How did you get into Burning and How Long Ago

[katwillny]

There was a similar thread a few years back but since then we have had a lot of new folk join us.
I started burning and messing with firewood ever since i was a kid overseas over 30 years ago.
In 2002 we bought a Breckwell P22 Pellet stove and fell in love with the warmth it provided immediatly. When we moved to northern NY we brought the stove with us and the house had an old Dutchwest cast iron. It worked well for a few years but we went out and got a Englander 30 and love it. Other than the heat the stoves provide we are also big into this culture. Nothing beats waking up at 7am on saturedays and split and stack then go to one of my sons soccer games then come back and do some more split and stacking. Sundays are scrounge days.
After spending 50+ hours a week flying a desk wood processing feels good.

 

[fox9988]

I was born and raised with wood heat, can't imagine being without it. To me, wood heat is the ability to control the weather--- indoors (doesn't work in the summer).

 

[Beetle-Kill]

First fire at 6 yrs. old. Sycamore and Black oak.
I remember this because it was our new house my folks were building, masons gave the OK to start a fire in the fireplace. Looking back, I feel I was deprived my first few years.

 

[ditchrider]

i have always been a firebug. I got in trouble often when I was young for playing with matches. While in the Boy Scouts, we raised money by selling firewood, not popcorn. We often took trips to the forest to gather wood to process. Not to mention the various campfires at all the outings. My parents and grandparents were big on history, and it often involves reminiscence of fireplaces, franklin stoves and campfires. And onto my "grownup years"... My cousin gave me his woodstove when the natural gas line went to their house. Along with it was the condition I clean up his wood stack. I was getting close to the end of the woodstack and called up the irrigation canal superintendent to see if any trees had fallen on the ditch that I could scrounge... fifteen years later I am now the superintendent.

Flowing water through the canals seems secondary, it seems the focus of my work involves maintenance. Clearing out trees and burning the weeds and grass that accumulate in the canals during the off-season. I was born into it.

The resource is abundant. It is often without cost. It often goes to waste. That bugs me. With a little weekend exercise throughout the year you can keep your home warm in the winter "FOR FREE! ". With all the money I have saved, I bought a new wood stove, several chainsaws, and have re-modeled my home to work with the centralized heating unit. I'm a wood a-holic. If it's bigger than my wrist, and not cottonwood, I'll take it. That led to more adventures. My lack of scruples has burdened me with all the 30-plus diameter crap no one else wants to deal with. I have rebuilt my splitter to it's ultimate demise, my surgeon rebuilt my belly-button in three places in the same operation, and my kids have vivid memories of disaster in our early years in my fervor for processing and burning wood. ...And in a few years, they can tell my grand children stories from their childhood.

 

[ddahlgren]

A Franklin that was given to me in pieces to be bolted and sealed part by part and then burn scrap wood old pallets etc. That is back when I was in my twenties and now in my 60's when i wanted to replace my metal chimney i called the building inspector to see if any code had changed thinking doing the right thing to make sure up to date. I was told to go before the historical district for permission to put it back and let them know old men do not ask permission to not be cold so arrest me and let's see how that plays out. The stove is 500 and flue 600 so thinking quite safe.

 

[savageactor7]

During the oil embargo of the 70's I helped a buddy c/s wood he'd burned to save money on fuel oil. He saved a lot of money and that got me to thinking, around the bicentennial we got this place with wood lot and have been burning ever since.

Our first stove was a Franklin with isinglass windows and this QF is our 4th stove.

 

[firefighterjake]

Grew up with my parents having a wood furnace.

After college lived in a camp with an Ashley and then Shenandoah that was way, way over-sized for that place (ended up killing my gold fish since it was way too warm for them).

Always wanted a woodstove for back up heat in the house that I bought . . . especially after going 14 days without power during the Ice Storm of 1998. However, the impetus for going to wood was when oil prices went through the roof in 2008. Figured I would burn only on weekends and evenings . . . and quickly learned that it was much cheaper and just as easy to burn 24/7 . . . haven't looked back since then.

 

[Ashful]

Grew up in a house with three fireplaces. Fast-forward fifteen years, and we bought our current house, also with three fireplaces, one of which housed a Jotul F12. Had planned to tear it out, and have an open fireplace again, but SWMBO and the local code enforcement guy talked me into keeping it. After a year of using the F12 for heat, bought a second, to install in one of the other fireplaces.

 

[KaptJaq]

In 1989 I bought an old beach bungalow that had a coal stove. Fixed up the house and re-did the stove. At first I only used it occasionally, it was more ornamental than functional. Loved the even warmth. Slowly it became the primary heat source. When we moved 10 years later the new to us house had two fireplaces and an abandoned coal stove sitting in a corner full of flowers. Sealed the downstairs fireplace and put the refurbished coal stove on the hearth. Put an insert in the upstairs fireplace. It has been wood/coal ever since. The insert is great for normal winter days around here, highs in the low 40s, lows in the mid 20s. When we get the real cold stretches the coal stove gets lit. The coal stove is also great for long weekends away, I can light it off on Friday evening and the house is still warm when we get home Sunday night.

KaptJaq

 

[PapaDave]

Had a fireplace when I was a teen, but we didn't use it much.
Bought this place in '06, and the Ashley steptop was already installed (pretty much everything was wrong with the install, but I didn't know it at the time).
So, 7 winters burning, c/s/s, hauling....eh, you guys know the drill.

 

[katwillny]

. I was getting close to the end of the woodstack and called up the irrigation canal superintendent to see if any trees had fallen on the ditch that I could scrounge... fifteen years later I am now the superintendent.

...
Stories like these is why I wanted to put up this thread last night. Is amazing how single events in our lives make us who we are today as adults. Thanks for sharing.

 

[gerry100]

1979 when we bought a house w/ a woodstove and wood lot.

 

[thewoodlands]

There was a similar thread a few years back but since then we have had a lot of new folk join us.
I started burning and messing with firewood ever since i was a kid overseas over 30 years ago.
In 2002 we bought a Breckwell P22 Pellet stove and fell in love with the warmth it provided immediatly. When we moved to northern NY we brought the stove with us and the house had an old Dutchwest cast iron. It worked well for a few years but we went out and got a Englander 30 and love it. Other than the heat the stoves provide we are also big into this culture. Nothing beats waking up at 7am on saturedays and split and stack then go to one of my sons soccer games then come back and do some more split and stacking. Sundays are scrounge days.
After spending 50+ hours a week flying a desk wood processing feels good.

We were offered a nice junk of land, so we bought it. But before we bought the land, we had (still do) a pellet stove, pellet prices kept climbing so we bought the Lopi Liberty, been burning wood & pellets since.

We buy 1 ton of pellets per year, down from 200 bags when we use to heat the house with just pellets.

 

[begreen]

My dad showed us how to make firecans out of old paint cans when we were kids. Poke a bunch of air holes around the base, and a couple at the top to run some bailing wire through to make a long handle. Fill with twigs, set on fire, then twirl it around to force air into the fire. It was a great light show on a summer's night. I was hooked, but didn't have a stove until I was about 21. Then fire in and Ashley Columbian became a matter of survival in a cold New England winter.

 

[smokinj]

I was raised with mufti Family members burning. This was early 70's and everyone showed up and it was an event if you will. First time I pull a trigger on a saw I was hook. (Maybe 4-5) This was Father holding the saw. I was steering tractors as-well. Before I was 10 I could plow in straight rows and the next year learn how to put the 45's in.

 

[Ashful]

My dad showed us how to make firecans out of old paint cans when we were kids. Poke a bunch of air holes around the base, and a couple at the top to run some bailing wire through to make a long handle. Fill with twigs, set on fire, then twirl it around to force air into the fire. It was a great light show on a summer's night.

Today, your father would be arrested for child abuse, and might even get an honorable mention on Fox & Friends.

How long do I need to wait to try this with my 3 year old? Age 7?

 

[begreen]

I would guess I was about 10 by then. We did get busted eventually. One fall evening my brother set his can down in dry grass and it caught fire. Things got exciting there for a little bit. Surprised we we didn't get much more than a safety lecture afterward. I think my father felt more to blame as we were doing this unsupervised. Things were different then, people took risks. As a kid I loved riding in the back of the pickup in summer. Try that now.

 

[westkywood]

Moved into this house 20 yrs ago. An insert ( aka smoke dragon ) was in the fireplace. Used it for a few years but got tired of getting up at 3:00 am to re-stoke it. About 7 years go by using nothing but high priced propane. Bought a used free standing stove ( Drolet ). I put the flue straight through the roof. Stove was too small but used it for 2 years. Finally wised up and got a Super 27. Life will never be the same....
I love the entire process of burning wood.

 

[bag of hammers]

Starting from scratch in my original cabin (@ '98). I happened to be in a box store in S Ontario when they were clearing out the Drolet "Little Sawman" stoves - brand new $140 in the crate and onto the back of my truck. This little unit easily heated my small weekend cabin for over 10 years. When I started building the addition on the original building, I went shopping around to find something bigger and ended up with another sale item (the Osburn). I've been a firebug for decades - camping / hunting / fishing trips etc. and we always had a nice outside fire.

 

[Ashful]

Dennis invented fire.

 

[Backwoods Savage]

You could say I was born and raised with wood heat. That is all I knew until my wife and I bought a house and got married. It had oil heat and I thought it would be nice not having to handle all the wood chores. Well, that part was nice for a little while but before winter was even half over we were wishing for wood heat. I might add that the price of our fuel oil at that time was $.12 per gallon. Then I remember when the price went up two cents. That hurt the budget at the time. We did get back to wood heat and have never considered going away from it. We've owned a few different stoves but none matched the one we have now. Cutting our wood needs in half while staying warmer really made our lives much more comfortable.

We do not know how long we can continue with wood heat but both of us hope we can heat with wood the rest of our lives. Knowing that as we age, our bodies can't do as much, we like to keep a healthy wood pile, just in case. For example, this past fall I had another injury and was not certain I could even cut any wood this last winter. However, we did some and are now struggling to get it split. Then comes the stacking. But we need not hurry as we probably have enough wood to last until the winter of 2019-2020.

 

[Woody Stover]

We had two fireplaces in the original house my folks built. The living room fireplace had a beautiful, wide limestone front and slate hearth. We only had occasional ambiance fires. I can remember opening Christmas presents with the fire burning.
My wife moved into this cabin a few months before I came down here. Her grandma bought her the Englander 24. Bad slammer install with a plate over the front of the fireplace caused a buildup of unburned gasses in the fireplace, which ignited when my wife opened the load door and supplied oxygen....blew the door out of her hand and knocked her on her butt! I got here shortly after that, and we talked to her cousin who was a sweep for a time. She told us to run pipe up to the top. We still struggled for years, trying to burn Red Oak seasoned less than a year. The Ash burned great, though. Then I picked up a used Dutchwest 2460, but the wet wood still held us back. If the room temp dropped, I had a battle on my hands trying to recover. We had a few chimney fires. I never cleaned the pipe until the draft got slow enough to cause smoke roll-out. That didn't happen often; Plenty of creo but seldom a hot enough fire to ignite it. Somehow, I avoided burning the house down...
When I finally started reading here, Dennis and others made the case for dry wood and I swore off procrastination and committed to getting ahead. Upgraded to the Woodstocks and we're loving the dry-wood radiant heat. It's cool and damp here now, so we get to enjoy a few more fires before season's end.

 

[DBoon]

We bought our wood stove in 2008. I always wanted a stove but we didn't have the right house for it. I enjoyed helping my father-in-law gather and process his wood, and still enjoy that activity solo now as well.

Dennis - keep cutting, splitting, and stacking - it keeps you young!

 

[Wildo]

"ya never slow down ya never grow old"
.
.
Grampy did 5+ until he was almost 94

 

[Locust Post]

Parents never had wood heat but some of my fondest memories were visiting my Grandparents or aunt and uncle that all lived in the country in WV. As a kid I would always fall asleep by the wood stove or sit on Grandpas lap by the stove and light his Bugler roll your own cigarette with a stick match. Grew up and sort of forgot it about it until I bought my first house in 1981 and my BIL had just bought a new steptop stove that I helped install. I really enjoyed helping him with the wood related stuff so I bought my first stove shortly after that.....a warm morning stove. A few years after that I bought an air tight stove as was the way to go then. Bought the house I own now an it had the stone fireplace so it wasn't long until I had the insert I have now. Just last weekend I finally bought my first ever new stove (insert) Buck 91.