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amyable
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| Posted: Aug 12 2008 at 10:12am | IP Logged
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A question from a total novice - do you need a special kind of wood?
We don't have a woodstove but do have two fireplaces, one with a fan that is supposed to push the heat into the house. We never use them for heating the house because we can never get a good fire going without using those fake logs!  
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Amy
mom of 5, ages 6-16, and happy wife of 
The Highly Sensitive Homeschooler
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JodieLyn
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| Posted: Aug 12 2008 at 11:05am | IP Logged
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not so much a special type as it needs to be seasoned and dry and you probably need to build up to the larger pieces more.. meaning that you use kindling to light smaller pieces of wood.. couple inch diameter.. and get a fire going good with those before you add larger pieces.
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Jodie, wife to Dave
G-18, B-17, G-15, G-14, B-13, B-11, G-9, B-7, B-5, B-4
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Maddie
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| Posted: Aug 12 2008 at 11:26am | IP Logged
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Chris,
I don't know that they were able to determine exactly what happened but they believe an ember sat on the roof and eventually caught fire. These people were extremely cautious and the chimney had recently been cleaned. There were strange winds that night and one of the speculations was the wind may have sucked something up the chimney on to the roof.
I have my dh and sons clean our chimneys every other month during the months we burn, I sleep better knowing they are clean. We burn from October to May (this year we had a fire in my cookstove until the 2nd week of May) and in the spring we have had trouble with birds attempting to build nests in our chimneys. If a couple of days go by and we don't use the main woodstove we always check for nests before relighting, birds are so quick!
We've also had a bird every year so far get stuck in my cookstove chimney. The only way to get him out is to dismantle the stovepipe (I have a stainless steel chimney in the kitchen) and let him out via the front door. The first time it happened, I had just washed all my walls from the winter soot and then we discovered the bird. We let him out and I had huge black marks all over my walls from where he ran into the walls trying to escape.
Amy, Have you ever considered a woodstove insert for your fireplace? We had one in our other house and it heated our little 1500 foot house very well. Some woods burn better then other wood. For example, I use willow logs to get my fire going because they are quick burning but I'll use a well seasoned, dry hardwood like oak for a longer fire. This article was interesting if you wanted more info.
Do any of you have a cookstove you use for baking? I have a
Pioneer Maid Cookstove but I have a hard time keeping the temperature even. I use the top of the stove without any problems but can't trust it to cook a roast dinner. I either burn it too fast or it takes all day to bake.
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KerryK
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Maddie,
I have never seen one of those cookstoves! I love that idea. Do you then also have a regular oven for baking?
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Kerry
Mom to
Matthew (10)
Mary (6)
New baby Samuel 2/26/07!
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MichelleW
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We have our chimney cleaned every summer,
we chop wood and store it every summer.
We keep our wood pile rather far from the house, because that is where the wood shed was when we moved in and we haven't gotten around to moving it. I have a friend who built her house and she keeps the wood pile about 4 feet from a little door in the main house intended for wood. The kids put it into the little door of the wood cupboard from the outside and then she opens the door to the cupboard from the inside when she wants wood. It is the least messy setup I have ever seen.
We deal with our mess by ignoring it most days and sweeping up once a week. We have a hearth that the woodstove sits on that extends several feet out in all directions. We keep the wood in a metal cradle on the hearth. We keep the paper in a wooden crate just off the hearth.
We do run it at night. Dh builds two large fires a day, one in the morning (he gets up at 4:30-5:00 to go to work, he builds it and then takes his shower, then comes back to check on it, and shuts it down), the other in the evening about 8pm. He goes to bed at 10pm, I stay up another hour or so, and I shut it down so that it stays warm all night. When I get up in the morning (about 8am) I usually open it partially, add some more wood and then add wood every 2-4 hours throughout the days we are home.
We have absolutely no other heat, and it is MUCH more difficult to warm up a very cold house than it is to just keep it warm all the time.
We use cedar to get it going, alder, apple and walnut to keep it going all day. We live in a forest surrounded by fir trees, but fir is our last resort. It is so ashy and the residue can be so sticky. Cedar can also be sticky, so we restrict ourselves to one or two very thin pieces to get the fire going (think shims).
We cook on ours when the power goes out (regularly in the winter up here). It is not a cookstove, but the top is flat and it is easy to warm water for tea, cook bacon and eggs in a skillet, even make toast on a bake rack on top the stove.
Have fun!
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Michelle
Mom to 3 (dd 14, ds 15, and ds 16)
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Angel
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We don't completely heat with wood, but installing our wood stove last year sure made a dent in our heating bills! We keep a log rack up under the overhang on our back deck. My dh seemed to replenish it every week or so from stacks we kept farther out in the yard under tarps. The problem there was getting through the snow to the wood, as sometimes he had to use the snowblower to make a path. This year he wants to build a woodshed up closer to the house.
We would throw several logs on the fire before we went to bed. Since we're up several times a night, we checked the fire at those times, throwing another log on, whatever. Even if the fire burned down in the morning so that it looked as if it were out, there would usually be hot embers to start the next fire. The house never really got ice cold, but a couple of extra blankets didn't hurt. 
As far as the mess goes... I don't know how you deal with it, it's just messy! There's always bark and dirt and dust. I do want to get a log carrier with a bottom in it this year, not those metal log holders they sell that are open.
We boiled our maple syrup on our woodstove this year, which did get a little sticky but was a lot more doable than boiling it outside over a smoky fire. It gives me a lot of peace to know that I could cook on it if we ever had any power outages, and that it would heat the house really well, too.
As far as how much wood... we went through quite a lot last year, but I don't know how much. I think we have about 3 cords of wood this year so far from trees on our land, but I don't know how much my dh thinks is our goal. (We have an L-shaped 2700 ft. house built in 1957 - NOT the optimum for heating with anything, I'm afraid.) The former owners left us a bunch of birch logs, which don't burn worth anything; most of what they do is smoke. Hickory is by far our wood of choice, because a couple of logs will give you an absolutely roaring fire... but I don't know what you have available up there in Alaska?
--Angela
Three Plus Two
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lapazfarm
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Well, unfortunately all of the wood on our property is birch. We are looking into where we can go to cut some (BLM, Forest service, or state lands, etc)but it will likely be birch or spruce(also not the best choice). It's about all that grows here, so we don't have a lot of choice in wood species. Not like back in NC where there was such a wide variety of hardwoods that would burn forever.Anyway, I am thinking we need at least 4-5 cords to safely get through the long winter here, but I could be way off.I just don't know enough about how much we will use and it makes me nervous.
I'm trying to decide where to store it all. Since we will have several feet of snow accumulated by midwinter it needs to be near the house. Perhaps under the eaves.
So much to think about and it seems silly to be worried about these things in august, but I feel like I am running out of time!Winter comes so much earlier here than in NC.
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us-schooling in beautiful Fairbanks, Alaska.
LaPaz Home Learning
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JodieLyn
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oh no.. you're not ahead of the game to be worrying now.. we bought our wood back in June before gas prices went over $4/gal.. because that's one of the costs that influences the price of wood here.. and to get wood ourselves cheaper we'd have to have a trailer big enough to hold 3-4 cords.. otherwise the price of gas getting it would make it cost just as much.. rather pay someone else and save a day (or 3 or 6) than that
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Jodie, wife to Dave
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RamFam
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Do you have trouble with bugs and rodents in your wood pile? Could we store wood right up against our house?
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Tom ^i^, Kyle (my Marine), Adeline '00, Wyatt '05, Isaac '07 Philip '08,Michael '10, and John Xavier Feb '13
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Maddie
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We went through about 13 truckloads (pickup)of wood last year if that helps at all. I forget what a cord is equal to maybe 2-3 truck loads? And that is for 2 woodstoves. We are looking at a third woodstove for a back room, we also only use wood.
Yes, I do have another stove, Kerry. My family would starve if they had to depend upon me using the "old Maid" all the time. I'm trying to become more proficient at it and I love knowing I have the cookstove in power outages.
One other thing, Theresa, you probably already thought of it, but it's a humidifier. I use a large roaster on each stove. The children like to sprinkle their favorite essential oils in the water, it makes the whole house smell good.
I have been buying wood since May, I like it in my barn and stacked so it can take advantage of all the summer heat. We had a lot of wet wood last year and I spent a good deal of time baking logs in my cookstove oven so they would dry out and then we would throw them in the main woodstove. 
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JodieLyn
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| Posted: Aug 12 2008 at 4:53pm | IP Logged
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Leah, we've found wood eating bugs in wood before.. by the time we found them they were dormant because of the cold.. so we made sure those came straight from the pile to the stove so from dormant to dead. No chance of getting loose in the house.
I would not stack against the house myself.. but you could probably make stacks fairly close. end posts or stacking wood to make end posts helps a great deal in making neat stacks.
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Jodie, wife to Dave
G-18, B-17, G-15, G-14, B-13, B-11, G-9, B-7, B-5, B-4
All men who have turned out worth anything have had the chief hand in their own education.
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4Real Forums : Our Lady's Loom, Larder, and Laundry
Topic: Heating with wood
