its official, im writing a book

[stoveguy2esw]

ive started "boarding it" as of last night, laying out the framework for a book i'd like to title

"so you want to heat with wood"
"woodburning 101"

this will be a private venture not associated with the company I work for. its intent is to hopefully provide guidance in the key elements of the lifestyle of wood burning, the principles of chimney dynamics, and the planning which should be involved in locating a stove in the house , addressing the limitations of locations in relations to chimney placement, proper seasoning and storage of wood, fire building, chimney maintenance, and so on.

I have a lot of material I have whimsically generated and stored in my computers both at home and at work which will help as im hoping to compile a lot of this into the framework of the book.

its my hope that I can produce a book which addresses one of the most serious problems with modern wood burning. the lack of education present in the typical person or family that wishes to welcome a woodstove into their home. ive spent the better part of 20 years studying this topic and helping those who call on me in my official capacity for this type of advice. why not compile as much of the knowledge I have gained over the years and make it readily available to folks who are thinking about getting into the wood burning lifestyle.


wish me luck gang, its probably the biggest project ive ever in my life attempted.

 

[Warm_in_NH]

My manual told me next to nothing. It was all trial and error and some fireplace experience and friends with stoves.

I've got a fly fishing book, hiking, kayaking, etc...never seen on on stoves.

Marketing (and quality material) is the key.

 

[stoveguy2esw]

hence the problem, manuals will give the basic "how not to burn your house down" and you only have it when you have the stove itself.

what im hoping to produce is a tool to give folks the "before you strike a match" education on what will be involved

as for marketing , im going to be looking at that as the project gets further along. getting published isn't the issue , the issue is making sure its in the right places to be read to start with. we sell our product in the "big box" stores , I suspect I can get some help in getting the book out through them though I haven't talked to them about it yet. this thing is still "crapping in a diaper" its so newborn. but I know if I can find a way to get it in print I will have the outlets I want it to be in.

note , I aint looking to get rich off this, if I break even I win.

 

[red oak]

Chapter 1: Burn dry wood
Chapter 2: Have a cold beer by the fire

 

[Warm_in_NH]

hence the problem, manuals will give the basic "how not to burn your house down" and you only have it when you have the stove itself.

what im hoping to produce is a tool to give folks the "before you strike a match" education on what will be involved

as for marketing , im going to be looking at that as the project gets further along. getting published isn't the issue , the issue is making sure its in the right places to be read to start with. we sell our product in the "big box" stores , I suspect I can get some help in getting the book out through them though I haven't talked to them about it yet. this thing is still "crapping in a diaper" its so newborn. but I know if I can find a way to get it in print I will have the outlets I want it to be in.

note , I aint looking to get rich off this, if I break even I win.

Buy ad space on hearth.com....


Edit: you don't know you need a boon until you get a stove. Then you realize a book would be really handy....

 

[stoveguy2esw]

Chapter 1: Burn dry wood
Chapter 2: Have a cold beer by the fire

wish it were that easy. it aint lots of old myths and "grandfatherly advice" to dispel.

modern units "aint your grandpaps wood stove" they are extremely "high tech" for being so "low tech" by outward appearance.

you cant just "sling it against the wall and plumb it in" like you could an old dragon. there's a bunch of science involved now and folks simply do not know this science so they fall back on older methods which are disastrous in new stoves

 

[stoveguy2esw]

Buy ad space on hearth.com....

lol, I may just do that if this works out. heck to be brutally honest, I suspect I will have to include the bulk of the membership in here in the bibliography as a huge portion of what I know now I can attribute to this site

 

[craigbaill]

Stoveguy-

A book on wood stove with the premise of " before you strike a match" is an excellent idea. I came to this forum and I do not have a stove yet. I wanted to know what works and does not so I signed up. I did that with my chainsaw, tractor and for trucks. I gained very valuable information that way, and so it is with this forum. Most, if not all of us are here for knowledge about stoves right? What about the person who says, " joe so and so has a stove, saves tons not buying ______ kind of fuel. Ill get a stove and save money!". Think that doesnt happen?? It sure does and next thing you know, they are buying the wrong size stove , burning green wood and then they have problems. A book like you are planning would be great for the person who may not be willing to spend lots of time on a forum. Do we have to sift through posts to find accurate meaningful info? Sure. Thats part of the process. I am getting pretty good at reading post after post and understanding my knowledge limitations. It relaxes me at the end of the day. Not everyone is that kind of person so I think your book has merit. By the way, when I moved into my last house with a fireplace I did all the wrong things the first year. What I am reading on here now, coupled with my success through trial and error all those years, shows me who is giving good info. Thats not always easy on forums but the folks here are pretty friendly and knowledgable.

Best of luck with your book. May it soon be out of the "diaper stage"!

 

[begreen]

Good deal Mike. You can send the royalty checks to the hearth.com moderator's fund at...

J/K. I'm glad you are doing this and hope it gets sales nationwide.

 

[stoveguy2esw]

Good deal Mike. You can send the royalty checks to the hearth.com moderator's fund at...

J/K. I'm glad you are doing this and hope it gets sales nationwide.

lol , im hoping you wont sue me when I state "BG said do this" actually if I can pull this off and break even i'd call it a success.

the original motivation comes from here. from the discussions which always point out the glaring lack of general knowledge of proper wood burning. how much education is the key in this. simply put , I know what I know, but i'll never heat more than one house (my house) much as I understand, as much as I disseminate, I still am only able to reach a finite amount of people (and at work I only hear from then AFTER it don't work)

manufacturer provided manuals are junk, (even mine) they are written to guide the homeowner or installer in such a manner as to assume they know what they are doing. a lot of installers do know what they are doing as are some homeowners, but not all of them do this thought scares me.

the old "I got a great big chimbley" the "toss a green split on the fire when you go to bed, it burns hot all night" literally keeps me up at night. biggest thing though is the threads which pop up where a family is out in the cold, they watched their house burn down. one was posted tonight by a member who has been in this forum for a long time, just breaks my heart knowing that someone could lose it all, just that fast, and it might have been prevented if the right information had been available.

actually let me rephrase my earlier comment about success. if I save one family from standing next to a big red truck watching their world burn down, its worth every penny

 

[NWfuel]

Mike,
Keep me in the loop as I would be happy to sell these at my retail location, website and possibly help with publishing.

Thomas

 

[stoveguy2esw]

Mike,
Keep me in the loop as I would be happy to sell these at my retail location, website and possibly help with publishing.

Thomas

ill do that and thanks for the support

 

[BrotherBart]

Somebody should have brought this up in DC.

 

[Cynnergy]

Good luck! Now, when's the first deadline so we can nag you? . And don't just stick it in the big box stores - maybe you could make it available for purchase through an iTunes download - does Amazon do that too? Oooooh and an app! That's next up. Mike's fire-burning for idiots troubleshooting app .

 

[HotCoals]

Don't forget to put a coupon in the book for super ceders!

But seriously, I'm sure you will do a fine job.

 

[BrotherBart]

Use the opener I was gonna use for my novel that I never wrote.

"It turned cold early in Virginia that year."

 

[GENECOP]

Great Idea, it is a serious commitment of time and energy, if you have passion for the subject matter, (and you probably do) the book content will pour out of you, good luck, enjoy the process....

 

[dafattkidd]

I just searched Amazon for a wood burning guide book that craps in diapers and found zero search matches. I really think you're on to something.

hence the problem, manuals will give the basic "how not to burn your house down" and you only have it when you have the stove itself.

what im hoping to produce is a tool to give folks the "before you strike a match" education on what will be involved

as for marketing , im going to be looking at that as the project gets further along. getting published isn't the issue , the issue is making sure its in the right places to be read to start with. we sell our product in the "big box" stores , I suspect I can get some help in getting the book out through them though I haven't talked to them about it yet. this thing is still "crapping in a diaper" its so newborn. but I know if I can find a way to get it in print I will have the outlets I want it to be in.

note , I aint looking to get rich off this, if I break even I win.

 

[BrotherBart]

I will get to work on the forward for it.

"In 1988 heating ones home with wood changed in a dramatic way. Unfortunately while wood burning technology took a quantum leap, education in how to take advantage of it has not.

With Wood Heating For Dummies Mike Holton brings his twenty years of industry experience to the subject of procuring, provisioning and utilizing a wood heating appliance.

Lots of people make'em. Lots of people sell'em. Mike tells you how to use'em.'

 

[coaly]

Back in the day, "Woodburning Encyclopedia" and "Wood Heat Safety" by Jay W. Shelton, "Wood Heat" by John Vivian, "The Complete Book of Heating With Wood" by Larry Gray, and the Sunset "Homeowners Guide to Wood Stoves" were listed in Fisher stove manuals for further reading.
I was always amazed when the manufacturer recommending these books wasn't featured in them, and sometimes only their competition was pictured. It would be interesting to see if manufacturers today would still be willing to recommend such a publication that doesn't favor their product. Keep that in mind when using illustrations of different products.

 

[stoveguy2esw]

Somebody should have brought this up in DC.

wasn't a thought back then , its been kinda "grinding away" for some time now , but I decided about a week ago that I might could actually pul it off and dee and I discussed it over the last couple days and literally yesterday I made the decision that I would take a swing at it

 

[MishMouse]

I had a really tough time convincing my wife that the wood has to be stacked and top covered and set to dry at least a year (soft wood) or 2 years for hard wood. She was used to her dad just throwing it in a big pile, she just refused to believe me that the wood needed to be seasoned before it burned properly. I actually had to talk to her dad, so he could convince her. Still to this day trying to get her to help me stack the wood is like trying to get a kid to eat lima beans. That's the problem when someone is used to using a barrel stove, they really didn't care if it was seasoned or not, just burn it until it glows and if it is wet it will burn. Oh, by the way, yes they did have a few chimney fires.

 

[Jags]

Watch for trademarks

BG - Tunnel of love
BB - Pixie dust and BHSS (big honkin' steel stoves)
Jags - heapenhousen

 

[Mark Richards]

ive started "boarding it" as of last night, laying out the framework for a book i'd like to title

"so you want to heat with wood"
"woodburning 101"

this will be a private venture not associated with the company I work for. its intent is to hopefully provide guidance in the key elements of the lifestyle of wood burning, the principles of chimney dynamics, and the planning which should be involved in locating a stove in the house , addressing the limitations of locations in relations to chimney placement, proper seasoning and storage of wood, fire building, chimney maintenance, and so on.

I have a lot of material I have whimsically generated and stored in my computers both at home and at work which will help as im hoping to compile a lot of this into the framework of the book.

its my hope that I can produce a book which addresses one of the most serious problems with modern wood burning. the lack of education present in the typical person or family that wishes to welcome a woodstove into their home. ive spent the better part of 20 years studying this topic and helping those who call on me in my official capacity for this type of advice. why not compile as much of the knowledge I have gained over the years and make it readily available to folks who are thinking about getting into the wood burning lifestyle.


wish me luck gang, its probably the biggest project ive ever in my life attempted.

Good luck Mike, I am a beer homebrewer and the the book "The complete Joy of Homebrewing"(Charlie Papazian) is my bible for brewing. It presents beer brewing in a humerous way that motivates the reader to keep reading even if the topic isnt of primary interest to the reader. I think if your able to inject humor into an otherwise mundane activity (no one knows exactly where I live so I think I'm safe saying "mundane" here! hah) I think you'd have a best seller! Good Luck

 

[stoveguy2esw]

Back in the day, "Woodburning Encyclopedia" and "Wood Heat Safety" by Jay W. Shelton, "Wood Heat" by John Vivian, "The Complete Book of Heating With Wood" by Larry Gray, and the Sunset "Homeowners Guide to Wood Stoves" were listed in Fisher stove manuals for further reading.
I was always amazed when the manufacturer recommending these books wasn't featured in them, and sometimes only their competition was pictured. It would be interesting to see if manufacturers today would still be willing to recommend such a publication that doesn't favor their product. Keep that in mind when using illustrations of different products.

actually im glad you listed those publications , i will take a look at them may give me some ideas on the layout of the book. thanks for posting them