I am thinking of moving into a house that heats with a wood stove. I know a homesteading family who heats with wood and their house is always cozy and awesome, but I just want to know how safe it is to heat with wood. The landlord is replacing the stove before I move in and is cleaning the chimney. Would you guys recommend it or not? There is no other heat so the rent is less because of the wood stove, and obviously the electricity would be more affordble and no gas.. so those all seem like good things but I was afraid of my gas heat cause of exploding apartments and all, I'm less afraid of wood but just want to be sure. Would you say it's more of less polluting than heating with gas or eletricity (I would assume it would be less??) Thanks!
I have heated my house with nothing but firewood for the past 8 years. I have an airtight wood stove and its perfectly safe as long as I keep the chimney clean and keep the door shut when I am not watching so no sparks fly out. If you rent that house with the woodstove I bet you will never want to go back to heating with gas or electricity. It costs me about $30 a year to heat my place (chain saw gas and oil). I did have to buy the chain saw, axes and splitting malles but I made that money back doing work for other people. As far as the difference in polluting goes if your wood is good quality and dry there is not a lot of smoke. Cheers!
Thanks. That is what I am thinking. We're taking the house The rent is much less due to the fact people don't want to bother with loading the stove and such, and they will allow my dog (a pit bull, try finding a place that allows a pit bull!! It's next to impossible!) This place seems really awesome, with no neighbors and all.
my parents have had one for 26 years ...just keep it clean and the wood dry and all should be great. as for the pollution factor ....like johnny said there is little smoke as long as the wood is dry and its carbon neutral ....which means the carbon dioxide or green house gas you emit will be absorb when new trees grow unlike natural gas or heating oil and most electricity produced.
I think you should take the advice of all and do it!! But yes definately make sure that the stove pipe and chimney and all that are cleaned and maintained regularly and make sure your little pitbull doesnt get to close to it and burn himself. I think its great but I would recommend keeping an appropriate kind of pan with water on it on top of it to so you dont get all dried out. I spent a lot of time at my friends houses who also burn woodstoves and man it dried my hair right out you might want to get a humidifier? I think thats what there called......so you can put water into the air. If you like it enough put some essential oils or throw some nice smelling pieces of cinnamon sticks or somethin in the water. Smells great at my friends house and thats all he uses. Other than that just make sure you dont overload the fire even though its nice to havin a roaring one, and make sure the fire is pretty much out if not completely when you leave. My friend left hers goin and unfortunately she no longer has a house to call her own and thats the truth. She figured that she would just leave for a few hours and had overstuffed the stove and lo and behold while she was gone it caught fire. Its too bad because she had gas heat that she could have used this winter to keep her house warm w/out the hazard of leaving the fire goin while she was gone. Def. not a good idea to leave that burning if ur not gonna be there and make sure that your landlord has smoke alarms installed in there. I think its mandatory anyhow. HOpe that helps ya
I've heated my home(s) with nothing but wood for 17 of the last 20 years. As already posted with an airtight stove, proper stove piping and seasoned firewood you should be as safe as anything. I would make sure the stove pipe that exits the house, that passes through a wall or roof is a double walled insulated type, like Metalbestos. Burn your fire good and hot for a bit everyday and get your self a cleaning brush. As for pollution, wood is a carbon neutral fuel source.
my parents have used a wood stove for 20+ years and we've had no problems. the labor is a bitch, but it's well worth it when you get your electricity bill. i will probably have a wood burning stove in the future instead of central air or whatever else
Yes it is labor intensive, but one thing I like about it is that it is a direct exchange of labor for what you get in return, work for heat. There is no job, paycheck, taxes, banks, oil wars etc. involved.
I've been heating my school bus with a wood stove and I love it. A lot of uninformed environmentalists complain about smoke pollution and cutting down trees. I burn mostly deadfall and scraps from a local lumber mill. The carbon emissions are then offset by new growth. You can't get much closer to a renewable resource.
Be carefull not to burn Pine in your stove.. the reson clogs up and gets on the pipe/chimney and can start a fire inside the chimney..we have a fireplace and have been cutting wood/selling and using wood as fuel for 23 yrs.. no problem so far.. we burn only hard wood.. seasoned.. mostly Red Oak.. it is the best.. and brings the best price..
oohh n make sure there are no holes in the stove pipe.. we have a wood brunner in the barn and some ambers excaped through the holes and started the barn roof on fire.. we got it out with not much damage..
Another option for wood is to cut up old pallets (they have so many uses!) They're generally made of oak or another hardwood and most places are just looking to get rid of them. Pine is fine to burn as long as you limit the amount of bark that's on it. It also helps to mix in hardwood with it, as the fire will burn hotter/more efficient and limit creosote build up (which is the cause of chimney fires.)
