How We Heat a Large House With a Single Wood Stove
(Page 5 of 5)
November/December 1976
By the Mother Earth News editors
DRAWBACKS TO WOOD HEAT
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To be sure, there are disadvantages (however slight) to heating with wood.
For instance, when you first buy and install a stove like ours you have to learn to build a fire properly, so the blaze will produce the maximum amount of heat. This is something that comes only with experience, and with a knowledge of one's stove and its capabilities.
Also, there's the effort required to keep a fire going. Someone has to check the stove every six to eight hours to see that it has sufficient fuel, for if the blaze is allowed to burn out (and the house to chill) in really frigid weather, it can take as long as four hours to bring the building back to a comfortable temperature once the flame has been rekindled. And if the house is left unattended for any length of time, the water pipes can freeze (unless the plumbing is designed so that you can drain the system prior to going on a trip).
Still another inconvenience is the work involved in chopping firewood. We expect to use about six cords of seasoned hardwood each winter . . . or roughly ten tons of timber. That's a lot of wood to cut by hand! (Of course, you can buy firewood relatively inexpensively . . . but it costs nothing to cut it yourself, and—healthwise—it's certainly a better deal to hand-hew the fuel.) I should mention that our Jøtul—because of its high efficiency-really helps out in this department. We have friends who own Brand X stoves that consume twice as much wood as ours while generating less total heat! So if it weren't for our Jøtul, I might be cutting more fuel than I presently do.
THE BEST OF BOTH WORLDS
The disadvantages of our wood stove/false floor/no wall setup are—we think—far outweighed by the system's advantages.
Chief among the points in favor of our heating system are simplicity, economy, and reliability . . . especially the latter. Once installed, no part of the setup can break down. Even if the fans should malfunction (or if—as is more likely—they should stop due to a power blackout), the stove will still put out enough therms to keep us reasonably warm. And since we're not dependent on maintenance men or fuel oil deliveries, we needn't fear an interruption of service due to foul-ups in those departments. (Nor do we worry about the ever-rising cost of labor and petroleum.)
In short, we submit our experience as proof that a relatively large and comfortable house can be simply and inexpensively heated (even in Maine!) with a single wood-burning stove.
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