Wood Stove Heating

[hcardwell93]

My family has lived in the same house for 25 years now, and the first thing done to the house was the addition of a wood stove and high quality chimney.

As mentioned in an earlier article, burning wood is not the same as a free money check! We view cutting and splitting wood as more of a hobby and prepping than we do chain-gang type work. This really helps when you have to be self-motivating.

One way to save on transportation costs is to become a free-lance "tree removal" company as you can stay close to home and often times get paid for your work. This also gives you control of the types of wood you harvest.

For years we were on good terms with our county tree man. If there was a downed tree nearby he would drop it off next to our wood pile instead of taking it to the normal dump. If you can strike a similar deal it is a great advantage to have, but you do lose control of what type of trees you get which can sometimes result in more pain than benefits.

If you plan on doing a lot of tree work then you NEED, absolutely NEED, a high quality chainsaw. You may spend an extra hundred bucks or so, but it's worth being able to cut non-stop for 3 hours. Stopping to tighten the chain every 10 minutes is a real drag! We prefer to use Stihl saws and have 3 of them; two for all purpose cutting, and one with a 24" bar for really large trees. Make sure that the saw is no bigger than what you can handle. Sawing logs is very labor intensive work and weight really counts with a saw. A light motor with a 16"-18" bar is usually all you need. When your out in the field make sure that you know the maximum length your stove will handle. I cut logs about the length of my saw bar and they fit just fine. This will save you headaches later...

A good log splitter is also a must. I prefer the type that lays parallel to the ground, instead of vertical. A horizontal splitter is easier to use when it comes to large logs that you have to roll around. After a while, the bark and small chips build up on either side of the platform and make a nice rolling ramp!

If you have the space available it is usually best to stack your wood outside to cure during the summer. This lets the sun and air pass through and it cures pretty well. We then transfer it inside our garage before the snow comes.

We have been through some ice storms that knock out power for over a week at a time, so even though we did not have power we were able to stay warm. We were able to bring in snow and melt it on the stove so that we could still use bathroom facilities, and keep clean. We also had a large amount of drinking water this way!

You can also get an old cast iron cooking pot, set it on the stove and evaporate water out of it and you have a pretty good humidifier. Cooking certain items is also possible with a wood stove.