Thank god for wood heat!

[Dave K]

Last night I had a work party so I wasn't home to get the wood stove going. The wife used the oil furnace from 5pm-10pm (most it's been used all winter). Well we woke up this morning to a 54 degree house because the furnace didn't come on this morning as scheduled (outside was 0 degrees). I immediately fired up the stove and had the house up to 70 degrees in 2 hours.

Called to get a service guy out to check out the problem and was told that it would be at least 8 hours before they could come to my house. Needless to say i am very happy we have a wood stove. I couldn't imagine sitting in a freezing cold house for the whole day while waiting for that guy.

I ended up fixing the problem myself and avoiding a $200 service call. It was just a frozen oil line from the exterior tank to the basement and it was an easy fix. It always pays to do some research and fix a problem yourself before paying someone for an easy fix!

 

[Backwoods Savage]

I remember having that same problem but it was about 50 or more years ago. Line froze up on us 3 times. That alone is enough to make one want to go back to burning wood. Today we are very happy burning wood and it has been about 35 years since we even had a furnace. The Fireview sits there happily giving us lots of heat.

We did have one little problem though recently but it was not because of the stove but because of the wood. I've posted before about this problem but basically it was an experiment gone wrong. We did not cover our wood piles one year simply because many do not and it had been many, many years since we did not cover. Actually probably close to 50 years ago! Anyway, we had some oak and one night of below zero weather I filled the stove with all oak and when I got up during the night I found only a large bed of coals. It was a bit after 2:00 am so I loaded as much wood as I could to get us to morning. When we got up it was down to 68 degrees. Now that is not enough for most people to complain but we keep our house 80 degrees or more all winter so that morning we had to put on some shirts for sure. It did not take long to get the house back up to temperature but it is not anything we want to go through again. I'll keep top covering our wood piles and have the best fuel possible.

 

[Dave K]

I wish I could keep my house that warm but both of us work and there is no way I can get a 10 hour burn out of an old Fisher. I'll be sure to keep your experiment in mind and always top cover

 

[lopiliberty]

Since getting my new liberty 4 years ago, there has been many times I wished I had gotten the endeavor because of to much heat the liberty can put out. But this winter I am so glad to have a large stove. I have gotten into the ash and sugar maple section of the wood pile and its not totally dry but still able to maintain 80 and above in the house except for this morning when it was 73 in here. Not sure what the heck happened last night