After burning wood for more than 30 years, I converted to a gas stove. After 1 day of use I have no bark in front of the stove, no slight smell of burnt wood, and a warm house in the morning. It was very nice to just sit last night and not mess with a fire. I was not too hot, I was not too cold, it was just right.
In the 30+ wood years I ran through 3 chain saws, lots of fuel, both saw and truck, but my leg just shy of the hospital visit, bought various lots of crappy wood, woke up with a sore back more times than I can count, and probably didn't help the environment one bit.
My wood burning years were all in the rockies of Wyoming. Little good wood, just pine, aspen, cottonwood, mt ash, and russian olive. Might have felt different if I had the dilema that some have red oak vs white oak, vs various types of maple or hickory, but I mostly had short burn pine. Got a load once of old orchard cherry and apple, it was great, fires would last and the bit of smoke smell was pretty sweet smelling, but that only was a one shot deal.
So anyhow, i now have a Hearthstone Santa Fe, with a Skytech programable remote. Pretty far removed from the old Jotul. I am pretty happy. My wife sat there last night and would periodically look up and say, "this is really nice". Not to mention we gained about 8 square feet of floor space in the living room.
In the 30+ wood years I ran through 3 chain saws, lots of fuel, both saw and truck, but my leg just shy of the hospital visit, bought various lots of crappy wood, woke up with a sore back more times than I can count, and probably didn't help the environment one bit.
My wood burning years were all in the rockies of Wyoming. Little good wood, just pine, aspen, cottonwood, mt ash, and russian olive. Might have felt different if I had the dilema that some have red oak vs white oak, vs various types of maple or hickory, but I mostly had short burn pine. Got a load once of old orchard cherry and apple, it was great, fires would last and the bit of smoke smell was pretty sweet smelling, but that only was a one shot deal.
So anyhow, i now have a Hearthstone Santa Fe, with a Skytech programable remote. Pretty far removed from the old Jotul. I am pretty happy. My wife sat there last night and would periodically look up and say, "this is really nice". Not to mention we gained about 8 square feet of floor space in the living room.