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Schoolrmacres
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| Posted: Oct 23 2008 at 8:38am | IP Logged
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Does anyone here have a wood burning stove that they use as their only source of heat for the winter?
If you do could you please tell me the pro's and con's of having one and would you honestly recommend having one.(We live in Texas between San Antonio and Austin so we are not talking extreme conditions or anything.)
Thanks
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NavyMom
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| Posted: Oct 23 2008 at 9:49am | IP Logged
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We have one and love it but use it asa supplement- not our only source. Can be dangerous with small children so make sure it is in a safe area.
Nice small, it does save money...
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JodieLyn
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| Posted: Oct 23 2008 at 11:18am | IP Logged
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we do.. it's great.. small children learn very quickly that it's a no-no.. my almost 2 yr old even adjusts to there being no fire in it and there being a fire in it. As far as it goes.. I was going to show her that it was getting hot.. we'd just started a fire and to feel the heat you had to be fairly close. To remind her why we don't get too close after the summer of it not being in use.. and she wouldn't get close as long as there was a visible fire.  Guess she remembered on her own.
The big thing as far as cost will be what sort of wood you have access to and what that cost will be. You do want a decent burning wood or you end up fighting with trying to get enough heat from it. A chimney that gets clogged up faster if the wood doesn't burn cleanly.
It can be chilly when you get up in the morning or if you've been gone for a long time.
If the temps are below freezing and you're going to be away you'll need some way to heat the house to keep it from freezing (the pipes and such).
There are screens or fence/gate types of things you can put around a woodstove.. the sides of a screen are much deeper than a fireplace screen but it won't go clear around it.
Depending on the stove (ours is a close quarters one) you may have to use not only a pad for the floor (instead of a hearth) but you might need to put something up the walls.. or the stove might take a large amount of space.
Our close quarters stove can be next to a normal wall.. only something like 15 inches clearance from the back. My bookcases can be fairly close on either side.. only the top and front get extremely hot.. but even then it takes a good 5x5 ft space in my living room. It's worth it to us and we enjoy it.
The wood itself needs a home outside. Watch for critters (usually spiders or bugs of some sort) that would live in the wood pile. It's usually recommended not to put the wood directly against your house in case there's critters that eat wood in the firewood. You don't want to introduce them to your house. You need to be able to chop kindling even if you buy your wood split.
Wood is messy. The bark crumbles away and it drops bits here and there whenever you move it. We keep a little broom and dust pan near the woodstove inside. And have a dedicated wood area out back that never has had grass so bits of wood and such there isn't a problem. But it can really bother some people.
Also you tend to have more dust in the house than without a wood stove. How much will depend on how good the stove you have is. The difference is fairly minimal here.
That said.. we paid for the purchase of our stove new, the stove pipe, and installation (including going through the ceiling/roof)and with the cost difference between that and the electric it paid for itself in less than 6 years. And in that time I was as warm as I wanted to be.
That's what I think I love the most.. we can keep our house at whatever temp we want.. and if I feel cold I can go stand close or toss on a bit extra wood and the cost is negligible. Plus I like getting to sit and watch the fire through the glass door.
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KerryK
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| Posted: Oct 23 2008 at 12:19pm | IP Logged
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I think Jodie covered it all, but I just wanted to chime in to say that we live in a very cold area and are able to heat the house almost exclusively with our woodstove. We use our radiator/oil heat just as a back up for the very coldest days. While the wood is messy, we love the warmth of it, and love the ambiance the fire creates.
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JodieLyn
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| Posted: Oct 23 2008 at 12:32pm | IP Logged
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oh yes, thank you Kerry, I didn't mention how cold we get here.. we have had days with the temp as low as -16F
and our nights right now are below freezing every night and will more or less be so until March.
the coldest days can stay in the single digits above 0.
And we only turn on the electric heat if we're going to be gone overnight.
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lapazfarm
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| Posted: Oct 23 2008 at 1:59pm | IP Logged
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Well, we have not seen our coldest days yet, but our wood stove is keeping us plenty warm.
Between Jodie and Kerry I think you've gotten most of it covered. The main issue for me is that it can be sort of a pain in the rear. Unlike a furnace you can just set the temp and forget about, a wood stove needs to be tended. You have to remember to feed it often, even in the middle of the night,it needs to be cleaned out regularly, the wood is messy and the stove creates dust. Pretty demanding, really. I told a friend it is like having a baby in the house again!LOL!
Our stove is old and small, so not as efficient as some of the newer ones. So some of my issues come from that.Plus the fact that the wood we are able to get up here is not great--burns fast and hot,so the temp is harder to regulate and I have to feed it more often than I'd like.Our neighbors down the road who have a more modern efficient stove can feed theirs every 6 hours or so while I have to feed mine every 2 or 3.
But all that said, the benefits outweigh the costs, by far.Wood is pretty cheap and it is an ecologically more sound way of heating than fossil fuels
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RamFam
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I grew up in McDade, TX (that's just east of Austin) and had no a/c and only a fireplace for heat. We eventually adapted the chimney to a wood burning stove instead which put off much more heat. But we had heated water beds in our bedrooms, so my mom was assured we were warm at night. Not sure what that did to the electric bill. I'll have to ask my dad...
I loved warming my clothes on the fireplace grate or roasting marshmallows or weenies, just because we could. My parents would stack the wood against the house and I think we got roaches from one of the trees that we were given.
lapazfarm wrote:
| it is an ecologically more sound way of heating than fossil fuels |
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What about the smoke? (I'm not debating. Just curious.)
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JodieLyn
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| Posted: Oct 23 2008 at 4:00pm | IP Logged
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when you're burning well seasoned wood in a clean way (not a smoldering fire) there is very little smoke.. most of the time you can't even see the smoke from our chimney.. except may right when it's starting up.
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lapazfarm
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| Posted: Oct 23 2008 at 5:23pm | IP Logged
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Ecologically more sound in that wood is a renewable resource when sustainably harvested, while fossil fuels are not. Plus, we don't ship the wood in from the middle east--it's home-grown, so there's that angle, too. I think any time you can use a resource that is local and sustainable it is a good thing.
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JodieLyn
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| Posted: Oct 23 2008 at 5:37pm | IP Logged
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the wood we use here is actually culled by the Forest Service because Juniper trees can create problems by using up available water and push out other plants and trees.
If we were getting our own wood vs buying it.. we could get free wood tags and go and cut up trees that are already down and seasoned for our firewood. But with the price of gas it costs us the same in $$ and a whole lot less labor to have someone deliver it to our house 
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Angel
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| Posted: Oct 23 2008 at 6:41pm | IP Logged
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We're trying to heat with wood as exclusively as we can this year. So far so good, but it's only the end of October. We haven't had to buy wood yet; it's still all fallen trees from our property.
We have a hearth gate because I don't trust my little ones to stay away from the stove. And the mess is another factor... you do have to deal with the mess from the wood you bring in, the ashes that fall out of the ash pan when you're cleaning it... but it's a much cozier heat and I really like it. 
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RamFam
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| Posted: Oct 23 2008 at 8:37pm | IP Logged
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Is that like hunting/fishing tags to regulate the amount?
lapazfarm wrote:
| Ecologically more sound in that wood is a renewable resource when sustainably harvested, while fossil fuels are not. Plus, we don't ship the wood in from the middle east--it's home-grown, so there's that angle, too. I think any time you can use a resource that is local and sustainable it is a good thing. |
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All good points. I agree completely. I guess I was just asking in regards to the carbon output. Do you know?
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Mackfam
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| Posted: Oct 23 2008 at 9:27pm | IP Logged
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Angel wrote:
| We're trying to heat with wood as exclusively as we can this year. So far so good, but it's only the end of October. |
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And you guys have the prettiest shiny red woodstove I've ever seen. We're dreaming/planning for a move out to a small piece of land we call "the patch" in the woods on my dh's parent's property and a modest little log home with a shiny red woodstove right in the center of it! I love your woodstove, Angela - it looks so homey in your living room!
Sorry everyone...back to the practical discussion. 
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JodieLyn
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Leah yes it is.. to sell the wood rather than use it yourself is different tags and costs more. And it's set by each forest. (the national forests are split into various "forests" and then into "districts") so that the rules and regulations and costs pertain to that particular area.
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chrisv664
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We love our woodstove... I can't add much to what has been said here except that an unexpected sruprise was that it has become a great gathering place.. the family (and visitors) just love to be near a fire... so it has served a bonus purpose of getting the family to spend more time in each others' company... which is great because of the wide age differences in our children.
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Angel
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| Posted: Oct 24 2008 at 7:45am | IP Logged
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Mackfam wrote:
And you guys have the prettiest shiny red woodstove I've ever seen. We're dreaming/planning for a move out to a small piece of land we call "the patch" in the woods on my dh's parent's property and a modest little log home with a shiny red woodstove right in the center of it! I love your woodstove, Angela - it looks so homey in your living room!
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Thanks, Jen. Relating back to the carbon discussion... our stove is a Vermont Castings Encore. If you scroll down to see its specifications, you can see that its emissions rate is very low. (At the time we bought it, it was the lowest of any stove on the market.) I can't think that our clunky old fuel-oil burning furnace in the basement is any better. 
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NavyMom
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| Posted: Oct 24 2008 at 8:43am | IP Logged
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Just wanted to add to make sure you get it professinally cleaned and checked out every year. Not sure if anyone said that or not. We just had ours done. It cost $160.
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Teakafrog
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So anyone got any good links for info for a newbie? DH just bought a woodstove, and we're getting ready to install it. Hoping it saves with the heating bill this winter. I personally don't know much about them and what is required to keep them going safely.
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4Real Forums : Our Lady's Loom, Larder, and Laundry
Topic: Wood burning stove??
