Wife is trying to take my job

I would tell her that in order to to the "hard part" you also have to do the dirty work! Its all become an addiction to me and all the warmth is addicting to my wife and kids.

You're lucky! My wife wants nothing to do with the stove and when she takes a sick day I have to let the furnace run. I can't complain though, I burn so much free wood and I spend less than $300 on oil for a whole heating season.

WHAT? A woman running a woodstove? That's crazy. How could a woman run a woodstove?

My wife -- my best friend -- runs the woodstove just as well as I do . . . sometimes better, sometimes worse. The one thing that she is much better at is having patience on the reloads when the coals are very small . . . I get impatient and want to throw on extra kindling, paper, cardboard while she is infinitely more patient and willing to give the small splits a chance to light up.

I love running the stoves (I like balancing the checkbook and paying bills, too). Now that I work from our home it's kind of become "my job". I tend to the wood boxes, the kindling, clean the stoves/combustors, make sure the stack is shovelled out, and if there is storm due in I make sure the auxiliary wheelbarrow load of wood is ready to go. I clean the stoves at the end of the season, schedule the chimney cleanings, and repaint the castings on the stoves. I get a big kick out of timing the burns for maximum coziness... when we're home to fully enjoy the fire and thereby economizing on firewood use; like Jake's wife I am very patient about restarting a fire from minimal coals. I love splitting and stacking the wood, too (no maul for me, though!). I just get a big kick out of participating in providing heat for our home.

I supervised an electrical generating station's operation for a few years and can say with no reservation that some of the female equipment operators were far better than the males. That is some, not all. Gender did not seem to play into how well they operated equipment at all. The outstanding operators came about equally from both genders.

phatdonkey said:

So the Mrs. wasn't feeling well today so she stayed home from work. This is the first time I figured I would burn during the day since she will be home. So I gave her a crash course on operating the stove. I loaded the Oslo up at 530 this morning. Had it cruising around 500 when I left and she was in charge of it.

Being a bit paranoid I called her when I got to work and had her check on it. Secondaries were still going and it was around 525. I then get a slew of texts with pictures of the thermostat and the stove top thermometer and she is as happy as a Lark running it. She was acting like me when we first got it, and I was sending her pics of how high I had the room temp and all. She is now telling me, I can start fires when I get home on weekdays but she wants to run it.

I never thought she would be so happy to tend to it, but she loves it. Now I guess all I have to do is scrounge for wood, cut it up, haul it home, split it and stack it, and she does the "hard" part.

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I dont know your age and if your familiar but it sounds a lot like a Tomogochi for her.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tamagotchi

I'm the stove master at our house!! I researched, designed the hearth, led the construction and read the manuals and I do most of the work so far! I even told my husband I want a pickup now

Great to have help running the stove. My wife has been doing it for years. She really like the heat it makes.

My wife was totally against having a wood stove 6 years ago. And now when I go to start / reload, she says "I'll do it ! you don't do it right !

We kind of have an unspoken competition on who can get a longer burn time. I don't keep a mental score...but...I kinda think I got the longest burn time (lol).

We share pretty much all the stove related stuff. I picked the stove, only because from the second I saw the Endeavor I wanted one. We switched up to the Republic when we got the brochure and realized it was less expensive though. He built the frame for the hearth pad, I did the stone work. He runs the saw and splitter, I feed the rounds (bring them to the splitter from the staging area, since we usually collect enough of them that even if we park the splitter near them I have to move more over) and stack. We both bring in wood, load and clean the stove. He sweeps though, I have a stupid unfounded fear of climbing onto the roof. It's literally paralyzing (I made it onto our old garage roof only to get "stuck" there for like an hour before I could force myself down), and I don't have a good reason why. I work ground crew for that.

I don't get women that don't want to be/won't be involved in it. Then again, I don't get guys that won't cook or do laundry either. I will admit that I have yet to mow the lawn or plow the driveway, but DH actually really enjoys it so I just leave it alone. I can drive the tractor anyway if I had to.