Role Call, How long have you been heating with wood?

Some of us have been heating with wood for a long time, others are new to it. So how long have you been at it?

I got my start when I was a kid during the '73 oil embargo. My parents decided that a wood stove would cut the oil bill. I was part of he the wood gathering crew until I was out of the house for college in '81 and didn't return to burning until I got my first house in '93. So I am creeping up on thirty years.

To derail this from the start, I was burning wood before I was drinking beer but I have spent more years drinking beer.

 

Parents never had wood heat. I bought my first stove (warm morning stove) in 1982 and have been burning almost every year except maybe a couple. So I'd say 30yrs.

 

In college I lived in a house with a wood stove for about a year, and for the past three years I have had a wood stove in my current house. Four years total.

 

My parents had a Buderus wood hot water furnace throughout my teen years and we all CSS and fired the furnace. (I remember one spectacular chimney fire, I heard the roar when I was loading the furnace, ran outside to see flames shooting 12 feet out the chimney like a roman candle, and ran back in shouting to my dad that there was a chimney fire and should we call 911?!? He said, "Hell no! They'll just pour water down the chimney and destroy it. Just let it burn itself out!")

This is our third season heating with Woodstock stoves. I clean my Class A flue regularly.

 

Close to ten years in my house but I grew up with wood heat so all said and done close to 33 years if that counts.

 

Roughly 20 years burning wood for me.

Helped burn wood in my parents house when we were growing up there. I guess we had that forced air wood burning furnace, which was added on to the forced air gas furnace plenum, for about 10 years or so. After I graduated from high school I then did not heat with wood until about 11 years ago. So in total I guess you could say I have burned wood for about 20 years roughly. 10-11 years in my current home and 10 years or so helping burn wood in my parents home.

I really enjoyed all that time heating with wood when I was a kid. Throwing wood into the basement and stacking it. Most was already split, some we had to split a little smaller. Some I think I split just for fun. A friend of mine lived down the road and they burned wood as well. So we would help each other at that time of year. We would throw it in and stack it at his house or mine, whoever got theirs first. Then we would move to the other guys house and throw it in and stack it there.

 

Grew up with a cook stove in the kitchen, wood stove in the dining room, a rare fire in the fireplace, and a Tarm wood boiler. First apartment had a stove, but then more than a decade with only a barrel stove in the shop, and now in this house heating with wood for 13 years.

 

This is winter #8 for us here.......burning wood.
After the first winter, I turned off the gas to the wall furnace. Just turned on the DV heater for the first time in 7 years.
Before that, we had a house when I was about 14-15 with a fireplace, but all I remember burning in that was those fake logs that you leave the wrapper on when starting.
That was a couple years ago.

 

Around 28 years.

 

When I was 7 I burned ants with a magnifying glass. It's been downhill from there.
I'm 47 now.

 

1 week today!

 

5 years. I won't go to anything else. I enjoy this as a hobby and not a chore. Every chance I can, I head to the woods! If that means cutting firewood, great. I'd rather be there than sitting at home doing nothing. This cold winter has given me a good dose of cabin fever.

I get the same feeling from reloading my own ammo. Turning something not so useful (raw components) into something that helps me and/or my family.

 

24/7 burner since 1977 with the exception of 1 year, 2009, when I tried pellets which were a dismal failure. I'll be burning wood as long as I am able to.

 

Wood heat has been a part of my life as long as I can remember. I guess 50 years or so. Had it as the primary heat for maybe 20 of those years. It's not our primary heat now, but I'm working toward making it a larger part of it. Gotta have dry wood first.

 

I got to watch starting in 1953.
Threw my first split in the fireplace sometime after that.
Have chopped trees down with an axe, cut firewood with a crosscut saw.


Cutting a Winter's worth of wood in several weekends with power everything isn't much work at all in comparison.

 

Puts things in perspective. I'll bet you're got some of those saws on the wall somewhere?

 

My parents heated with a stove my dad made so I guess I have always been heating with wood. Left home at 18, bought a house at 25 and have been burning ever since. They came a few years ago and took my LP tank because I wasn't using it! Oh darn!! I started selling wood at the same time and have been doing that just as long. I guess that makes it 39 going on 40 years! And all these years, have never put a single stick of anything but red oak in any stove I have had! Because that is all I have ever had to cut!

Ted

 

Not a one unfortunately.

 

Grew up with a wood stove.
Didn't start burning wood again 'till I bought this place about 18 years ago and wood heat has been my primary heat since then.