A British Newspaper's take on wood burning stoves

[Stella]

By chance while sitting by my stove I spotted this article in an online newspaper http://www.dailymail.co.uk/money/mo...alue-property-saving-money-heating-bills.html

Nowhere in the article did it indicate the need for seasoned wood. Also some of the ill-informed comments made me chuckle.

 

[FionaD]

its the Daily Mail Stella.. That's not a British newspaper, it's a British comic....the readers' comments go with that territory. Don' t worry, we're not that bad! I, for instance, am well aware that my wood needs to season for at least a month before I burn it.

 

[FionaD]

Here's another one to laugh at... I actually meant to post this a while back, so you've inspired me to do so Stella!

(broken link removed to http://www.telegraph.co.uk/property/interiorsandshopping/9839432/Everyone-loves-a-wood-burning-stove-but-are-they-bad-for-us.html)

FYI,,, the Telegraph is viewed as the 'middle-class Conservative' paper... Depending on one's position, that description may be taken over here as a compliment or an insult... It's certainly a predominantly English species... (cue the bagpipes...)

Anyway, I post this article because it does pretty much still describe the average wood burner over here... For many (but not all) a wood stove is a status symbol along with green wellies and a Barbour jacket (I hope that, as cultural references, they're not too foreign to you folks)

... That's not me tho... Oh no.. Not me .. I'm tough and real.. .. Grrr....and I wield my axe to keep warm

On a slightly more sober note, I fear that wood burning over here, unlike many other countries, may always be a predominantly comfortable, middle-class activity.. simply becuase to source one's own wood over here requires considerable planning, effort and resources.. Few people, other than the pretty well-off, own enough land to be able to cut their own. If you find somewhere you can get permission or a license to cut wood, you then run into the problem of where to store it to season it... most people don't have enough land on which to store huge stacks. Buying ready to burn wood costs around four times the price of the US and so the whole thing doesn't work out much cheaper than burning oil unless you have found a work around.

My work around is to buy 50% of my wood and to scavenge the rest from fallen branches etc at the side of fields. I never come back from any walk without as big a branch as possible on my shoulder... Technically, this could be viewed as theft. I think I get away with being spotted carrying one tree limb, whereas I sense loading a trailer full at a time would incur a different reaction. Few are willing or have the time to do this... I'm nuts enough to enjoy it... So, for most stovers over here burning is either a luxury, based on aesthetics, or a personally elected expense deemed necessary to help preserve the planet... because, despite the odd tone of the telegraph article, wood burning IS actively encouraged over here as a better, greener way to go...

The installation of Pellet heating systems, on the other hand is hugely subsidised by the UK government, as I believe is the case over your way too... Wood stoves are not.

I say all of this incase y'all are interested in how it is over here in the UK... And also to get the chance to say one more time how lucky you are over there, with so much access to all that wonderful fire wood! You have no idea how green with envy I am - unlike my wood....

 

[Knots]

Thanks for the synopsis. That was very interesting.

I'm gazing out into the Maine woods with new appreciation.

 

[Stella]

Hi Fiona, had missed that one actually and enjoyed it. My stove is my sole method of heating my stone house in Greece, apart from an electric towel rail in the minute bathroom. I am fortunate to have an olive grove so have a potential source of wood. My main problem is the covered storage of same. My husband cuts and stack the prunings for me and covers them with palm leaves from our palm tree. I think I have a supply sufficient to last me for a couple of years but here when it rains, it pours and my seasoned wood can get very wet indeed. I keep some in the understairs storage when it is seasoned and like to have a couple of days' supply in the living room. I do my best to burn cleanly and enjoy very much the warmth and ambiance of the stove. I realise that I am fortunate in living somewhere which is usually warm enough during the day without any heat but need heat in the evenings. My uncle once told me to live where citrus fruit grows for the best temperature and now I agree! Just going to enjoy a fruit compote gathered for free at the side of the road!!

 

[FionaD]

Sounds idyllic Stella.... It's stormy here and the rain is horizontal.!

What is olive wood like to burn... Does it season quickly?

 

[begreen]

I was looking at your weather and in particular the winds. It is gusty up there!

 

[FionaD]

Aye... 144mph winds on St Kilda yesterday.. Nowhere near as bad here of course. It was around 70mph max... But sure is enough to be getting through more wood than usual.. Wow.. I need to get the hang of shutting down the air waaay sooner when it's windy... Keep cruising at 675 today. Don't like that.

Cosy tho.. And it means there'll be lots of fallen branches next time I'm out for a walk!

I was in VT one winter and although the temps were way lower than we routinely get here it somehow didn't feel so chilling... There's something about damp cold that gets into the bones and wants to stay there. We don't need to put steamers on stoves in Scotland! I'm guessing it'll feel similar in WA.

 

[begreen]

Wow. At 145mph a lot more than rain is going sideways. More like people too!

 

[begreen]

To see what we're talking about, check this out! Spin the globe around to show Scotland. Very cool. And windy up there.
http://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/surface/level/orthographic=-2.53,24.42,324

 

[FionaD]

That is amazing! That's a site to bookmark.

Poor Iceland...

 

[Stella]

What is olive wood like to burn... Does it season quickly?

Hi Fiona Olive wood is a hard wood and we season in the hot Greek summer for a year. Some of the olive I am burning now is much older than that simply because we did not have fires for long last year as it was so mild, cut three years ago and it gives out a great deal of heat. It is fairly small though as the branches are not huge. I am also burning some pine from a friend's tree blown down in a gale four years ago along with the attendant pinecones which are good for firelighting.

I feel very sorry for you in the cold and only hope that the scenery compensates! As I am getting older, I find a strange reluctance to venture into colder climes.

 

[begreen]

That is amazing! That's a site to bookmark.

Poor Iceland...

It is cool isn't it.
Day before yesterday I was saying poor Scotland. It looked pretty intense.

 

[FionaD]

Hi Fiona Olive wood is a hard wood and we season in the hot Greek summer for a year. Some of the olive I am burning now is much older than that simply because we did not have fires for long last year as it was so mild, cut three years ago and it gives out a great deal of heat. It is fairly small though as the branches are not huge. I am also burning some pine from a friend's tree blown down in a gale four years ago along with the attendant pinecones which are good for firelighting.

I feel very sorry for you in the cold and only hope that the scenery compensates! As I am getting older, I find a strange reluctance to venture into colder climes.

.. I kinda feel the same about lots of sun, never thought I'd say that when I was younger!

I love sunny places for a while, but love living here too.. The summers are warm enough for me ...and then I can look forward to coming in from the brisk days to a crackling fire, closing the shutters to the dark winds at night and feeling the security that comes with created flames. It is such an ancient experience.

I guess you have become adept at creating fires that don't give out too much heat, but just enough to take off that slight evening chill. That's a skill, amongst many, I still need to perfect.

It is cool isn't it.
Day before yesterday I was saying poor Scotland. It looked pretty intense.

It was intense, but nowhere near as bad here as the coast! Waves crashing over the top of cliffs... Wow. Meteorologists called it a weather bomb, that was about right.

On a more stoverly note. I am reminded that last year I learned that I need to find another way to handle my stove when the winds are high. Should it make such a huge difference to how it burns, even with the air closed as far as it goes?? I guess that would require a new thread though...

 

[Stella]

Would you believe it? Here we go again with the same paper and a slightly different story! http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...s-one-form-pollution-surge-colder-months.html

 

[FionaD]

I suppose to be fair (for half a minute) to the Daily Mail, they are highlighting the gap between what wood stoves can do and what actually happens, when they are in the hands of unskilful users. just a pity they don't clearly say anywhere in the article that this is where the problem actually lies.

As I sit here, I can see two chimneys that I happen to know have wood stoves at the other end of them (they're not the most common form of heating in rural Scotland ). One of those chimneys regularly belches out deep yellow smoke for hours, the other isn't as bad now as it was last month.. it's a their first winter with a stove and I think they're learning.. I suspect this tiny sample is actually pretty representative.

I don't know how it is in the US and Canada - and indeed Greece - but over here there needs to be better information about how to correctly burn these stoves. I think that info actually needs to come with the stoves, rather than expecting people to rely on Google to learn how to do it. Because most folk over here move on to stoves after having had an open fire for years I think many just assume the buring procedure is pretty much the same and there's no-one telling them otherwise.. Not even the Press are getting that message across clearly.. For sure, there's no real stove burning tuition in my Jotul manual... Or even a pointer to a good guide elsewhere. I got mine fromYoutube.. And then I found Hearth.com...

There are way less stoves in households over here than US/Canada, so we don't (yet) have our equivalent of that wonderful Vanessa and John Canadian public information video (God, I love that... think it's time to visit with them again!) I think that's what needs to happen next.. and no doubt it will, as stove ownership continues to rise over here... Hey... maybe I should Invite Vanessa and John over here!

As for the comments from our Daily Mail readers... We better watch out Stella, are you as tempted as I am to add to them yourself?! Maybe I will, after I've burned some more rubbish on the fire....

 

[brad wilton]

Hi fiona, I think it is more
of a learninģ curve with the new stype of burning.not knowing wet wood and cats don'the mix glad I don'the have one.

 

[Stella]

We better watch out Stella, are you as tempted as I am to add to them yourself?! Maybe I will, after I've burned some more rubbish on the fire....

Not really as usually I feel irritated by both the articles and the comments!
Wood burning stoves are common here, partly because of the soaring costs of heating oil which are beyond the means of many of us and partly because there is a fairly constant supply of wood from the olive trees. In fact I went to a local taverna last night which is fairly large and this tiny, old stove together with the pipe connecting it to the outside heats the entire space. When I left I could not smell wood smoke in the air so assume it was burning seasoned wood. Stoves of this nature are common in the mountain villages here and are removed during the summer months and reinstated around November. Sometimes they are cookstoves and the toasted bread which is then annointed with fresh olive oil and oregano is prepared on them.

 

[FionaD]

Beautiful looking place. I can imagine the food... Time to start cooking, I think.

I found another annoying article just now.. In the Guardian.. sheesh! I'm not even going to paste the link, unless you're feeling masochistic enough to want me to. it has the same crazy, uniformed anti-stove tone. How weird. I actually am starting to think its not really about the stoves at all, these articles all seem to be bashing a certain type of person (over here) who can afford to invest a few thousand pounds on something that is all about 'the look'.... and little else.

 

[F4jock]

I say chaps, burning green wood and cleaning the chimney is no problem at all, we just run one of the servants through the pipes weekly and there you are. We do have some problems keeping staff though. Good help is SO hard to find these days!

 

[BrotherBart]

I say chaps, burning green wood and cleaning the chimney is no problem at all, we just run one of the servants through the pipes weekly and there you are. We do have some problems keeping staff though. Good help is SO hard to find these days!

 

[F4jock]

View attachment 147709

Ah yes! And we had to pay the little blighter tuppence extra as well!

 

[georgepds]

Thanks for the synopsis. That was very interesting.

I'm gazing out into the Maine woods with new appreciation.

The lord giveth (Maine woods) and the lord taketh away ( cold Maine winter) ..

Job

 

[FionaD]

Brother Bart...! What are you doing taking photographs on my roof!!