Joys of Burning Wood

  • Views Views: 3,449
  • Last updated Last updated:
  • Active since 1995, Hearth.com is THE place on the internet for free information and advice about wood stoves, pellet stoves and other energy saving equipment.

    We strive to provide opinions, articles, discussions and history related to Hearth Products and in a more general sense, energy issues.

    We promote the EFFICIENT, RESPONSIBLE, CLEAN and SAFE use of all fuels, whether renewable or fossil.
  • Hope everyone has a wonderful and warm Thanksgiving!
  • Super Cedar firestarters 30% discount Use code Hearth2024 Click here

Navigation

      Construct a Chase
      Heat with Wood
      Make_Kindling
      Seal Fireplace Damper
      Stack Firewood 1
      Wind and wood stoves
      You and a BTU
   Riteway
      Always tie it down
      Bucky Fuller on Wood
      Dutchwest History
      Early Day Fuels
      Fire Worship
      History of Fire
      Holz Hausen
      Joys of Burning Wood
      Lure of the Hearth
      Steinbeck on Stoves
      Take it Easy
      The Real Cost of Oil
      The Subject is Wood
      Thoughts from Denmark
  • It’s a beautiful clear cold morning in North Georgia. My twelve year-old woodstove is just about “right” now burning some poor quality wood that I cleared from a friend’s yard. We’ve been burning wood in our woodstove (my second one) in the same house for twenty-two years. I’ve gone through three chainsaws and four or five pickup trucks. My favorite hauler for the past 16 years has been one of those little 3x5 trailers that I assembled on the living room floor from a Taiwan kit. I put plywood side boards on it and pull it with my ancient Allis Chalmers “G”. With two teenage sons, I have refused to consider a power splitter but have brought them up swinging the maul—known locally as a “GoDevil!”

    Being out in my woods, a few miles from town, dependence on electricity was a concern after purchasing my home in ‘72. The woodstove has been our sole source of heat now since ‘75. Four very healthy children (two girls and two boys) have grown up here. It is messy—constant wood supply through the heating season—but we all profit from the exercise and fresh air. For years rather than watch college football on TV, we’ve listened from the cab of the truck with the doors thrown open—getting the mental vision of play while loading the truck etc.
    Let me end by saying that my children do not generally share their dad’s enthusiasm for wood heat. Only the married daughter has started to get the glow in the eyes about wood. It may have to skip a generation with the others.