A Differecne in Heat

[gyrfalcon]

yep, you can feel it with hot water heat too. my old house has big glommin cast iron radiators - the heat is even, gentle and long lasting. I will feel cold in my mother's house with forced hot air than mine at the same temperature settings.
Lived in a couple places w/ steam radiators , the heat is agressive and quickly overwheaming by contrast.
And all, wood stove, steam and forced hot air are more drying to the nose than hot water radaitor in my experience.

My family's big old house had those massive cast-iron babies, and it's the only kind of heat that even comes close to woodstove heat for me. My current house has baseboard hot-water heat, and it's also pretty good, but not like the radiators. Cannot stand forced hot air for all the reasons mentioned in this thread.

 

[szmaine]

I wasn't going to touch the cooks yer meat line with a 10 ft pole.

10 ft pole? We want pics.

Wait... JK NO pics

I don't think blue whales can use a keyboard. Myth Busted!

 

[Battenkiller]

I told this story before, but I'm running out of stories, so here it goes again...


My dad use to visit me several times during the winter. Since I work at home, I am always to be found in my basement workshop. He would come in and run for the stove and stand by it, rubbing his hands and telling me, "There's nothing like a wood stove to warm you up on a cold day." He would tell everyone in the family, "You should go to Danny's house. He heats the whole house with a little wood stove he's got in the basement." He never ceased to be amazed by how warm it always felt in my house, even on the coldest days (and he cranked his gas-fired hot-air furnace up to 80º and still complained about the cold).

Well, two years ago dad was undergoing high-dose chemotherapy. During the height of his treatment when he was at his sickest, we had that big ice storm in December. Everyone in the area was without power except for us. He kept saying, "I just want to go up to Saratoga to see Danny. He's got that wood stove that makes the whole place so warm." So I went down and got him. The whole ride home he kept saying, " I just can't wait to get up there where you have that wood stove going", "Man, I love that wood heat", and stuff like that.

Little did he know that my stove was in need of major surgery itself, and hadn't even been fired up for the first time yet. I called my wife up and said, "Look... you better turn up that goddamn electric heat and pray that we don't lose power, because Dad thinks he's coming up to a nice warm house, and I don't have the heart to tell the sick old guy the stove's not going." The whole time he was here, he was too sick to even get out of the recliner, so he never did make it down to the basement to discover there was no stove running. He kept commenting how good it was that I had that stove, what would we do without it with the power out (meanwhile he's sitting there watching the football game on TV and not wondering where the electric for that was coming from).

We had it up to almost 80º the whole time, with the biggest baseboard in the house about a foot away from him in the recliner the whole time. "Oh, man o' man, does that heat feel good", as he put his hand directly over where the heat was just pouring out of the baseboard heater. He went back home and told everybody what a great stove I had, how it saved the day for him, how he hadn't felt that warm in months, and all that.

Sadly, Dad didn't make it. The next year when I got a bigger stove, all I could think of was how much he would have liked this one. He'd probably melt the polyester out of his pants before I'd be able to drag him away from it. So, IMHO, and in the opinion of an 88 year-old codger, there's just nothing like the heat a wood stove puts out... even when it ain't putting it out.

 

[DanCorcoran]

Great story...thanks for sharing it. I hadn't heard it before. Sounds like he was pretty proud of you for having that stove, too.

 

[oldspark]

Cool story BK.

 

[Backwoods Savage]

Good story with a sad ending. Unfortunately as people age the seem to tolerate the cold lesser and lesser. It was extremely good of you to both turn the heat up and also not tell him about the wood stove not working. Now just keep the home fires burning.

 

[begreen]

I hear the same story every time our next door neighbor's in-laws come up from UT. He gets the woodstove really stoked, living room is in the 80's and no one can go in there. Except grandpa, who sits right next to the stove, in a sweater! Funny thing is grandpa is not that old, just in his late 60s.

 

[oldspark]

I hear the same story every time our next door neighbor's in-laws come up from UT. He gets the woodstove really stoked, living room is in the 80's and no one can go in there. Except grandpa, who sits right next to the stove, in a sweater! Funny thing is grandpa is not that old, just in his late 60s.

A few year back late 60's was old now its on the horizon.

 

[k9brain]

There's a lot of great replies to something that's been on my mind. You guys are awesome!

BK, thanks for the great story...sorry about your dad.

There's another thing about wood heat. Now that I'm running out of wood and using the NG furnace more, I feel kind of empty. Every time the furnace kicks on I feel guilty for not getting more wood, or being more prepared. When I'm burning wood I feel as though I've earned this heat. It makes it that much warmer. Wood warms you more than twice.

Thanks.