It has been a warm fall so far and we were able to put off the first fire of the season…until today. The chill this morning was too much to bear, so we cranked up the wood stove.
Our farmhouse was built in 1890. It doesn’t have central heating, unless you count the wood stove. And since our house is only 1,293 square feet, the wood stove works.
It Takes More Than a Fire
As much as we enjoy the wood heat (best heat ever!!), however, it’s not without its concerns. Wood smoke contributes to air pollution, so we burn as responsibly as we can…starting with waiting as long as we can to start using the wood stove.
And we burn clean wood.
And we make sure our fire is burning cleanly. The photo with no smoke is our chimney. You could see the heat, but no smoke, this morning. The other photo is our neighbor’s chimney. It smokes like that every single day. Some days the smoke is so thick it blankets the valley. It’s frustrating.
Our fire doesn’t burn clean all the time. Sometimes I’ll start the fire or stoke it, then walk outside to do a chore or walk the dogs or something, and I will see the chimney smoking. When that happens, I head straight back into the house to deal with the fire until I know it is a clean burn.
(You can see videos of the smoke in my TikTok video on the subject.)
Wood Heat Warms You Twice
There’s a saying: “Wood heat warms you twice.” Spend enough time stacking wood and getting it from point A to point B and you’ll realize it warms you many times over…with sweat.
The wood stove puts out wonderful heat, but it does take work. Obviously we have to stack the wood, cut the kindling, stock the porch and maintain the bricks and gasket of the wood stove. We have the chimney sweep check it every three years.
And it makes a bit of a mess. Now that we are burning again, I will be sweeping up dirt and little pieces of wood that get tracked in, despite all my efforts. Plus it seems to lead to more dust in the house, and we have smoke damage from those rare occasions when we have a down draft and I don’t catch it in time.
Still, it’s cold outside, and our little wood stove warms our little farmhouse without too much effort.
And we do it in the best way we can, to keep the air as clean as we can. Because we care.
And that’s enough for now…
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