There's no cap on how high fuel oil prices can go. The purchase price and installation of my fuel oil is finite. It's going to take time for the stove to pay for itself, but I'm predicting (based on the miniscule fuel use so far this winter) that it will be within two years of initial use (which started in Sept.).
I had a moisture condensation problem before; the stove has increased my air turnover; no more drippy windows.
My son and I haul firewood, chop, and stack it together, and hang out by the woodstove and talk, instead of him going to his room and shutting the door after dinner.
I remember an ice storm that shut the borough down, and took weeks for power to come back up for a lot of people. Lots of folks had their houses freeze up, lost plumbing that fall. Now I have a way to cope if that happens again.
I have a reason to get outside and be a little active on the weekends.
It's cleaning up my woodlot--looks a lot better around here already.
Fear seems to come with the territory for single mothers; you feel like the weight of the world is on your shoulders. The year that prices went over $4 a gallon, lots of people had their fuel oil tanks raided and drained, sometimes in the middle of the night when homeowners were sleeping. That was just one more thing to worry about. Self-reliance is a great antidote to fear. Example: my oven stopped working right before Thanksgiving. I got on the 'net, did some research, talked to the folks at the parts store, and at five a.m. on T'day, with my head in the oven (appreciating the irony there), it occurred to me that the wood stove had something to do with my feeling I could tackle a job like this instead of feeling helpless, overwhelmed, inadequate. The decisions to get a wood stove, what kind to get, where to install it, how to make the hearth, were fraught and a real roller-coaster drama-rama, but I worked my way through all that and learned in doing. Maybe it's a chicken-and-egg kind of question, but as I do more for myself, I become more able and likely to do more for myself. I felt an indescribable satisfaction when I saw the new igniter come to a glow, and the propane ignite in a pretty blue flame, made more enjoyable by knowing I'd saved $180 in the service call, and was able to do it when I needed it done instead of being at the mercy of a repairman's schedule. I've changed out light fixtures (and trimmed out a florescent light with oak--came out real pretty), replumbed my kitchen sink, semi-remodeled a bathroom, all of this taking three times as long as a professional, and learning as I go (meaning I've got a lot of spare parts and some funny-looking joints). Now when something goes wrong, it's just natural to start thinking about how to fix it instead of how to get it fixed. None of this is rocket science, but it took a paradigm shift for me to see myself as someone who was able to figure out problems and solve them after years of hearing a relentless marital yammar to the contrary. That's probably the greatest gift of the wood stove; I'm overcoming that fear. (BTW, this year it's the woodpiles that I hear are getting stolen.)
Oh, yeah--and the fire looks so pretty, and feels so good. Gotta go--time throw some wood on the fire and roust out the boy for school.
ETA: I thought about this after I posted, and am back to add a little more. My reasons changed as I went along from the planning (emergency back-up/supplementation) to almost exclusively heating wiith wood. I found these posts on a site that tracked fuel-oil prices during the price run-up of 2008--the year I decided to get a stove in. Guess I wasn't the only one feeling the fear. Now I shake my head in wonderment. from http://www.fairbanksgas.com/
What can we do? Get a wood stove. How can young families get by? Get a truck and a saw and a cutting permit and sell firewood. The Alaskan Dream, best to my knowledge, never was about getting things handed to you--it's just about having a chance to have some control over your destiny. My wood stove is a part of that.
I had a moisture condensation problem before; the stove has increased my air turnover; no more drippy windows.
My son and I haul firewood, chop, and stack it together, and hang out by the woodstove and talk, instead of him going to his room and shutting the door after dinner.
I remember an ice storm that shut the borough down, and took weeks for power to come back up for a lot of people. Lots of folks had their houses freeze up, lost plumbing that fall. Now I have a way to cope if that happens again.
I have a reason to get outside and be a little active on the weekends.
It's cleaning up my woodlot--looks a lot better around here already.
Fear seems to come with the territory for single mothers; you feel like the weight of the world is on your shoulders. The year that prices went over $4 a gallon, lots of people had their fuel oil tanks raided and drained, sometimes in the middle of the night when homeowners were sleeping. That was just one more thing to worry about. Self-reliance is a great antidote to fear. Example: my oven stopped working right before Thanksgiving. I got on the 'net, did some research, talked to the folks at the parts store, and at five a.m. on T'day, with my head in the oven (appreciating the irony there), it occurred to me that the wood stove had something to do with my feeling I could tackle a job like this instead of feeling helpless, overwhelmed, inadequate. The decisions to get a wood stove, what kind to get, where to install it, how to make the hearth, were fraught and a real roller-coaster drama-rama, but I worked my way through all that and learned in doing. Maybe it's a chicken-and-egg kind of question, but as I do more for myself, I become more able and likely to do more for myself. I felt an indescribable satisfaction when I saw the new igniter come to a glow, and the propane ignite in a pretty blue flame, made more enjoyable by knowing I'd saved $180 in the service call, and was able to do it when I needed it done instead of being at the mercy of a repairman's schedule. I've changed out light fixtures (and trimmed out a florescent light with oak--came out real pretty), replumbed my kitchen sink, semi-remodeled a bathroom, all of this taking three times as long as a professional, and learning as I go (meaning I've got a lot of spare parts and some funny-looking joints). Now when something goes wrong, it's just natural to start thinking about how to fix it instead of how to get it fixed. None of this is rocket science, but it took a paradigm shift for me to see myself as someone who was able to figure out problems and solve them after years of hearing a relentless marital yammar to the contrary. That's probably the greatest gift of the wood stove; I'm overcoming that fear. (BTW, this year it's the woodpiles that I hear are getting stolen.)
Oh, yeah--and the fire looks so pretty, and feels so good. Gotta go--time throw some wood on the fire and roust out the boy for school.
ETA: I thought about this after I posted, and am back to add a little more. My reasons changed as I went along from the planning (emergency back-up/supplementation) to almost exclusively heating wiith wood. I found these posts on a site that tracked fuel-oil prices during the price run-up of 2008--the year I decided to get a stove in. Guess I wasn't the only one feeling the fear. Now I shake my head in wonderment. from http://www.fairbanksgas.com/
What can we do? Get a wood stove. How can young families get by? Get a truck and a saw and a cutting permit and sell firewood. The Alaskan Dream, best to my knowledge, never was about getting things handed to you--it's just about having a chance to have some control over your destiny. My wood stove is a part of that.
