How long have you heated with wood?

Started about 1982, had a few years off through out but not many. My first stove was a warm morning wood/coal stove.

 

Started fall of 2008 I do believe...and boy did I have a steep learning curve those first 4-5 years! I kept blaming my problems on the appliance, but turns out it was the green fuel I was feeding them! (although a quality stove/furnace sure helps!)

 

Only been heating with wood since 2017. Had a false start with way to small of a stove. Upgraded to a fireview, have been enjoying the 75° living room and low electric bills.

 

Yawner Please read this post!

 

20-30 here. Burning 4 or so months a year at our seasonal home since the mid 90’s and in my main home for about 8 years. Love everything about it, hoarding, CAD, the wonderful warm heat, exercise, low natural gas bills…

 

I selected 10-20. I started heating my own home in 2010. I did grow up w/ wood heat that doesn't count IMO.

 

Maybe 15 years ago or a little more the boss got tired of spending so much on propane for the shop at work so we put in a wood stove. I’ve done probably 90% of the wood gathering since.
Bought the house we live in during December of ‘14 and got my stove installed on 4-15-2015 and been heating almost exclusively with wood ever since.
Didn’t become a hoarder until March of 2019 when I found you fine people. My,…how my approach and attitude of firewood has changed in 3 years!!!

 

I voted 1-10 since that's how long I have been burning wood as a homeowner.

When I was young my family burned wood. It was the only way to survive in the old draft farm houses. Converted an old corn crib into a wood shed.

When I was 7 we built a new house and dad brought the wood stove encase we needed it. The new house was so warm we all practically died from heat stroke the first winter when we moved in at Christmas. New house was earth contact with 6" insulated walls, 12" insulation in the attic. Propane furnace for heat on demand. It was so warm we all slept on top of our covers for a month sweating. Dad thought the furnace or thermostat was broke because the furnace wouldn't keep running.....it actually got the house up to temp and could turn off.

We ended up putting the wood stove in a cabin. For 30 odd years heating with wood was a camping exercise.

My wife's family had a wood stove in an old drafty farm house. I have think the stove was still in the basement when they tore the house down a few years ago. I think I was the favorite boyfriend/inlaw because I would always top off the wood stove before I left for the evening. After my wife and I were married I would tend to the stove when ever we were over visiting. And always bring a cord or two of oak a winter for a Christmas present.

 

I grew up in a wood burning house. So I’ve been burning as long as I can remember. But like The Wood Wolverine wolverine said - that doesn’t count.

…………

I moved out of my parent’s house on my 18th birthday and never moved back in. This is an 18 year old Cash Larue in my first rental. I couldn’t afford a heating bill, so burned wood in the old, inefficient wood fireplace. I burned a lot of wood to keep the place warm. And it did keep the place warm, if I burned enough! I would scrounge dead and downed wood by the Platte River, that runs through Downtown Denver. I’d cut the wood with a bow saw and split it by hand. This pic is from Halloween 2001. I had worked a 14 hour day at the butcher shop before this pic was taken by my girlfriend. That was my best 18 year old tough guy look.


Those were such fun times. I had to grow up quick. I didn’t have a pot to pizz in - but I loved it.

 

I've got a measly 7 years. Didnt count the fireplace we had growing up as it did not do any real heating.

 

Well, I grew up in the deep South, Dad heated with natural gas. Then ended up in the tropics for a good chunk of my adult life, no need for any heat, no sir. Eventually ended up in WA state (the cold side), and have been heating with wood ever since (8 years). I started when I was 50, and hope to do it until I die.

Edit: When my wife and I put a bid on the house we are now living in, I knew I had to learn fast about wood burning. IIRC, FHC is where that education started, and I figured out within the first few days that the 3 year plan was far better than cut and burn the same week, which is what I had to do the first winter. But that Allnighter kept us warm enough, considering.

The second winter was so much better, even though the wood was still less than a year seasoned. After three years' effort, I was firmly on the three year plan, and have been ever since.

 

63 years fo me .

 

I count all those years growing up, as we would burn a lot of wood. I personally did a lot of wood processing. I hauled, split, stacked and loaded wood at a very young age and never have stopped. I wasn't allowed to run a saw until I was a teenager, but aside from when we lived in southern California, wood heat has always been a part of the equation in my family.

 

I moved into the 1830s farmhouse I mentioned earlier in November 1985. It had a wood/oil furnace but I had no wood and no money. By January I had an $1100 fuel oil bill. I borrowed a chainsaw and started cutting dead elm on my property. That helped, but I never got very far ahead. I started doing log loads but only could get a few months ahead using 8 cords a year. Now only burning 2 to 3 cords a year I am on the 3 year plan.

 

I started burning wood with a cheap Franklin stove bought at a discount store in the early 70s.
Then a new company called Vermont Casting made a highly rated stove called the Defiant. I bought one and was very happy with it. This company in their early days was great. They had newsletters, summer get togethers, great guarantee - even mailed me a new fireback and parts to install it when mine cracked- no cost

I scrounged wood split it and tried to stay a day or two ahead. A week ahead was rare.
I remember coming home from work and splitting wood to burn that night. I knew the water was bubbling out of the ends of the wood and the fire always seemed to burn better with the side door cracked open just a little. This went on for years and years.
I knew standing dead and barkless dry logs burned better but nothing really clicked about doing things differently.

Then in 2008 I bought a Ford 1920 tractor. Wanted a new wood stove so I started researching and found the other forum hearth.com where I read about different stoves and loved the Jotul Oslo. The forum members even wrote about a place in Conn. That had the best prices. I learned about a 2009 $1500.00 tax credit. I lurked on this forum for 3 and a half years before joining and posting. Used the tractor to unload the stove from my Tacoma.

I read postings from Backwoods Savage and everything he said clicked with what I had been noting in the previous 30 years of wood burning. I was sold on the 3 year plan

 

Only looking at this from the perspective of burning as the primary heat source so coming on 13 years. Not a lot of wood stoves in military barracks (although I've burned wood in a lot of different countries...).

 

I think there are multiple ways to look at the years perspective.

I guess one could argue how involved you were in the wood heating chores of your childhood home would matter greatly. If you sat on the couch watching tv, and never loaded the stove, never helped gather wood, never split wood, never brought wood in the house, etc. then i'd agree. Those years shouldn't count.

However, if you helped cut down 8 cords worth of trees a year...every year...year in...year out...threw the rounds your old man bucked up into a bucket or a truck, threw the brush into piles, helped him split and stack those 8 cords, burned the brush, loaded the stove, brought ash buckets outside, etc, etc. then by the time your a man you've done more wood burning related chores than the vast majority of grown adults will ever do their entire lives.

Why wouldn't it count?

 

I started Feb of 2020 for my own. When I lived at home we had a small wood furnace for the garage.


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