What got you started with burning wood?

I grew up with my dad burning wood in our house and to find out, he started burning wood because of many cold winter days with no power. He still burns and saves cash with heating with wood, I do help out with getting him wood. I have since burned wood in my home and shop. I got really fancy, combined some of the good things on stoves and created some new improvements and now have a very/darn good stove I am using. Myself and 2 family members, burning 24/7 in winter, wood is main heat.

What a place to talk wood heat ! Nice.
As the highest state % of wood burners we know wood. Its the culture here.
And many of us heat near 100% with wood furnaces and stoves...some space backups but no central oil or gas furnaces for many.
Why wood ? Well some of us call it nude heat , since you're so warm that theres no need for clothes (why not ?).
You get cold going into an oil heated place since there is no getting close to heat like a wood stove.
The yearly cycle of cutting, skidding, scrounging, spliting, stacking is a norm; you never stop thinking about firewood.

I remember my dad finding a dead tree leaning over a freeway onramp. The only way to drop it was onto the road.

Guess what happened next!

(He did get the road cleared before anyone wanted to use the ramp.)

When I was a kid, the standard way to get a kid out from underfoot was 'Go split some wood!'. Not sure why, but this somehow translated into me loving to use the maul as an adult.

HDRock said:

Growing up, my job was burning the trash out in the burning barrel, since then, I like playing with fire

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me too....always been a pyro at heart...lol

Bought our house 3 yrs ago. Grew up in the city never had a wood burner before. Got a little wood first season,not nearly enough. Ran out. Flipped on electric. Got 3 600-800$ electric bills. Joined here, learned, prepared and never looked back!

My father heated our house with a wood burning stove, and so did my grandfathers (one with a stove and one with a fireplace). When I moved away to college, I had an apartment that I heated with a fireplace, believe it or not. When my wife and I bought our current home, the first thing we did was install a wood stove.

I still do it mainly because it brings back good memories of my childhood. From the time I could fit in a pack, my father toted me along for cutting and stacking wood. He still tells the story of how my first word was 'hot'. He is no longer able to heat his home with wood because of age, etc but I feel like I am carrying on where he left off. It brings me great joy.

For me, its a combination of utility and enjoyment. I live on a plot of 82 acres with about 78 forested. I think that it would be stupid not to burn wood in this situation. My other option is electric baseboard heating. With the insulation in this house, I would spend hundreds each month in electricity.

My grandparents (who lived in the house I'm in now) and my parents both burn(ed) wood, as do many members of my extended family. I enjoy every step of the process. Even more so since I spent 6 years away living right in the middle of Pittsburgh. There were many perks of the city, but I missed the constant heat that our gas furnace didn't provide. I did get that from the cast iron radiators in an apartment, but our house had forced air.

Where I live now, losing electricity for a multi day period is a concern. It hasn't happened here in awhile, but if would be rather serious if it did to those without a stove.

As a bonus, my dad and I usually team up to collect firewood. Two people together can accomplish much more than two people working alone. And, of course, I enjoy spending time with my dad in this way.

A man approached me in a dimly lit room ... opened his jacket and said "hey man, you ever try hickory, oak or maple. It's wild!" ... I said I never had and he said he would give me a whiff for free ... I figured what have I got to lose right? He lit me up some maple ... one whiff and I was hooked!

LOL - I think I need an intervention!

For me, honestly, it comes to one thing. I'm a pyromaniac. I've always loved burning things since I was a toddler and setting things on fire and watching it burn. Having a wood stove let's me do this in a productive way.

Fireworks. I love fire. Shot fireworks professionally. Trained with Grucci. I now love watching fire in my living room rather than hitting the end of quickmatch from my flare to ignite an 8 inch shell. Much safer. Slower show.

My house is a converted beach bungalow. The original layout was never intended to be lived in during the winter months. The first winter we lived here we were freezing all the time. As soon as I could afford it, I had an insert installed in my fireplace. We haven't been cold since. I have done a lot work to greatly improve the houses ability to retain heat over the years, but installing the insert allowed us to stay warm while we picked away at the projects.

Additionally, I have always been a pragmatist and a pyro. Heating with wood is a perfect mingling of the two.

I grew up in a house heated with wood. Going wood cutting with dad was a normal thing. My parents had an Orly upstairs, and a few different stoves downstairs. When I was 15, my dad bought a used Avalon out of the nickel ad and it's still in use downstairs at their house now. They still have the Orly upstairs too.
When I bought my first house, getting set up for wood heat was one of my first priorities so I bought a new Lopi insert for the fireplace.

As a little kid my Parents bought a cottage on a lake in Ontario Ca. Had to have some heat during cool nights in the summer. Heated with an old pot belly. I learned to cut and split the hemlock and birch which surrounded our little place. After college in the 70's I needed to save money. I bought a whatever smoke dragon, found wood and heated. Next house, had a down drafter. Same thing. Next house.....bought a Sierra hearthstove. Got better at scrounging. Our present house is on it's second stove. The first was a Jotul Firelight Cat which I used for 19 years. Now a beautiful burgundy enamel Quad IR. I have been blessed to totally heat this 2000' Colonial for 21 years solely with wood. The gas furnace only comes on when we travel in the winter @55degrees. I am still able to CSS all the wood by hand. Oh and BTW.......we still have the little cottage... cutting and splitting poplar and hemlock up there as well. Raised four kids on wood, now 8 grandkids and counting, they ALL love coming back to Poppy's house to get warm.

Going up we always had a fire in the evening. My parents said it was to keep the dog happy. Moved to NW and used a wood stove as our only source of heat. After college and the purchase of our first home we used the fireplace each evening just like when I was a kid. The next house wood became our main source of heat as my wife was raised in Hawaii and their house only had screens for Windows so we always have windows open all year long. Wood is the only affordable option. For me the draw is the heat. Once you have lived with wood heat nothing else will do.

Growing up my father put in a franklin stove when we converted the basement into a finished basement family room. When the oil embargo hit during the 70's and oil started pushing a buck a gallon he decided to switch the franklin with an air tight wood stove to heat the house with mainly wood. He purchased an Olin wood stove with a blower and never looked back. That stove could push out the heat. I can remember living in my shorts and no shirt for almost the entire winter. As kids, after dinner, we would all settle down in that basement with a glass of ice water and watch tv until bed time.

Expensive oil . . . wanted a "back up" heat source in case of a power loss. Now my "back up" heat source is my main source of heat.

We bought a heavily wooded lot in the country and did our own land clearing. Seemed like a waste to just chip or sell all those trees, so we designed a wood stove into the new house plans.


That, and fire is awesome.

What wonderful stories. I came to wood heat very late in life being born and bred suburban , although I spent many summers at a camp that was mainly hiking and canoeing so learned to chop and split as a young teenager and when my kids were growing up our vacations were camping on land my parents purchased from the camp, where my kids also learned to chop, split and build good fires. But heating my house with wood was never on my radar until 17 years ago I moved into a house that had a small, very old Dutchwest. We burned intermittently for the enjoyment of the heat, nostalgia for camp and watching the fire. The stove kept falling apart and I joined hearth.com to get some advice having no idea there was a whole woodburning subculture out there. Thrree years ago, when Massachussets offered a rebate for old stoves I jumped at the chance, seeing my opportunity to join that club!! I am not sure I am saving money because I have to purchase my wood already split--and it is rather expensive when you are a suburbanite. I will have to wait a few more years to see how it balances out. But I love that I am using so little oil. I love the smell and feel of the heat. I love the amazement on people's faces when they see my backyard full of stacked wood. And all the other reasons given by Fiona D--she said it all better than I could.

Always had a fireplace but realized they just suck the heat out of your house. Like being self sufficient and am in the engineering field and engineers are cheap. Like splitting wood for exercise so yes I am sick. I split all my wood with a very old double headed axe I found in an old mine here in western North Carolina. Had to put a handle on it but never have messed with edge, probably would screw it up.

Rockhound said:

Always had a fireplace but realized they just suck the heat out of your house. Like being self sufficient and am in the engineering field and engineers are cheap. Like splitting wood for exercise so yes I am sick. I split all my wood with a very old double headed axe I found in an old mine here in western North Carolina. Had to put a handle on it but never have messed with edge, probably would screw it up.

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Some advice: As an engineer you understand the laws of conservation of energy. What you put into your axe can come right back out of it. Never split wood with a double bit axe. If it bounces back off of a round, it can end up making contact with you. Only split with a single bit tool so that, if this does happen, it's just a blunt piece of metal making contact, not the sharp edge of a bit. Please be safe.

At 55 I have been splitting wood with a double bit axe since I was 20. Can't say as I have ever had a bounce as you describe from chopping oak and hickory. Bigger wood I use what some call a go devil with a single bit and a sledge back, that would hurt too I imagine. I cut my wood in late winter, early spring green and let it season until late summer/fall and then split. Oak and hickory split easily but some woods which I do not burn don't. Don't usually chop anything that is too knotty, too much work and I have enough wood usually to be picky. I don't keep my axe real sharp, for me that wood be dangerous as I get pretty close to it with fingers making kindling. Still have all ten at last count. I appreciate the concern. By the way I Iike my Husqvarna too!

For me I always wanted to burn wood because it was cheaper than gas but the ex wife didn't trust a wood stove in the house after growing up with one as her primary heat source with only one chimney fire her entire life.

Then after my divorce I moved to a farm house in the country and couldn't afford the oil (or much else lol). So a cheap wood stove and a lot of free pallets provided my heat. Then I noticed when my furnace ran my youngest would get coughing and hacking really bad so stuck with the wood because it was better for his allergies then having the furnace running.

Now it is a matter of comfort for my son as my primary reason and avoiding paying OPEC as a fringe benefit.

On a side not the ex has since remarried and the kids tell me they have a woodstove now at their mothers... go figure.

High oil prices. And I'm clearing my property. The trees are coming down anyway, the only extra work is cutting and stacking.

My Dad heated with a wood furnace. He had 16 brothers and sisters and all of them heated with wood. They knew lots of farmers and when they wanted a woods cleared we would get the call. Some of the best memories of my life, we had somewhere in the neighborhood of 50 cousins in the woods on the average job older ones cutting, splitting and younger ones on the clean up crew. I have burned wood ever since, but only figured out what I was doing in the past few years. Since joining hearth!