Workshop: Why Use Wood Heat ?

You just talked me out of it. :lol:

The reason I plan on using wood heat in my home is both financial, comfort and enjoyment. I loved having a fire in the fireplace at my old home, the ambiamce and smell of burning, I've yet to get my stove in my new house. Financially, my current home is on fuel oil, which is very expensive, plus I have about 3 acres of woods on my property ontop of the aproximately 5-6 cords worth of logs the gas line company left me. I also enjoy using my chainsaw and splitting wood.

Why I won't use wood in my barns, I simply store/ use too many flamables to be safe in my opinion in my barns. Plus I typically only use heat in my barns occationally and often I want to go out and start working pretty much right away, where as messing with a wood stove would take some time to get going and heat the place up, with my propane heaters I just flip a switch and within a short period of time the barn is up to a comfortable temp.

Money is a part

smell of wood 'smoke' on cool crisp winter mornings
smell of two-stroke and bar oil
smell of fresh cut wood

sight of all my hard wood in wood stacks over the seasons
sight of a rip-roaring fire

sounds of a chainsaw
sounds of the splitter (or axe)
sounds of a crackling fire

Taste of beer sharing with buddies after cutting, bucking, splitting
occasionally the taste of wood chips in my mouth from long day of cutting

feel of the saw
feel of a heavy Oak split (like a gold bar!)

Love the feeling of providing something all by myself (a few exceptions there but you get it)
gets me out of the house
Good exercise
Wife snuggling up next to you watching the fire in lieu of the TV
Dogs sleeping in front

Or maybe just the grand notion of older times when life was a tad slower and simpler

Growing up, we not only heated our home with wood but my mother also cooked on a wood stove for many years. That also was our source for hot water as the cook stove had a large reservoir. Naturally I had been in homes that heated with gas or oil but I always was cold in those houses during the winter months. I recall a neighbor who had a large family and we used to play together. However, we very quickly got in the habit that we would go to their place in the summer but come winter everyone wanted to go to our place because it was warm.

When I got married, the house we bought had oil heat. Dang, we were cold! We also seemed to spend a lot of dollars on heating oil as it was $.12 per gallon when we got married but a couple years later it had raised to $.14 per gallon. Outrageous! So, quite naturally, we got back into wood heat.

Along with growing up with wood heat I also spent a few years working in the woods. Logging and also sawmill. I really enjoyed the woods work and do to this day.

So for us, yes, it is the dollars but even more, we both enjoy the wood heat. Sorry, but I like to be comfortable in my home and being cold is not comfortable. As for the time putting up the wood, that is enjoyable time for me. It is so enjoyable that I always cut more than I will ever use.

My wife and I are getting up in years so naturally we do not know how long we have to keep heating with wood but hope we can until our dieing days. If not, we'll certainly miss it. My wife right now can no longer help in the woods like she used to so I basically work alone. Some say at my age I should not do it. To that, I say Bull. I enjoy it and it is also great exercise. In addition, it saves us many dollars.


You stated, "It’s time consuming, requires space for storage, brings debris into a home, CAN be polluting, takes care in seasoning, takes plenty of labor, etc…"

Love the time it takes to do the wood; it is enjoyable.
I have 40 acres to stack wood on so space is no problem.
Debris in the home? That happens no matter what and there is very little extra debris with the wood.
Polluting? I'd much rather put some wood smoke into the air than smoke from oil.
Seasoning? No problem. Just stack it up and wait.
Labor. Yes, but enjoyable labor and great exercise for the body.
Etc.

Most of what others have said, plus:

Keeps me more in tune with the real (natural) world. I don't take a warm house for granted as I'm always reminded of where that heat comes from. Gets me outside in late fall & winter gathering wood for next year, splitting, making kindling...
During the heating season I'm more aware of what's going on with the weather. I naturally take more notice of how cool or cold it is, whether it's cloudy or sunny in the day, overcast or clear at night, windy or calm. All that helps me know how much heat I'll need, whether to reload at night for an overnight burn...
On winter evenings my wife and I are nearly always in the say room in front of the fire. The rest of the house is warm, but it's toasty in the living room & the insert draws people like moths toward the flame.
I grew-up heating partially with wood. It's just in my bones.

I've said it before. Most folks don't take into account how much time/energy they spend making the money to pay for the elec., oil, nat. gas, or propane they have to buy for the "convenience" of setting a thermostat.
But, they object to all the time/energy needed to use wood.
Not that most would be able to stop working just because they heat with wood, but the money could go elsewhere if they did.
People work hard for their money and want to be able to spend "off" time doing something other than more work, despite the payback.
I use wood because I like the heat, and it saves a bunch of money (long term) over the alternatives. When I was still working, I didn't really even consider wood heat.
Now that I'm mostly retired, I have the time and inclination to use wood. Once you get a year or two (or more :coolsmile: ) ahead of the curve, it gets much easier.

Stump_Branch said:

Money is a part

smell of wood 'smoke' on cool crisp winter mornings
smell of two-stroke and bar oil
smell of fresh cut wood

sight of all my hard wood in wood stacks over the seasons
sight of a rip-roaring fire

sounds of a chainsaw
sounds of the splitter (or axe)
sounds of a crackling fire

Taste of beer sharing with buddies after cutting, bucking, splitting
occasionally the taste of wood chips in my mouth from long day of cutting

feel of the saw
feel of a heavy Oak split (like a gold bar!)

Love the feeling of providing something all by myself (a few exceptions there but you get it)
gets me out of the house
Good exercise
Wife snuggling up next to you watching the fire in lieu of the TV
Dogs sleeping in front

Or maybe just the grand notion of older times when life was a tad slower and simpler

Click to expand...

Well said

Its real heat compared to what my heat pump does. Heat pumps just pump out money... My wood is free. So heat is free. Plus I need the exercise cutting and splitting. I enjoy the fire...

I'd like to emphasize something about working for the heat. I'm teaching my kids something, here. Too many kids don't know where anything comes from. "How do I pay for the food we buy at the store?" is answered with "a credit card" all too often by children today. Ask my 6 year old. He'll tell you "with money from your job."

Nothing solidifies that concept more than dad out in the yard sweating and grunting over something that the child sees provide warmth. He's old enough now that he gets to help, too. I just made a fire the other night and made sure to comment on how I was burning wood that he helped stack. I made sure to throw in a "thanks for helping make it so warm in here, it sure is cold outside tonight"

I seriously couldn't care if it actually cost me more to burn than to use NG. I'd do it all for that one purpose.

add me to the list of other things people have posted: I get to own/play with more power tools and toys; I get to bust things apart with a maul (exercise and stress release); I love to be outside, and love to be in the Timber more than just about anywhere else; I like to know that the power could go out on the coldest winter day and my family would be safe; I like the ambiance; I like using a renewable fuel source.

Backwoods Savage said:

Growing up, we not only heated our home with wood but my mother also cooked on a wood stove for many years. That also was our source for hot water as the cook stove had a large reservoir. Naturally I had been in homes that heated with gas or oil but I always was cold in those houses during the winter months. I recall a neighbor who had a large family and we used to play together. However, we very quickly got in the habit that we would go to their place in the summer but come winter everyone wanted to go to our place because it was warm.

When I got married, the house we bought had oil heat. Dang, we were cold! We also seemed to spend a lot of dollars on heating oil as it was $.12 per gallon when we got married but a couple years later it had raised to $.14 per gallon. Outrageous! So, quite naturally, we got back into wood heat.

Along with growing up with wood heat I also spent a few years working in the woods. Logging and also sawmill. I really enjoyed the woods work and do to this day.

So for us, yes, it is the dollars but even more, we both enjoy the wood heat. Sorry, but I like to be comfortable in my home and being cold is not comfortable. As for the time putting up the wood, that is enjoyable time for me. It is so enjoyable that I always cut more than I will ever use.

My wife and I are getting up in years so naturally we do not know how long we have to keep heating with wood but hope we can until our dieing days. If not, we'll certainly miss it. My wife right now can no longer help in the woods like she used to so I basically work alone. Some say at my age I should not do it. To that, I say Bull. I enjoy it and it is also great exercise. In addition, it saves us many dollars.


You stated, "It’s time consuming, requires space for storage, brings debris into a home, CAN be polluting, takes care in seasoning, takes plenty of labor, etc…"

Love the time it takes to do the wood; it is enjoyable.
I have 40 acres to stack wood on so space is no problem.
Debris in the home? That happens no matter what and there is very little extra debris with the wood.
Polluting? I'd much rather put some wood smoke into the air than smoke from oil.
Seasoning? No problem. Just stack it up and wait.
Labor. Yes, but enjoyable labor and great exercise for the body.
Etc.

Click to expand...

Dennis, you inspire me to go chop down some trees and do some splitting. May your good Lord give you and your wife many more years of health and may you continue to heat with wood.

PapaDave made a point that resonates with me...the money I have to work for to pay for other means of heating is work. For me, getting wood is work I really enjoy, and it is definitely a hobby that pays me back. Granted the tools to get started are an investment, but every other hobby I have had costs me a lot of money (and time). For me...if I am not with the family, its hunting or wood scrounging...both things that off set other bills (food and heat). Plus you can not beat having a house that is warm all winter....and a heating bill that is lower than the A/C in the summer!

Don't forget the reliability and independence of a free standing woodstove.

Last winter someone accidentally dug up the natural gas line in our neighborhood during a real cold spell, it took them 3 days to fix it and some customers were without gas for even longer because the gas company had to go from house to house manually bleeding the lines and relighting everyone's gas furnaces. It was a good thing they still had electricity because without those little space heaters there would have been a lot of people with broken water lines. It got down to about -25 °C (13 °F )
No heating system is more dependable than a wood stove and a good store of dry firewood. ;-)

Fjord, it wounds like a great thing you are doing. Congratulations!

There is nothing that hasn't been said that I could add so I will just say I love watching the fire, wood heat is much more comfortable that a forced air furnace and I love not having to worry about relying on someone else to keep my family warm. We lose power frequently in my neighborhood and it is nice to not have to worry about that on a cold winter's night.

For the many reasons above.

And I like to burn stuff and watch fire. It makes me feel at peace. Reading a good book,
sipping a glass of bourbon, while sitting in my rocking chair in front of the wood stove
is heaven on earth to me.

Don't get me wrong, I really like the oil-fired boiler and forced hot water heat in the house. And I like the oil-fired furnace out in the barn. I like knowing the pipes in the house won't freeze and I like the programmable thermostats that minimze the oil consumption in both buildings. And it's nice to know I don't have to deal with firewood if we're both laid low by some sort of nasty cold. It's nice to have the furnace kick on about 5:30 AM and bring the workroom up to the high-50s. I like firing up the Classic and having the space gradually warm up to a comfy, cozy 70-ish for the remainder of my work day. There is just something about wood heat that appeals to our sensibilities.

I think I define "work" differently than a lot of people. I'd rather spend the day outdoors, in the company of the dog, the cats, and the good man than sloggin' along at a crummy job in a depressing workplace. It feels good to use muscles, walk, breathe fresh air, and be part of the natural world. At the end of the day there is something to look at, point to, and say, "yeah, I did that today". I dervive a good deal of satisfaction knowing that my labor has just provided me with a level of self-sufficiency utterly lacking in most of my neighbors/acquaintances.

A couple of years ago I had a bunch of gardening friends to the house. There were several stacks of curing firewood in and around the yard (in the best sun and prevailing wind, of course!) and they were covered on the top with odd bits of filon, tired stockade fence, an occasional tarp, etc.. They werent' messy by a long shot, but the "look" was definitely more "rural" than a lot of my guests were used to. Anyway, one of them let it be known (behind my back) that she, "couldn't believe so&so; would live that way". I was crushed when word trickled back to me. And it made me cry. But then I looked at the two beautiful, efficient stoves (she called them "quaint") recalling how hard we'd worked to save for the Fireview and how we've maintained it over the years, I mentally tallied the value of the cord wood. Lo and behold, there was enough seasoned wood to heat our home (and my shop) for over 2 yrs. using no oil, at all! And I recalled how quickly the commentator's life had changed when her husband lost his cushy job to "downsizing" and how the changes had had to largely remain because his new job paid so much less than the one he'd lost. I recalled her reaction to watching me light the Aladdin oil lamp to light the deck as the sun went down... she didn't know about cleaning wicks or allowing the mantle to heat up gradually. And how my guests were enchanted by the cheery ambiance it provided for the party.

And wouldn't you know it? a few weeks later, another visitor to our home surveyed the stacks and admiringly commented, "you guys are all set for the winter. That's a lot of firewood; how long's it been curin'?". It really gave me a much needed boost and reminded me that some of us are more willing to tolerate "inconvenience", "unsightliness", and "mess" simply because we have a different way of looking at life and providing comfort for ourselves.

Why heat with wood?

I like to play with fire, that's why I'm a wood burner.

Seriously, it's just a thing. I worked so hard for that title. http://vimeo.com/16072732

The stock market wont effect next years pile of wood I have cut, split and stacked.

I set the thermostat where I want it instead of to where its tolerable.

My propane delivery guy goes to my church. I only see him there

We dont have threads here that requests our best fuel tank photos

You list the following as potential negatives, It’s time consuming, requires space for storage, , CAN be polluting, takes care in seasoning, takes plenty of labor, etc…
I do not agree,
It’s time consuming - Yes it is, what else would I do with my time? Drink more beer? I am young, healthy and handy with tools such as a saw and axe. Time well spent I think.
requires space for storage - Yes it does, at least a little space. Most people agree that you should have 2 years worth of burning on hand. Stacked well it does not take up a huge amount of room. I do not take up so much room that I am going without something because the wood is in the way. Now some guys on here are slightly obsessive so yes, you may find wood in the hall closet.
brings debris into a home - Yes it does, but not near as much as the kids and dogs. Should I give them up as well? A simple sweep around the hearth is all it adds to the cleaning chores.
takes care in seasoning - Takes care? Honestly, the hardest part in seasoning is being patient. Just stack it in a logical way and wait. Not rocket science.
takes plenty of labor - You bet it does and that's one of the best parts of this whole thing for me. I really enjoy working my ass off and reaping the rewards.

So the main reason I burn wood is that it gets me out of the home in a healthy environment and ultimately saves me tons of money. My electric bill as gone from approx $320 monthly to just below $120. The choice is obvious for me.

Missed the pollution thing. Just checked my chimney, not an ounce of smoke coming out so that point is moot in this day and age. Providing we educate the masses that is.

SKIN052 said:

Missed the pollution thing. Just checked my chimney, not an ounce of smoke coming out so that point is moot in this day and age. Providing we educate the masses that is.

Click to expand...

And don't forget - most of what it is putting in the air - CO and CO2... Is carbon that those trees absorbed out of the air in your lifetime, and will be reabsorbed back into the earth by the new tree growing in its place. Its a closed cycle of nature that would happen anyway when the tree dies and rots.

When you burn gas or oil you are pumping carbon into the air that has been underground for 200 million years.

BECAUSE I CAN!

Danno77 said:

I'd like to emphasize something about working for the heat. I'm teaching my kids something, here. Too many kids don't know where anything comes from. "How do I pay for the food we buy at the store?" is answered with "a credit card" all too often by children today. Ask my 6 year old. He'll tell you "with money from your job."

Nothing solidifies that concept more than dad out in the yard sweating and grunting over something that the child sees provide warmth. He's old enough now that he gets to help, too. I just made a fire the other night and made sure to comment on how I was burning wood that he helped stack. I made sure to throw in a "thanks for helping make it so warm in here, it sure is cold outside tonight"

I seriously couldn't care if it actually cost me more to burn than to use NG. I'd do it all for that one purpose.

add me to the list of other things people have posted: I get to own/play with more power tools and toys; I get to bust things apart with a maul (exercise and stress release); I love to be outside, and love to be in the Timber more than just about anywhere else; I like to know that the power could go out on the coldest winter day and my family would be safe; I like the ambiance; I like using a renewable fuel source.

Click to expand...

Danno, I'd like to congratulate you in how you are teaching your children. This is great and this also has to be one of the all time great posts on hearth.com.

KatWill said:

Backwoods Savage said:

Growing up, we not only heated our home with wood but my mother also cooked on a wood stove for many years. That also was our source for hot water as the cook stove had a large reservoir. Naturally I had been in homes that heated with gas or oil but I always was cold in those houses during the winter months. I recall a neighbor who had a large family and we used to play together. However, we very quickly got in the habit that we would go to their place in the summer but come winter everyone wanted to go to our place because it was warm.

When I got married, the house we bought had oil heat. Dang, we were cold! We also seemed to spend a lot of dollars on heating oil as it was $.12 per gallon when we got married but a couple years later it had raised to $.14 per gallon. Outrageous! So, quite naturally, we got back into wood heat.

Along with growing up with wood heat I also spent a few years working in the woods. Logging and also sawmill. I really enjoyed the woods work and do to this day.

So for us, yes, it is the dollars but even more, we both enjoy the wood heat. Sorry, but I like to be comfortable in my home and being cold is not comfortable. As for the time putting up the wood, that is enjoyable time for me. It is so enjoyable that I always cut more than I will ever use.

My wife and I are getting up in years so naturally we do not know how long we have to keep heating with wood but hope we can until our dieing days. If not, we'll certainly miss it. My wife right now can no longer help in the woods like she used to so I basically work alone. Some say at my age I should not do it. To that, I say Bull. I enjoy it and it is also great exercise. In addition, it saves us many dollars.


You stated, "It’s time consuming, requires space for storage, brings debris into a home, CAN be polluting, takes care in seasoning, takes plenty of labor, etc…"

Love the time it takes to do the wood; it is enjoyable.
I have 40 acres to stack wood on so space is no problem.
Debris in the home? That happens no matter what and there is very little extra debris with the wood.
Polluting? I'd much rather put some wood smoke into the air than smoke from oil.
Seasoning? No problem. Just stack it up and wait.
Labor. Yes, but enjoyable labor and great exercise for the body.
Etc.

Click to expand...

Dennis, you inspire me to go chop down some trees and do some splitting. May your good Lord give you and your wife many more years of health and may you continue to heat with wood.

Click to expand...

Thanks KatWill. May the blessing also return onto you and your family.