Yet another step toward wood heat...

[Badfish740]

It took a little while to convince the wife that buying a wood furnace was a good idea. Images of smoke, too much work, and tracking dirt/wood chips and dust all over the house filled her head. However, now that I have a consistent source of free wood and nearly 2 1/2 cords split and stacked so far she's coming around. My oil furnace helped me score a major victory last night. I was driving back from Washington, D.C. for a working trip and more than 3 hours from home-I get a call from her saying that the furnace is blowing cold air and the temperature in the house is 65 degrees and dropping. I have her check all of the normal stuff to no avail-this furnace is only 3 years old! I tell her to call the oil company and to let me know what the damage is. The tech came out and lo and behold it was the transformer that provides the high voltage spark to ignite the oil. He said it may be covered under the warranty on the unit (good for me since my plan only covers labor) so I'm waiting to hear. Just as we were turning in last night she asks "Could something like that ever happen with a wood furnace?" "Nope," I answer. "Good," she says. SCORE!

 

[Lasher]

Good Luck...

Our first year in the house, she played with thermostat all winter. The price of propane was not bad that year, but it still cost us a fortune. But I had to let her learn the lesson. The following year the price tripled and I made the thrmostat stay at 62 all winter. She froze and started to come around to getting an insert. We had an open fireplace that I used to burn but it did nothing but suck heat out of the house. It looked awesome but you were still cold.

That next winter a neighbor gave me an older Olympic that looked terrible but was still good (rust etc). At this point she thought that it would not work, look terrible and not be safe. Since I got the stove for free, (cost about $500 in paint, new fan, glass etc) I spent extra money on a good liner. Installed everything myself and she was still worried about safety since the stove looks awesome. Took the rest of that winter for her to feel safe.

Now this winter she is always bugging me about putting in a fire (house is set at 58) since it goes out during the day. And even better she is now always looking for wood by the road and wants to beat the neighbors to the free wood. "Don't tell them about the cord wood permit." she told me when I got the application the other day.