you to the bone, radiant heat that comes from burning wood. Here in rural Pennsylvania, we usually find that roaring fire in the humble wood stove. I want to introduce you to my favorite piece of winter furniture, my wood stove.
Many of the homes in these rolling hills we call the Great Woods heat primarily with a wood stove, not a fireplace, not a heat pump, central air, geothermal, or any other heating device.
I am happy to say I have a good old fashion wood stove. And each year, I rely on it more and more. Something the pioneers used hundreds of years ago. Something as simple as a 50-gallon barrel with a pipe to exhaust the smoke. Like the stove they used at my Boy Scout camp many years ago.
Today wood stoves come in all shapes and sizes to fit any home or space. The newer stoves are incredibly sophisticated, emitting precious little particulate pollution, what you and I call smoke. They do this by burning up excess smoke at much higher temperatures. They also use a series of baffles to recirculate the smoke and burn it a second time, extracting more heat while virtually eliminating pollution.
Many of you, especially those who went through the last winter storm, may be interested in a Wood Stove, so I’d like to share my experience.
This winter is my wood stove’s sixth; frankly, I wouldn’t live without it. A case in point just happened a few days ago. My daughter and I get together each Christmas season. We’d had a wonderful lunch out, but when I returned home, I found the power was out, with no lights, electricity, or conventional heat source.
No problem, I have my wood stove.
Now the wood stove is different from the furnace in the basement. I knew it would take a couple of hours to return the house to a comfortable temperature. And it did.
The temperature was in the mid-teens and falling rapidly, with a 20 to 30-mile-per-hour wind, a tough challenge for any heating device. The wood stove takes longer to heat up than the boiler downstairs. But in about 2 hours, we were returning to normal, and in another hour, we were toasty.
A word of caution. Every article warned about buying one too large for your house when shopping for this wood stove. They cautioned that you would spend hours sweltering as the larger wood stove was burning.
I asked one of my neighbors what he thought about putting in a wood stove that was too large. His reply: open the window. That’s right, if it gets too hot, open your windows. And that works just fine, as you’re likely to find out in the early fall when you make a larger fire than you need.
So, I took that advice and bought a wood stove close to double the recommended. And when the power went out, I was delighted to have such a big stove!
A couple of other things to consider when purchasing a wood stove. Catalytic or Non-Catalytic? A catalyst in a wood stove, just like the catalyst in your car, is designed to boost the burn. The catalyst is made of exotic metals, which provide a secondary burn as they heat up. Catalytic stoves are the cleanest burning and give the most extended burn times of any of the wood stoves.
But you may have already guessed; I went with a non-catalytic stove. Although catalysts last for several years, I was uncomfortable with having a vital component that might need replacing if those exotic metals became in short supply.
The non-catalytic stove means I have to re-stoke it every 3 to 4 hours, versus the nearly 10 or 12 hours for the Catalytic stoves.
I also wanted a large viewing area to emulate the more traditional fireplace. So, I got my view portal but lost some performance in the process. The stove I have produces about 80K BTUs, while some stoves without the large portal put out nearly double the heat.
So back to the story. I arrived home, the power was out, and so was my central heating. I decided to put the stove to the test. I would heat the house using only the wood stove. The first time I’d tried this in a significant storm.
That night the temperature outside dropped to 2*F, with sustained 20 to 30 miles an hour wind. Indeed a challenge for any heating system. However, the wood stove performed like a champ. And I could easily keep the home heated at 70*F.
I had to get up every three hours to put on another couple of logs to keep the temperature up, which was less than comfortable. But this minor inconvenience hardly compares to the specter of losing heat altogether.
And this is why I purchased a wood stove to become independent from all the network heating alternatives. I would be free from electricity, natural gas, or other energy systems. Generally, heating with wood is less expensive than any alternative. But that was an added benefit; the primary objective is energy independence. Energy Independence at the personal level.
So what do I do when the power fails? I use my wood stove. And I encourage you to think about using an alternative heating source.
I’ve included this discussion in what is usually a blog about money and finance because our country’s infrastructure is becoming more fragile. The likelihood of a significant power outage is growing, and you must provide for that eventuality. The most life-threatening time of the year is the winter. More people perish because of cold than any other natural disaster. So consider a wood stove or other independent way to heat your home.
The Heat Buddy ( a portable propane heater) and Kerosene Room Heaters are backup heat sources I also use.
Finally, as you create your backup heating system, you’ll want to get a couple of fire extinguishers and check your local codes and regulations.
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