Anyone burn wood who grew up when parents burned wood?

[Chargerman]

My parents were not lifelong burners and dad made his living installing oil and gas furnaces back in the 60's and 70's. For some reason when dad built a new house back in 1977 he installed one of those Longwood wood/oil furnaces. He would buy slabwood from a local mill and cut it into 4' lengths and burn that. I don't think he would have ever went out in the woods to collect firewood though. In the 80's we moved to Florida and he didn't really have the time or need for wood heat anymore. After moving back to Wisconsin years later my parents didn't burn wood for heating purposes except in the old cookstove when they stayed at their cabin on short vacations.

It took my wife who grew up with wood heat and LP jumping over $2 a gallon to finally get me interested. Our farm has a great supply of wood so I installed a Big Jack add on wood furnace in my last house just like the one my father in law has burned in for over 30 years. I have enjoyed the warmth of wood heat ever since and now my wife doesn't complain about being cold all the time either.

 

[midwestcoast]

My dad built a huge (hand-split) fieldstone fireplace into the house he built ('76-77). It had glass doors and heatilator-type channels about 10" square. That fireplace held heat for 2 days after a fire, but couldn't really heat the house (large Ranch), just helped the oil-fired boiler out.
Sometime in the mid 80's my grandfather bought & gave us a big (5-6ft³?) welded steal stove from a local guy. I've never seen another like it, top-loading with no gasketing, accordion-folded walls for more radiant surface, drew the exhaust beneath a baffle @ bottom rear. It was ugly as sin, but installed in the (un-insulated) basement it warmed the house okay & the fireplace became decoration only. Later dad rigged-up a crazy-looking system of radiators surrounding the stove & connected to the baseboard heaters. That distrubuted the heat nicely.
I loved working in the woods as a kid & later felt pretty cool splitting with the axe. I resented draggin my butt out of bed on Sat mornings in the fall to head to the woods, but always kinda liked the work.
When I got my first house I set about air-sealing, insulating... and installed an insert by the next fall here mainly as a way to reduce my carbon emissions.
About to start my 2'nd burning season & I still love processing wood. I was able to get close to the year-ahead goal with some good scores this summer, though it seems like more work being a scrounger in the city without a woodlot, tractor, truck...
A half-hour with a pile of rounds & a Fiskars is what I call "Cubicle Therapy"

 

[firefighterjake]

Yup . . . and I liked working with Dad on the wood . . . then again everyone in the family pitched in to help get the wood in . . . so it never seemed like a real chore to get in the 12 cord of wood each year for Dad's wood furnace. Growing up I actually thought most people heated with wood in fact. . . .

Of course I have learned a few things from hearth.com and can't say as though I do a lot like Dad used to do . . . i.e. cutting wood in the summer for use in the Fall.

As for me, having a "back up" heat source for power outages in the winter was important . . . but when heating oil prices spiked a few years back that was the one event that pushed me over the edge and motivated me to get a woodstove.

As for Dad . . . since his outdoor wood boiler caught on fire and burned his house down a few years back (it's a long story) Mom has refused to entertain any of his suggestions to get another outdoor wood boiler, woodstove or pelletstove.

 

[Sisu]

My parents burned wood and their parents burned wood....and so on and so on. I think I could go on right to the discovery of fire with this one.

 

[katwillny]

I grew up overseas where there was not natural gas lines and it was too costly to get gas or oil delivered and we used wood for everything. There is something very soothing about heating with wood. I get wood delivered and sometimes in the summer I scrounge but mostly I get 3 to 4 cords delivered so I dont do the heavy work like some of the brave souls on this forum do. Like my main man Dennis, Backwoods Savage, he loves to chop stuff up.