Started as stove talk now thread about marriage, etc...

[MRD1985]

I was in the same situation as you, 10-12 years ago when we bought our house. It already had one wood stove installed when we bought, albeit a really bad one, and my wife was very quickly fed up with the whole thing.

But knowing she has always had more trouble clearly seeing the finish line from the start, and that all things would be forgiven with success, I plowed ahead anyway. I spent a year or three building up a wood supply, then installed two new liners and two new stoves that actually worked reliably. It wasn't but a year hence, that she was the first one asking when I'm going to start the stoves on a cold day.

Now I catch her telling friends and neighbors that she wouldn't want to live in this house without the wood stoves. Go figure!

I wish I had that luxury! Unfortunately I can’t just do it without her. Said if I ask about it again or keep pushing I can move out, buy my own place and do it. She wasn’t kidding!

 

[bigealta]

I wish I had that luxury! Unfortunately I can’t just do it without her. Said if I ask about it again or keep pushing I can move out, buy my own place and do it. She wasn’t kidding!

Bummer, now go turn the heat down.

 

[joop]

I wish I had that luxury! Unfortunately I can’t just do it without her. Said if I ask about it again or keep pushing I can move out, buy my own place and do it. She wasn’t kidding!

soooo,problem is?

 

[MRD1985]

soooo,problem is?

7% mortgages 🤣

 

[MRD1985]

Bummer, now go turn the heat down.

Still trying to figure out a way to do this but running out of options

 

[Caw]

Bummer, now go turn the heat down.

Become a 60 degree household. Blankets, sweatshirts, hats. Not paying the fossil fuel man if you want to be warmer we can use wood. Its cheap, abundant, and plenty safe when done right. A nice 72 degree house sounds cozy.

 

[MRD1985]

Become a 60 degree household. Blankets, sweatshirts, hats. Not paying the fossil fuel man if you want to be warmer we can use wood. Its cheap, abundant, and plenty safe when done right. A nice 72 degree house sounds cozy.

She’d just turn the thermostat up. I agree with you otherwise.

 

[joop]

next big storm sneak into basement turn off fuse panel. freeze for a couple of days, voila.

 

[Caw]

Make her a Hearth.com account. She can do some research and find out she's worrying about a lot of nothing.

 

[MRD1985]

Make her a Hearth.com account. She can do some research and find out she's worrying about a lot of nothing.

You gave me a good laugh. She could care less. She thinks what she thinks and that’s that. Oh and her parents’ opinion is gospel.

I think my best bet would be saying while cleaning the chimney I found some cracked clay tiles and the flue can’t be used unless we line it and use something other than the open fire place 🤔 then again she’d probably call her dad for second opinion

 

[Caw]

You gave me a good laugh. She could care less. She thinks what she thinks and that’s that. Oh and her parents’ opinion is gospel.

Are we married to the same woman? 🤔

 

[bigealta]

Are we married to the same woman? 🤔

Yup all of us are. Got to show some balls at some point.

 

[MRD1985]

Are we married to the same woman? 🤔

Sound familiar??

Yup all of us are. Got to show some balls at some point.

in this case showing “balls” would end up in divorce. Zero exaggeration.

She usually ends with “if you don’t like it, there’s the door” in big disagreements. Don’t want to get too deep into it but I think you get the jist

The biggest issue I think and she has mentioned is that this isn’t a NEED in her eye as we have different alternatives to heat the house. It also does not affect her directly. In a way she is right, we don’t NEED it. BUT, I it is a less expensive way to provide heat to our house, and I myself HATE paying for utilities. Those bills will never go away. I try to save as much as I/we can in that area. Burning wood with what’s available to me seems to me the least expensive option with a large benefit in a few different ways. She has generally not been very receptive to things that are not absolute needs and things that do not effect her directly.

 

[joop]

run,run for your life.seriously

 

[Ashful]

Every marriage is different, guys! My wife would never stop me from doing what I want with this house, but that's always been my domain, and she knew that going in. There are many other areas I compromise, in which others may not, you gotta find what works for you and respect the boundaries.

That said, a visit to a friend with a wood stove, who keeps their house at 75F when others on oil or propane might be holding 68-70F, might be enough to cause some doubt in her current assertions. Likewise, a few days without power can usually generate some acute interest in power-free heating, esp. if you're on a heat pump that's not easily back-fed by generator.

 

[MRD1985]

Every marriage is different, guys! My wife would never stop me from doing what I want with this house, but that's always been my domain, and she knew that going in. There are many other areas I compromise, in which others may not, you gotta find what works for you and respect the boundaries.

That said, a visit to a friend with a wood stove, who keeps their house at 75F when others on oil or propane might be holding 68-70F, might be enough to cause some doubt in her current assertions. Likewise, a few days without power can usually generate some acute interest in power-free heating, esp. if you're on a heat pump that's not easily back-fed by generator.

The funny part is (not so funny I guess) id I do 100% of the maintenance on the house without her help. I installed our heat pump, done some big plumbing jobs (drain pipe replacement for sink and tub, and re piped about 40 feet worth of water piping and valves), replaced the water heater, all the yard maintenance, replaced 5 windows, build our 14x27 foot deck, painted all the trim around the exterior of the house, take care of our pool as well as a chunk of the inside cleaning. But she wants to have a say in things 🤷🏻‍♂️

Any way I’m done with the rant. You can probably tell I don’t get to vent very often. I’ll see what I can do to get this done I would really like to do this with the stove insert.

 

[Caw]

Just a Wife, Standing in Front of This Wood Stove ... With Questions

Hello everyone! What a great site - I've been enjoying and more importantly learning about our new wood burning insert. My husband has wished for a wood burning insert for a very long time and I'm happy to say it got installed last week. We went with the Napolean Oakdale Contemporary Insert...

www.hearth.com

Have her read this thread!

 

[EbS-P]

nothing wrong with conceding and move on. It’s wood heat not worth struggle. How about an outdoor wood pizza oven

 

[MRD1985]

Just a Wife, Standing in Front of This Wood Stove ... With Questions

Hello everyone! What a great site - I've been enjoying and more importantly learning about our new wood burning insert. My husband has wished for a wood burning insert for a very long time and I'm happy to say it got installed last week. We went with the Napolean Oakdale Contemporary Insert...

www.hearth.com

Have her read this thread!

I actually read that thread, and that person only exists in fantasy for me LOL.

 

[MRD1985]

nothing wrong with conceding and move on. It’s wood heat not worth struggle. How about an outdoor wood pizza oven

Who knows what the future holds!

 

[bigealta]

I like ashfull's idea of going to friends houses with woodstoves. Start playing the long game i guess. And when you do work on your house make sure she knows that u do high quality work, better than those "sketchy" contractors. Sounds like she's not yet ready to fully accept your judgment on home matters. It may take a while. Took my wife a long time to accept that i do things "correctly" and not like a hack. Not sure why she came with that bias, probably because she grew up with all girls, and when anything at all needed to be fixed, her parents always called "the guy" to fix it.

 

[MRD1985]

I like ashfull's idea of going to friends houses with woodstoves. Start playing the long game i guess. And when you do work on your house make sure she knows that u do high quality work, better than those "sketchy" contractors. Sounds like she's not yet ready to fully accept your judgment on home matters. It may take a while. Took my wife a long time to accept that i do things "correctly" and not like a hack. Not sure why she came with that bias, probably because she grew up with all girls, and when anything at all needed to be fixed, her parents always called "the guy" to fix it.

We’ve been in this house for 10 years. I haven’t made any mistakes with things that I’ve done and everything has worked out great. I don’t cut corners. No idea why she doesn’t think things won’t work out with the house decision(s) I’ve made/suggested in the past.

She has always has relied on her father to fix things before we were together (going on 15 years). Another issue is she’s never had to pay anyone, for any kind of repair for house or her vehicle (I’m mechanic by trade). But also very handy. She really has no idea how much skilled labor costs.

The heat pump install alone I saved us over $10K in labor costs.

 

[MRD1985]

Well I may have found my ammunition. I was looking at the smoke chamber from the fireplace with the damper open (was going to clean t the fireplace/chimney next week) and saw a hole in the motor in the smoke chamber just below the start of the clay flue. Absolutely no way I can fit my body (or anyone else’s for that matter) up there to repair it. You’d have to take a section of the chimney apart inside the house. I’ll have to get some photos next week. I’m sure flue gases are getting in there and between the chimney layers. Not good. Even if I was just to put a liner in it would need to be 12” based of my fireplace size and there is no way I don’t think it’ll fit down a 9x13 clay flue. Never mind the cost of a 12” insulated liner

 

[MRD1985]

Picture difficult to capture but the hole is the grey spot in the upper middle of the photo. Clear as day with the naked eye

Edit: worse than I thought. Blocked the top of the chimney to cut off sunlight and saw the top 1/3 of smoke chamber motor just about all missing and holes in bricks. This thing is done. Pictures do not portray it well at all. The grey section of the top of the smoke chamber is a 2”x2” hole on the right side of the photo. Definitely needs a liner or liner/insert.

 

[Caw]

Seems to me like a 6" insulated liner would fit right in there nice for a wood burning appliance. 😇