are you from a family that burned wood or did you start the tradition for your family?

[begreen]

Sparkler indeed and a dangerous one for kids unattended. It looked like a catherine wheel at night, making a loud whooshing sound as it blazed. The can would get glowing red hot. I remember my brother once started a small field fire when he set his glowing can down in the grass. Those were the days.

 

[Backwoods Savage]

Grew up with wood heat and mother cooking on a wood stove. That wood stove also had a water reservoir and that was our only source of hot water. Heck we didn't even have running water in the house until I was maybe 7 or 8 years old. It was my job daily to keep water in the house and reservoir and to keep all the fires going along with bringing wood into our "back porch." Even dumping the ashes was my daily job. The only time anyone else kept the stove going was dad would stock it up for the night and get it going again the next morning. We also cut our own wood. I carry on the tradition and am the only one of the family that has done so.

Although I am a bit older than Brother Bart, I do still enjoy all the work associated with wood heating. I especially enjoy the felling and cutting up the trees as I just enjoy being in the woods. That is where I feel most at home. I enjoy the splitting of the wood but not as much as I did when I did the splitting by hand, but that was in my younger days. But the part I enjoy the most is sitting in the house when it is cold outside and the wind howling while I am nice and warm.

I do wonder through all these years just how many dollars I've saved by heating with wood...

 

[stanleyjohn]

Im the first in our family(at least in recent family history!cant say about longer than 100 yrs or so though).Since my wife and i bought our first new one last year!my dad and brother have bought one and a few relitives are looking into it.

 

[WoodMann]

I guess woodburning has been in my family in some capacity or another going way way back. Growing up we used the fireplace some but not as the mian source of heat or anything like that. I got my first experience of the advantages of a woodstove back on a horribly cold January Chicago winter night 2002. I went to visit a buddy in Wood Dale and went into the house; took my coat off. not long thereafter I took my sweater off; was wittin' there in a T- shirt with sub- zero weather outside! From that point on I vowed that I would have a woodstove and it became my new religion(kidding, Tom Petty song there).
Was a good thing I didn't get a woodstove when I was in the 'burbs; the cost of installing and the fact that I'd hafta goto Wisonsin to cut wood made the idea unfeasable. Upon moving back here to Santa Fe I lucked out and got a place with a woodstove; now at this point a woodstove was a woodstove to me still. It was an EPA unit and I was in bliss. On my journey of looking at houses I found one with a pellet stove, a gasfire stove and and old pot belly. But knowing what I know now I sure am clad I got what I've got. Now, after hanging out here and learning I have indeed made a new religion it seems with my wood cutting/ storing habits and chainsaw sharpening rituals.............

 

[f3cbboy]

I am the youngest of nine and the 3rd to have a wood burning stove. Growing up i did a lot of splitting and stacking to burn in a oil boiler that we (my dad and me) welded a grate for and converted to wood burning. It was a big (i think an American Standard) that we took the burner out of and landed the grate inside the firebox. The volume of water that we were(are - dad still does it and he is 80!) heating is large so we like to burn small spits - kindling in my stove -and there is no air control so we would go through tons of wood. it is piped into the gas fired system and isolated with its own circulator and valving system that can be completely cut out and the gas system placed into service. this is strictly a supplemental system to the gas, but he still burns and heats the house all day about 5 days a week. it is completely manual setup, thermo stat only controls gas furnace.
sorry for going off on a tangent but that is how it all started for me

 

[mainstation]

I grew up with wood heat since I was about 10. My mom moved my brother & I into a rural area from a town of 20K after Dad passed. It was our job, me & lil Bro, to pile and bring in wood each day & night after school. I have fond memories of chucking wood down the porch steps to my Bro who was waiting "safely " in the shed as I threw down a bunch of blocks. Ok I would yell, out he would come, scrambling to throw them into to the shed and start piling before he got dinged with an incoming stick of wood. We had a big barrel of a wood stove in the basement corner, bungalow style house, and 2 old fashioned floor grates on the main floor. I used to read my comic books while lying on one of the grates until my back had a red outline from the grates and my skin would sting with the warmth. This is my 1st year without a working woodstove , but also the last, - next year back to wood and the pellet stove is moved to the south end of the house.

 

[Poult]

Heated with wood when I was a baby, in fact the first word I learned to say was "hot", from being warned to stay away from the hot stove. Soon after that my folks got an oil fired boiler and they used that for about ten years before moving to the new house they built. The furnace came with us to the new house, but there was also a fireplace that they put an insert in during the early 70's with the oil embargo. That insert worked for years but probably it was last burned in the late 1980's. I put a new wood stove in this year because I was sick of worrying about ice storms. One of the smarter ways I've ever spent money.

 

[mtaccone]

Grew up in an oil fired home when oil was cheap the house was 70 spent most of my time at my grandparents who had a wood furnace (until recently) and was always in the upper 70's in the house. Now I have a wood stove and a gas furnace I hate gas always will especially now that oil is $1.89/gal. The trouble with wood heat is that you get used to the 70-75degree house you can never go lower no matter how old you get!

 

[Badfish740]

Did I start the tradition? Yes and no. When my dad was a kid they burned mostly coal in an old forced air furnace (Newark Stove Works-anybody familiar with them?) that eventually made its way to my grandfather's garage once coal burning started to decline this side of the Delaware and everybody switched to oil. When my grandparents subdivided their land and my parents built their house next door gas had just made its way out to our end of town so my dad hooked up. He had always intended on eventually getting a stove but never did. My grandparents' garage became the workshop for my various automotive Frankenstein projects throughout my teenage years and I got the bug stoking the old coal stove with wood from trees that had been taken down to build my parents' home. Most of it was 10+ years old so needless to say I learned the finer points of air control! My dad is now looking into corn stoves as he still thinks I'm a little nuts for going with wood. The difference is that he hustled 50-75lb packages for almost 30 years for UPS and has a reconstructed lower vertebrae and retooled right knee to prove it. Needless to say he's a little tired of heavy lifting. Me on the other hand he sent to college to in his words "work with my head and not my back" but I've found I feel much more alive cutting out in the woods or splitting in the backyard than I do sitting in front of a computer. In any event I can't wait until next winter when my Englander add-on is installed and ready to burn. We're nearly finished with our first winter in our first house to the tune of nearly $1300 worth of oil!

 

[raybonz]

My Dad bought a handmade smoke dragon in the early 70's and I used to hate it because it was so hot in the livingroom.. It was radiant only and made me feel like I was on fire lol.. Dried my skin and sinuses out real bad but did that stop me burning? Nope!! I bought this convection type cat stove when I was building this house and have been using it for many years.. Now with the uncertainty of oil prices and a poor economy in general this is one of the few things that I can count on.. Even if I were to lose my job I know I will have heat!! Gotta look for any constants you can find these days..

Ray

 

[Cluttermagnet]

I faintly remember spending a few years in a coal burning house. Was too young to remember any details. My father's parents' house in MA had a wood stove, the cooking type with a big top and those round, removable thingies. It had an oven. Maybe it was a top loader?

Then my young family built a house in 1960 with central hot water baseboard heat, oil fired. Oil was really cheap back then. Oh, and the house had two fireplaces which were rarely used. Internal masonry chimney.

Fast forward through a variety of dwellings- I remember few details about the heating in any of them. In the fullness of time, I found myself back in the family house, now as its master. It slowly dawned on me that it was very poorly insulated. Single glaze windows, too. I'm slowly working to remediate all that, doing all the work personally. I'm making good progress, and the house is already reasonably tight, if not so well insulated. The attic is a lot better now.

Then, as someone mentioned earlier, the price of oil skyrocketed last year. I was losing patience having to pay 2-3000 dollars to heat every year anyway- there was no way I was going to pay twice that. I was quoted 5+ dollars a gallon at that time! I got a wood stove. I haven't paid a penny yet for firewood- at least not directly. Got myself a modest chainsaw, wedges, maul, axe, etc. I can borrow a 20 ton splitter when needed. I'm doing OK scrounging entirely from friends' properties.

It's been an interesting ride. I'm adapting well to wood burning, and I'm learning fast, thanks mainly to this site. I may go through another stove or two before I'm totally happy with my setup- but I'm doing great with the first one, just the same. As a general rule, my downstairs is allowed to get considerably cooler than it used to be. The upstairs tends to be mostly much warmer than before. There's a heck of a thermal gradient across the upstairs towards the bedrooms, as the insulation is still poor. Fans help a lot. Can you believe it- the lousy builders put no insulation in the joist spaces of the outside walls! It's a mostly brick Rambler, except for some siding on the back, where it overhangs the foundation. I'm working on getting cellulose blown in insulation loosely packed in the outside walls. That should be a fairly good improvement. Low cost and self install are both imperatives for me.

I'll probably 'make it' long term as a wood burner. It's worth all the hassle. My neighbor thinks so, too. He saved a bunch of oil in his first year by burning wood.

 

[Bobbin]

We had a stove in the living room when I was a teenager. It was brown enamel and homely as hell. It was always too hot in that room and cold in the rest of the house. My old man was not one to spend much time researching the best option and he never gave aesthetics much thought, either when money was involved. My mother loathed the stove and would never use it; I think because it was such a monstrosity and she was the one who had to clean up the trail of debris leading to it.

So I knew about stoves, and definitley knew that if it was going to sit in MY home it was going to look nice and function properly! I put my foot down firmly when the husband suggested a yard sale special would do the trick. It was a good-looking, safe, EPA stove or there would be no stove at all.

The husband selected the Woodstock Fireview, we saved extra long to buy it, and he installed it to surprise me for our first Christmas in this house. "Happy wife, happy life", guys!

 

[raybonz]

We had a stove in the living room when I was a teenager. It was brown enamel and homely as hell. It was always too hot in that room and cold in the rest of the house. My old man was not one to spend much time researching the best option and he never gave aesthetics much thought, either when money was involved. My mother loathed the stove and would never use it; I think because it was such a monstrosity and she was the one who had to clean up the trail of debris leading to it.

So I knew about stoves, and definitley knew that if it was going to sit in MY home it was going to look nice and function properly! I put my foot down firmly when the husband suggested a yard sale special would do the trick. It was a good-looking, safe, EPA stove or there would be no stove at all.

The husband selected the Woodstock Fireview, we saved extra long to buy it, and he installed it to surprise me for our first Christmas in this house. "Happy wife, happy life", guys!

That would be a Christmas that you'll never forget.. Nice little story and you were smart to be firm on something that you have to live with a long time!

Ray

 

[firefighterjake]

Grew up with an add-on wood furnace in the basement . . . spent many a summer with my brother helping Dad get in the 10-12 cords of wood needed to keep the house warm and many days in the winter tossing wood from the shed into the basement and then into the furnace.

 

[hensonconst1]

grew up in a wood burning family. My brother and I swore we would never heat our house that way, but I started this year to save money. I remember not wanting to help dad on the weekends. He would say that he was going to turn of the heat to my room if I didn't help. Fooled me everytime.

Now that I am grown up the work is not as hard as I remember, and I am shocked at how much I enjoy it. Never did when I was young.

Funny thing Dad had his two stoves replaced with gas stoves as soon as my brother and I were out of the house

 

[JotulOwner]

I am the first I know of, but I am sure that the ancestors must have burned plenty of wood. :coolsmile:

 

[JeffRey30747]

Growing up in the '70s, we started burning wood when oil got expensive. It was in an old Ashley C60D smoke dragon that is still in my basement until I find something better. I still have the remnants of a nasty scar on my arm from a burn where that "flapper thingy" that kept the smoke from spilling out into the room burned me after catching on the cuff of my glove about 25 years ago. That was one lesson learned the hard way.
I got away from burning after moving out but when my wife and I built our new house, we wanted the option of heating with wood. Now we have a Jotul Oslo on a hearth in the living room and as long as I'm able to feed it, wood will be my first choice in heating. The central LP comes on in the early morning hours after the fire dies down but the wood stove has enabled me to burn only about 90 gallons of propane since last May and some of this went to our gas cooktop.

 

[Young Buck]

In 1988 my parents built a new home with a masonry fire place. So thats where it got started for me. My wife and I got married in 2000 and she grew up in a home that had a wood stove. And now we are getting one. My oldest says he wants to help me stack and split, but I dont think he knows what he is in for ;-)

 

[jjhof0306]

We had wood heat as far back as I can remember. My dad had two wood stoves, and my grandmother talks about keeping 3 fires going during WWII while my grandfather was away. My great-grandmother had a "Summer Kitchen" so the wood cookstove wouldn't cause heat prostration in the house. She baked bread in a wood oven every day to sell during the Depression. I remember my grandmother using a wood cookstove when I was very young.

So yes, as long as my family has been in Northern New England (I'm 7th generation), we've burned wood.

 

[ikessky]

We grew up with an oil boiler and an older forced air wood furnace. Dad tried to burn as often as he could, but working swing shift, it was tough to run wood 100%. We would occasionally throw wood in the stove for him, but I never gave it a thought back then. We also had an open fireplace in the living room that they still periodically burn the pressboard logs in wrappers in.

My in-laws heated 100% with wood. My FIL just told me the other weekend that he didn't even have his gas furnace hooked up until maybe 8-10 years ago.

 

[lexybird]

we always had natural gas in my family ,when i bought my house i used fuel oil ,it about made me broke then once the oil prices rocketed i said enough is enough i was sick and tired of setting my thermostat on 65 and freaking out if the oil was running low .wood heat is a lot of work but i need the excersise and i love that i control the cost the quality and the temperature output with my own 2 hands

 

[Don Ed]

My Dad started burning wood as a big part of his heating the house about 3 years ago. I started drooling then and finally bought and installed a stove (pics of install on Hearth.com...search for Buck 21 Install) last weekend. I love it so far and am learning a lot about how best to operate my stove.

 

[Mr.M2]

We used natural gas growing up in the city.
When I moved to the country 5 years ago the house I bought actually had electric baseboard heaters, an oil furnace, and a propane backup heater.
I bought the wood stove about a year ago and never looked back.

 

[gunnerpgh]

Grandfather had a farm and burned in his shop, a old pot belly stove. Parents primarly used gas and still do. I had an insert installed this year with full liner. Gas bill transmission fee is larger than my actual usage this year. Use natural gas for water and cooking. Scored a full pick-up of locust today with 3-4 more to follow from craigs list. Time to get splitting.

 

[wellbuilt home]

We burned wood in both homes growing up .