I like everything about it, from the cutting to the burning. It's kind of like hunting...going out and acquiring a basic need for yourself instead of paying someone else for it. The small electric bills definitely don't hurt.
Same as the rest of you. Like to be warm and feel guilty about the money I'm burning with propane. I love the saws and cutting process. I really enjoy watching the flames in the glass door of the stove when its snowy and nasty outdoors. Sent from my SM-G930VL using Tapatalk
When people ask me, I have many of the reasons above, but I also tend to say that I think it might be a genetic thing. I sit at a desk and stare at a computer screen all day for work, and it's been a couple of generations since my family made a living farming, but there is a certain part of me that feels the need to prepare for winter. And I suspect that I get the same satisfaction looking at my stacks of wood that my great grandparents did looking at their barns full of hay and silage 100 years ago. And really, it's good for you. My brother that is 6 years younger than I am had a (non-fatal) heart attack this fall. He has the same genes, same job type, same diet, same lifestyle, same everything that I do... I'm convinced that it's the amount of time that I'm in the woods, cutting, splitting, stacking, and sweating for the last 15 years that is paying me dividends now.
#1 reason.. the cat! #2 reason is the exercise. #3 the hoarding itch. #4 (new reason) hackers shutting down the natural gas pipeline.
That is what got me started...buying that 6-700 gallons per year...especially when it went over $3/gall. After I got started with it, now I also do it for all the same reasons everybody has already mentioned
The word "Primitive" works but I would say it is "Elemental". A wood stove is as basic as you can get barring a campfire. Other than solar arrays and batteries, burning wood is probably as close as we can come to releasing stored suns rays to warm ourselves and our homes. I love the independence that heating with wood gives. I can snap my fingers at the power company for basic heat and even still keep warm and cook meals when the whole grid is down from a disaster. In normal times, cutting and processing firewood provides exercise and satisfaction in jobs well done. Hoarding firewood even provides excuses to the Wif to buy new chainsaws and equipment. I like everything about it all the way to the end product of sitting with my feet propped on the footstool in front of a crackling woodstove and sipping a Scotch whiskey. The Wif sits close across from me reading. Both of us are embraced in an oasis of warmth and flickering yellow light while the wind blows handfuls of sleet and snow against the windows!
I was going to use the word 'primal'. Man has been using wood to sustain life for millions of years. We're just keeping on..
I just don't feel so guilty about getting the house really warm. I have had my fair share of expensive utility bills and because of those, I am pretty tight fisted on the thermostat.
We filled the LP tank last month and it cost $78. Mostly used for cooking but was used for heat this winter when we had 2 weeks of deep cold to keep house warm while everyone was at work/school. If we heated the house all winter to the same temperature it would cost over $1000 a year. In the past we would keep the house at 65f to save money. Now we burn wood to keep the house at 70+f
I burn wood because I just like it better. My days of cutting and splitting are behind me so I buy my wood. Even though I have a natural gas furnace and a few years ago natural gas was actually cheaper than buying firewood I still heated with wood. Hard to explain but if the thermostat says 72 degrres with natural gas and 72 degrees with the woodstove the wood heat feels much warmer. More like a heavier heat-it's really hard to explain but it feels more like a warm blanket.
