I don't think it requires a disclaimer whatsoever. I think this thread highlights two things.. 1. The economics of burning wood/pellets vs ones other heat source (if one exists) varies greatly among the members, and 2. It's not always economics that drives people to heat with an alternate method. For the most part, people who posted above have highlighted some of the factors that influence their decisions.. I don't believe this tread was meant to be judgmental.. Just to promote discussion of the topic..
Nope. Sarcasm went right over my head. Sounded like you felt guilty for burning more oil and less wood. My mistake...
I don't have an oil burner. Electric furnace here, the wood is very inexpensive for me to produce and it keeps my home much warmer. I like$60 electric bills.
I have burned wood for roughly 30 years and as time has went on I have lost all my properties to cut on and found that free wood costing more and more as I am forced to drive a lot of miles from home to round up wood. With these facts in mind I can see how if I had natural gas I would be inclined to use some here and there to supplement. Wood isn't actually that cheap if you don't have easy access to it and you factor in wear and tear on your vehicle as well as the equipment required for processing and sheds for storing it. All that being said I love my stove and couldn't imagine being without it or not using it even if I had another heat source (which I don't). Looking at everything from the thousand foot level I can understand both sides of the argument of why you should only use wood 100% and why it makes sense not to to however I don't think it is as easy a decision to make as people wish it was was and there are different circumstances for everyone that need to be considered.
Well, I filled up the propane tank pretty cheaply this year, but I just like burning wood and pellets better, and I'd like to have a little bit of propane left in the spring....
Simple for me - if power goes out no heat , no cooking . Wood stove solves both. course the city doesn't share my view point, must have a lot city retirement funds in the local energy company.
I would rather be burned at the stake than live in a city. I really don't concern my self what city views are they are irrelevant for me.
I can relate but one problem is that many of the city ways are migrating to the country via township ordinances...
No truer words have ever been spoken. I too have been burning wood since before I was born, as my mother would stoke the kitchen stove for heat and to cook during the time she was pregnant with myself (65 yrs ago) and 4 older sibs. There was no other heat except wood. That can be a bad thing because I remember so many times how hot the kitchen would get in the summer while she and the two older sisters were baking cakes or pies and canning the garden bounty for the winter. Oh there WAS an electric stove, but it was used sparingly as we seriously did not have the proverbial 'pot' or the 'window to throw it out of '.... Except for the 4 years in the Marines and a 6 month stint in a goofy apartment when first married, I have heated with wood. I was raised with wood heat as a necessity and now it is merely a luxury....but also as stated somewhere above, a lifestyle as long as I'm physically able.
Ah ha. Someone who was raised like me only I'm a bit ahead of you. Also rather than electric, I remember mother's first cooking stove other than the wood cook stove. This one ran on kerosene! Ugly thing it was and she did not keep it long. Went back to the wood stove then later got an LP cook stove and got rid of the wood cook stove. That was a sad day in our house...
When I was a young teen my grandmother added an electric stove to her kitchen but really didn't like it much. She had been cooking with wood for many years and knew exactly how to get the temperatures she wanted from her stove. That wood stove was in a spacious kitchen, dining family area and heated that entire area in the winter. The wood furnace in the basement was never allowed to release any heat into that family gathering area although registers existed if they decided to use it that way. That wood furnace was no joke. It would drive you out of the house if you opened it up too much and it was designed to burn wood, coal or oil. The firing rate could be controlled from the living room using some light weight chains that went through the floor and extended all the way to the second floor. None of the grandkids were ever allowed to touch those chains.
We like to tell about my wife's aunt who was given a new electric stove for her 50th wedding anniversary. She did not like it but after a few years got so she'd use it. She still preferred the wood cook stove she had used all her life.
I, being the youngest of five remember how I was not allowed to even touch the cook stove during cake baking as maintaining correct oven temps had become somewhat of an artform. Each night in the winter the water had to be 'let out' of the cistern pump on the back porch because there's a chance it would freeze. So the last things done before bedtime was to draw enough water to fill the water reservoir at the end of the cook stove and fill the drinking water bucket so there'd be water to prime the hand pump with in the morning. Sometimes on really cold mornings there would even be a little warmth in the reservoir in contrast to the many times a thin film of ice would have to be broken on the water bucket on the kitchen shelf. It does sound like we did come up somewhat the same and we may have unwittingly become members of a dwindling club of young seniors that understand just what it really means to do without. But what's funny is I never realized there was any other way until much older. I personally wouldn't give a nickel to go back to the way it was...but at the same time I would'nt take a million bucks to have been raised any different. Backwoods Savage, Oldman....thanks for sharing the tidbits from your much younger days...and please feel free to put more of the same out there. To know where we are going it is important to remember where we've been.
