One of the things that was SUPER high on our list of “must haves” when we were looking for a home in New England, was a wood stove. Or at least a good chimney to have a wood stove installed. Word on the street is New England winters can be brutal some years and the thought of huge heating bills {oil} was something we wanted to try and minimize as much as possible.
In previous years, heating our home with natural gas during the winter months here in the Pacific Northwest, our peak heating bills came in at around $300 – $325 a month. Which of course seemed high to us. I think one year during a long cold snap we had a bill around $360 and I was freaking out.
So naturally one of our questions when we were looking at the potential house on the East Coast was…. What are the heating bills going to be like? How much does it cost to heat this home during the winter months? Because HELLO… the Northeast is much, much colder than the PNW. Is the size of this home and the cost to heat it going to be a deal breaker for us? And how often do the current owners use their wood stove to heat the home?
After going over the fuel and electricity receipts for the home for the previous 12 months, we learned the current owners spent about $2750 to heat the home {with oil}. Here in the PNW we paid about $1,400 for natural gas during the same 12 month period. And honestly, I didn’t think an increase of $1,350 a year for heating costs was all that bad considering how long the winters are on the East Coast.
Plus, when my friend Heather from Massachusetts and I were there for the home inspection, we noticed the wood stove in the home looked like it was barely used {as did all of the fireplaces}. Which gave me hope. I LOVE wood heat. And the thought of using it to heat my home during the winter months is one of the things I am most looking forward to.
So, obviously I have a few questions for all you wood stove experts out there:
- Is it really practical to heat an entire home with wood heat?
- I’m assuming we’ll need some sort of steamer/humidifier to place on top of the wood stove. Can you recommend one?
- Do I need some sort of fan to circulate the heat?
- How about a tea kettle? I have visions of heating my water for my afternoon cuppa on the wood stove. Do you do this? Do I need a special kettle? Do you have any tips I should know about?
- How many cords of wood do you think someone in the NE would need during a typical winter?
- We plan on buying our first winter’s worth of wood, but hoping to harvest our own in later years. What kind of wood should we be buying/looking for?
- What is a fair price for a cord of seasoned, cut firewood these days?
I am BEYOND excited for this next chapter in our lives, and I know that moving to the other side of the country will be a bit of a culture shock {but one I’m ready for} and I just want to make our transition as smooth as possible. So thank you in advance for all your help. You rock!
~Mavis
Heidi says
While I can’t answer all of your questions about heating in the NE as I live in the PNW, we have in the past heated with only wood when we were young and poor. Frankly it sucked and while I love to have a fire every evening in winter, I love turning on the heat in the morning even more.
It really depends on how the house is built. Open concept will work much better than many smaller rooms. It is a LOT of work and there will be rooms that just do not get warm even with fans. You will probably need space heaters in bathrooms if you want to shower in the winter.
You may have to get up in the night to stock the stove in extremely cold weather. Wood is dirty and makes a mess. Bugs and spiders will be living in it and the warmth of the house wakes them up.
My opinion, for what it’s worth would be to heat to a base temp with oil such as 55 or 60 and then supplement with the wood to warm up the rooms you use to a comfortable temp.
Johnny says
I can say from.experience in Kentucky that you should either use wood or electric. Not at same time as they way they heat work against each other. Wood and gas( or oil )/are fine but your electric bill will be higher if trying to use wood at same time. It’s fine to have both options but try never using both at same time.
jess says
Here in NE Ohio we used to be Oil heat….it is ridiculous expensive… So when our furnace started to die it was time to switch.. we bought a gas furnace and had the gas lines run..A year later we needed a new stove and we switched from electric to gas. The highest our winter gas bill has been is $89. I would definitely look for ways to supplement that oil bill!
Tisha says
For a steamer/humidifier, I would look at capacity and the opening. If it is too small, you will have to refill it often. I have seen adorable dragon ones but have heard that the amount of steam produced is minimal (the opening for it to travel through), so have not purchased one. As far as heating the entire home, it really depends on the design of the house and the location of the woodstove, the size of the stove and the heat of the fire. My stairwell can get nice and warm. It would warm the kids rooms if they would open their doors but they are teenagers and prefer to be cold and private. When we use the stove, those who wish tend to congregate in the room it is in. In power outages, we have boiled water in a regular kettle on the stove and dinner in the dutch oven, too. My climate in the mountains of New Mexico is too different to give a good handle on how much wood or prices or variety so I cannot help there. Of course, how much wood is consumed also depends on the insulation of the house, what direction most of the windows are facing, whether or not there are insulating curtains, etc.
mary says
Wood prices vary by location. You will need something to keep the house humidified. There are special ‘water tanks’ that you can buy to put on the wood burning stove. Look at the Vermont Country Store catalog. I am a bit concerned that you are not being realistic about how cold and how long New England winters are. You wore a coat in your PNW house? Planning on doing that in NE? I know people who use the wood burning stove as their primary heat source but for it to heat the whole house there needs to be vents in the upstairs floors to get the heat up. My brother (who lives north of Boston) has a wood burning stove in his kitchen with vents going to the upstairs bedrooms near the stove. (My father did it for him so that the girls wouldn’t be cold). His house was built in 1785 and has full house fireplaces but they do not use them. Make sure you have the fireplace chimney checked before you go whole hog on the wood burning stove idea. Can’t wait to see your new place and the land. How many acres did you buy? Have also noticed that your stress level has changed since you sold the HOA house – perhaps it’s two fold: leaving the HOA house and moving clear across the country. Always look forward to your posts!
Vicky says
Okay, you have a lot of questions. Cost of wood is market driven and sells at different prices everywhere. As for what kind of wood to burn, different woods have different heat values – BTUs. Hard woods are much better at making heat that is more efficient and your fires last longer so you burn less wood (softer woods are great for kindling). But much of the output from wood heat depends on the skill of the operator of the stove – knowing how to get a fire going well and when to damp it down. A small hot fire is more efficient than a large smoldering one. When it comes to moving the heat, fans help. Your current oil system has heat registers and duct work to move that heat I assume. You should have or be able to add a thermostat that has a fan choice between auto and on. If you turn it to on, it helps to circulate the heat from the wood stove throughout the house – and yes, that heat will build up in the room with the wood stove and make the rest of the house seem extra cold if you don’t get that air moving. If you feel you need more humidity, you can put any kind of pan/kettle on the stove and you will learn where the best location is as you go. You don’t want that water boiling, just steaming. One thing to note, depending on your weather and the type of windows you have, you can get icing on them at night if you try to add too much humidity. Heating with wood is a lot of work and a lot of mess. After living in a home for 25 years heating with a wood stove, I am now in a home where we put in a gas stove, an electric heat pump and a vintage wood cook stove that I was up lighting at 4:00 AM this morning when it was just 13 degrees outside. Nothing is as cozy as a nice wood fire in a wood stove. Enjoy!
Dara says
I believe one of the old Tightwad Gazette books had several columns about wood stoves including the BTU values of different types of wood.
Vicky says
Forgot to mention – get yourself an electric wood splitter. We split our wood the old fashioned way until a couple of years ago when a city friend mentioned that we should get one. We didn’t even know they made electric ones! Quiet to run, very easy and very dependable. When heating with a wood cook stove, the fire box is very small so the wood has to be split small, too, for us here. You won’t have that issue with a full size wood stove. But do remember when you order wood, you need to specify the length you need so it will fit in your stove. Always try to get your wood early – prices are better than they will be by fall. Also try to buy ahead – if you get an extra cord or two when the price is good, you will be that far ahead for the next season. Not knowing your chimney situation, if you plan to heat with wood for many years, you might consider getting your chimney lined if it isn’t already. With older chimneys you have to be concerned about the condition inside them deteriorating with age – we had ours lined – they use stove pipe to do this and it makes the job of cleaning the chimney much easier while protecting you and your home from potential fire from a failed seam/mortar or an errant spark. While wood is messier and much more work than a pellet stove, we prefer it. We have pellet stoves in our shop – one on the main floor and one upstairs in the guest/hobby area. They are really loud and would drive me crazy if I had one in the house!
Jeanine says
FYI…..years ago we had a chimney fire….before we put in a liner. Too much creasode build up….the firemen came with axes and wanted to bust down the upstairs walls….pretty scary. Then, the fire chief asked my husband for a glass of water. He opened the door on the wood stove and through in the water creating steam and out went the fire. Good thing to know!!
By the way, I missed the whole event….this is the story my hubby told me…I was working the late shift that night and missed it.
Anita says
Here in PA we originally used oil to heat our hot water baseboard. When oil became so expensive, we switched to an outside wood furnace. The heat still comes through the hot water baseboard, but all the mess associated with burning wood is outside. It’s been over 11 years since we did that and we still say it’s the best decision we ever made.
Shelly says
We also have an outdoor wood boiler that utilizes the already in place furnace (propane) and baseboard heat. We have a small house of 750 sq ft with a basement that is about 25 percent below grade. We get 10 cords of pulp wood (full logs) every other year for under 1k and cut it ourselves into 2ft logs. We also tied it into our hot water tank (with a heat exchanger) so that we turn off the electric to it during the winter saving us some money there also. This heats our house for minimum of two years. We also have an inside wood stove that we use just in the spring, fall and in power outages. We live in Northern MI (tip of the mitt) and our winter is LONG and cold. We also agree that putting in the wood boiler when we moved here was the best decision ever.
Kate says
I grew up in Northern California and for several years my parents heated our house exclusively with a wood stove. The house was over 3,000 square feet and you never would have realized we didn’t have central heating. The fire never went fully out, we’d “bank” the coals at night so it was easier to get going in the morning. We had a cast-iron kettle on it for humidity, though we never actually used the water on it for beverages. We went through about 2-4 cords of wood a year. This was in the early 80’s so I can’t tell you price! Good luck in your new adventure, I’m excited to read all about it!
Rita says
Depends a lot on what kind of wood stove is there; is it efficient. Many of them have built in fans. I have a LOPI and it does a good job of heating an 1800 sq. ft. home. Buy hardwood if you can, the locals will steer you to the right seller, or try the local craigslist or facebook as a possibility of getting a feel of your new area. How big is your new house?
Sue R. says
The romance of a wood stove and fire wears off after a while… We are in the PNW and have a wood stove (and an electric heat pump). It is hard to heat all rooms even with ceiling fans–though that does help some. As Heidi commented above–it is dirty with carrying wood in and fine ash dust that settles on things at times–and bugs! It is work to harvest, saw, stack, carry… ask he how I know!! I’m don’t mind using a wood stove–but oh, so glad that we have an alternative source of heat when I don’t want to carry and fuss over a fire. We have a cast iron tea kettle on the stove for humidity and a stainless steel one that I could use for tea water. It is very handy if we lose power! Everyone will tell you hardwoods are best for burning hot–but I like having fir/pine to help me get the fire going more easily.
Sue R says
I live in central New Hampshire and we heat with wood. Our first winter in this home we lost power for 5 days. We borrowed a generator to be able to run the heat and water pump. The following summer we installed a huge wood stove capable of heating our whole house. We go through 6-7 cord of wood a year. We cut our own and it is a job! We use fans in upper doorway corners to circulate the heat and have a fan installed on the wood stove itself. Our wood stove is in our basement, we live in a two story cape. It heats our whole house quite well. We put the wood stove in the basement to help keep the pipes from freezing if we lost power for days(which happens often). I love wood heat and would not have it any other way! We do have oil for hot water and backup heating. We might go through a tank of oil a year. Good luck with your new adventure! You will love New England!
E in Upstate NY says
Heated our 1850s Bangor Maine house on one tank of oil [natural gas NOT available there] and 8 FULL cords of wood.
This was a while ago, so won’t give you the wood cost. We placed our wood order in the SPRING. It allowed our wood man to plan his work, it also kept us out of the spot market which was far more expensive. Suggest you order more cords than you think you will need. If you don’t use it all, well, it keeps. You don’t want to be in middle of winter and have to purchase green wood because that is all you can find.
You will also want to find a reputable chimney sweep. It took me a few calls to find someone who would even consider doing our chimney – it was a good 15 ft above the roof line due to the house’s style. Even a firefighter refused, he took one look and said good luck. I’m not doing this job.
There is a saying that wood heats you at least three times, and the last time is the actual burning of the wood. Believe it!
Wood heat is D I R T Y. No way around that. All kinds of living things love wood piles. Our woodstove was in the dining room and every spring the entire room had to be washed. There was a yellow film over everything including the ceiling and the dining room chandelier.
The pot for humidity is really your choice based upon your style. Enameled cast iron is great. Just make sure your hand easily can get in for cleaning, and yes you will want to clean it occasionally. For your tea, again your choice. Only recommendation I’d make is don’t have a thin metal bottom, and once you have hit you tea max for the day, take the pot off the stove and rinse it out.
During the fall, I dried apples on the wood stove top. Made the house smell real nice and provided wonderful snacks for our then young children.
Where we live now, this fall we put in a natural gas fireplace. We LOVE it. Don’t miss all the work that wood requires and it does a very good job of heating this house. In fact, too good of a job.
Good luck.
E in Upstate NY says
The one tank of oil was used to take the edge off the house while the wood stove was brought up to daytime use from the embers of the nighttime heating need. we put the oil furnace on a timer so it started about half hour before my husband got up. Made a difference in his morning showers. It was timed to shut down about a half hour after the wood stove had been restarted.
I loved living in Maine, and while the decision to leave was hard, it was the right thing to do both career wise for my husband and education wise for our two children. Left behind best friends of the kind that I’ve never had since. If I could, I’d move back; but right now am “stuck” in Upstate NY.
Dina says
We have a 2800 sq ft home (main level and basement) that we heat exclusively with our wood stove…don’t even have a furnace (an air conditioner/air handler, yes, but no heat option). Our stove is a Hearthstone Manchester. To say we love it would be a gross understatement. It effectively and efficiently keeps the house toasty warm. If it gets a little too warm in the living room where it sits, we either turn on ceiling fans throughout the house to push and pull the air, open a door or window, or if we are going to spend time in the basement will turn on the air handler to more efficiently circulate the warmth downstairs. The Hearthstone is extremely efficient. We cut our own wood and tend to go through about 2 cords over a cold weather season. It is also important to note that the house is very well insulated along with highly efficient windows. We are located in central Indiana. So, our electric bill runs fairly steady at about $90 to $150 (depending on season) per month. My oven is electric and range is gas…use two 100 pound tanks that get refilled twice a year…actually have 4 tanks, two in use at the house and two on reserve. Have not had any issues with the air being excessively dry, but then again I am cooking all the time and there is usually something boiling on the stove.
Dina says
Also, we have not experienced what others have commented on about the dirtiness and dustiness of wood heat. In fact, it seems like there is more dust settling during the time of year that the stove is NOT in use. Emptying the ash bin is easy peasy. I truly believe that a lot of that depends on how efficient the stove is.
Susan says
I live in the South now, but lived in Upper Michigan for many years, and heated almost exclusively with wood. I NEVER got tired of it, and once you figure out what works best for your comfort, your house, and your particular stove(s) and fireplace(s), it really isn’t a terrible task — I actually enjoyed it.
You’ll want to source your wood carefully. Ideally, you can chop your own wood, and that would save a lot of money. If you have to buy, be careful to get a full cord and not a face cord, and that the wood is properly seasoned.
Don’t ever let the fire go completely out; bank your embers at night, and then stoking the fire the next morning is a piece of cake.
I used old tea kettles (with the stoppers removed) for humidification. I liked the way they looked, and they were easy to transport and fill.
Just like any other new house, it will take a while to learn what works best for you, and you’ll make that a habit. Heating with wood is so pleasurable, and so ecologically friendly, that it’s worth getting through the learning curve.
OregonGuest says
We got rid of a wood stove because of asthma issues. Have you considered your rug hooking business and whether you may have to contend with smoke residue in the wool? I agree with other posters — a roaring fire sounds charming (until it isn’t!).
Leanna says
You also need to check in your town/city to see if there are wood burning restrictions due to pollution.
Cathy says
I live in central NH you want dry dry dry hard wood we have not bought wood in a few years cutting off our land. We have an ugly air tight stove in the basement but it does the job it heats our first floor. (Oil back up) we like the bedrooms cooler.we do have fireplaces for ambienance they do throw heat but are not efficent.
We lose power at times so we live our wood stove. Get a trivit and you can use a regular tea kettle. I do cook stews at times if we gave list power. You will need a humidifer!
Earlene says
Living in northern Wisconsin, our winters can be brutal also. We have hot water heat which uses propane, this can get expensive, so we bought an outside wood stove. The mess is outside and it costs us about $950 for 12 cords of wood which is a whole semi load of uncut/split wood, which my now 71 year old husband cuts to get some exercise. We do supplement with gas if we go away for the day, but rarely. We fill that tank 2 times a year which costs us roughly $300.00 We have had an inside woodstove and 2 outside woodstoves. I prefer the outside, less mess in the house to clean up. We fill this outside wood stove 2 times a day, morning and evening. Just a thought. With hot water system, the house stays warmer and more even heat.
Sherry says
I live in CT. We use a wood stove during the coldest parts of the winter, and have natural gas as our other heat source. I used to do a lot of the work, stacking wood and bringing it inside and always keeping the stove going in the winter. I never minded it, I was brought up doing the same. But due to a disability I haven’t been able to do any if that anymore. The wood stove is in the basement and I can no longer do stairs. So my husband has to do it all now and he’s really tired of it. He is looking to replace the stove with a pellet stove. He thinks it will be easier on him. I don’t know if we will do that, but I mention it as something else as a possibility. I agree that wood makes a mess, but since it is the basement I didn’t care much and always kept it clean. Spiders and other bugs are an issue, as was already mentioned. I love the heat from the wood stove, nothing else can compare for me. We didn’t have to buy wood this year, but I have seen many ads for $210-$220 a cord. Long gone are the days when you could get it for under a hundred a cord!
Em says
Some friends heat their house with a pellet stove, and they love it. Best of luck with it!
Diana says
1) Practicality of heating a whole house with a wood stove depends on the layout of the house and the size of the stove. Lots of rooms = inefficient air flow of the heat. My stove doesn’t have a built in fan, so I use a box fan near it to move the air and ceiling fans set on the winter setting, at low speed, to help move it around as well. My outer rooms stay fairly cool, but the central room with the stove, and the upstairs open area, stay comfortable. I also keep my heat pump set at a low temp (58-60) so that I don’t have to get up during the night to put wood in the stove.
2) I have used cast iron tea kettles for humidity and I’ve used enamelware open pots as well. As for a tea kettle, use what gives you pleasure to use. The heat of the water depends on how hot the fire is. I’ve rarely had my stove hot enough to get a boil – it mostly steams and simmers.
3) The amount of wood you will need depends on your usage. You will have to test it out for a couple of years before you get a good feel for how much you need. I have a small stove, in GA, and I use about 2-3 cords of wood a year for a 2100 sf house. (1 cord = 128 cu ft). My weather and house design may be vastly different, but I’m guessing you’ll need lots more than that.
4) Type of firewood. The best is oak and hickory, but any hardwood that’s seasoned correctly will burn longer and better than a softwood. Softwoods are good for kindling. Look up ‘firewood comparison ratings’ in your browser and you’ll get info from them. Here’s one of the sites.. http://firewoodresource.com/firewood-btu-ratings/ – There are also some NEAT firewood sites on the web that talk about how to chop wood effectively, how to stack it, how to start good fires, etc. and I really got into it when I first started.
5) I try to get my wood for free as much as I can, but I had a recent quote for a cord of wood at $225.
Lastly, while it is a lot of work and mess, I LOVE my wood heat so much better than my forced air heat pump. I get a sense of satisfaction from doing the work and I really love the feel of the heat.
Good luck and I can’t wait to see pics of the new place!
S. Hughes says
Can you heat the whole house with a wood burner? Depends on the stove, stove location, floor plan and total square footage. We live in NE Ohio and built a 2200 sq ft two story modern home in 2000 and have heated with wood as the primary source of heat for nearly 20 years. I made the investment in a good stove (predecessor to this http://www.woodstove.com/progress-hybrid) This stove will provide heat for over 12hrs on a single load when choked down. I load it before bed, and there are coals when I get up in the morning, at which time I get the fire back going and choke it back down before heading to work. Probably use about a cord of wood per winter when it is seasoned properly, more when it less dry. Look for hard woods like cherry, maple, oak, hickory. Avoid soft woods and wood that is still green. As for a humidifier solution, we go high tech. We put a big old soup pot on top of the stove and let it evaporate. We use no fans which leads to warm and cool zones in the house. Family room where the stove is is nice and warm and we are in your shorts and t-shirt in the dead of winter. Bedrooms which are furthest from the stove are much cooler, but this is good for sleeping imo. Only when temperature get below 15 degrees for several days in a row does the heatpump need to kick in to help out. We have our own woods, which makes supply nearly free, but tools like chainsaw and log splitter are required when dealing with cords of wood at a time. All worth it for that warm cozy feeling in the dead of winter for us. Plus the $200 plus per month electric bill saving during the really cold months doesn’t hurt either.
Joye says
I live in Holderness NH.
Is it really practical to heat an entire home with wood heat? – yes we have done this years and it has worked well, the thing in NH anyways is to have two sources of heat. Like oil to run when you will not be home to stoke the fire.
I’m assuming we’ll need some sort of steamer/humidifier to place on top of the wood stove. Can you recommend one? – always used a cast iron guy like you have in the picture, just be on top of filling it
Do I need some sort of fan to circulate the heat? if you have an upsatirs and no floor vents, then it wouldn’t hurt
How about a tea kettle? I have visions of heating my water for my afternoon cuppa on the wood stove. Do you do this? Do I need a special kettle? Do you have any tips I should know about? I have even cooked on my woodstove, just dont leave it for the day and a typical kettle would be fine
How many cords of wood do you think someone in the NE would need during a typical winter? – yikes, this varies amazingly
We plan on buying our first winter’s worth of wood, but hoping to harvest our own in later years. What kind of wood should we be buying/looking for? – Hardwood, buy logs if you can split and dry it yourself, like for next years load.
What is a fair price for a cord of seasoned, cut firewood these days? 275-350 in this area, all depends on the time of year, best to buy green and let it sit
Leslie says
Are you talking about oil because that’s what the house currently has? There are lots of options, of course. Oil is probably the last one I would choose, personally. Grew up around the Great Lakes and would recommend something more efficient and less expensive.
Jenn in Indiana says
Ok this is my opinion, but heating your house with wood just down right sucks. For one, its very messy bringing it inside. The piles of wood attract rodents. And unless you are going to cut all your wood, buying it can be very expensive. And you have the initial costs of equipment, if you choose to cut your own. And I live in Indiana. We have laws here that prohibit moving wood from location to location unless you have a license from the state. Its to prevent the spread of emerald ash borer. Most people i know who heat with wood refill in the night and sometimes have to open windows when it gets too hot in the house! And the biggest thing I hate about it is that it is dirty and dusty and sets off my allergies. The last time I got so sick from being around it, i had major breathing problems and thought I would never recover. I told my hubby not to ever bring up burning wood again!
Dawn B, of Delaware says
Here in DE we heat only with wood heat. Never even got the gas tanks to heat otherwise. It has been 20yrs living here and we only spent $200 on the pipe/stack and $50 on a used woodstove/heatalater. We go to the Amish for slab wood – buying it in lengths and cutting it down to 18″ pieces ourselves saves a TON of $. Most times it is not seasoned and we are buying for the coming year. Using wood heat – heats you twice – once when cutting it down and once when you burn it. We put a pot of water on the top of the woodstove or sometimes my kettle. Keeps the water just the right temp. I think if you like to be warm – and I believe you do – you will love the wood heat.
Randi says
We lived in the mountains of Colorado for years and only used wood heat. A fan is a must if you are going to heat the whole house. We found some nifty fans that installed in the corners of the hallway and doors. Also, Colorado air was very dry so having a humidifier of some sort is critical. A heavy cast iron anything will work. it’s amazing how much water evaporates so you’ll need to keep an eye on it!
Be sure to have your chimneys checked regularly.
I’ll be you will be able to barter produce or jams for firewood!
Lynda says
You will LOVE having wood heat if it’s done well. Just a few thoughts based on my experience:
~ Did you happen to note what kind of wood stove is in the house? It will be good to know the brand. Instructions for using that particular stove might be available online from the company that made it. They’re all a little different, with different instructions for venting, building the fire, ash pan, and cleaning.
~ We use a JOTUL wood stove to heat our main-floor living area when the weather gets cold. JOTULs are made in Norway, where they know how to heat! Our house came with an old wood stove and we used it but it burned dirty and we got rid of it when we remodeled. Eventually we got a JOTUL through a local furnace/stove company, and the difference is amazing. (They are expensive, but my husband exchanged consulting services for the stove.) It does not have a fan on it, but the vents are designed to kick out a lot of heat so it doesn’t need a fan, which is good when the power goes out and a fan wouldn’t run anyway.
~JOTUL has an informative website, but they also recommend http://www.woodheat.org, a non-profit site with lots of good advice. They’re not selling anything. Very helpful!
~We also have forced-air gas heat, and sometimes I use the “Fan” setting (no heat) on the thermostat to send warm air into the basement.
~Know the size of your stove box before you cut your wood. So frustrating to bring in a load of wood and discover even if you stand on your head the logs don’t fit in your stove. Trust me.
~You’ll likely need a metal bucket with a lid to remove and store the ash before discarding.
~If the stove has a glass window, the interior will gradually darken from burnt ash. You don’t need special cleaning solutions for that. When the stove is cool enough, lightly dampen a paper towel or rag, tap a spot of it into cooled ash, and wipe the window with the dampened ash. The black residue will come right off.
~ Insulated curtains make a huge difference in retaining heat in the house!
~ It’ll be fun to learn what type of woods are available in your new area, and what kind of fire each produces. The locals will know. We always look for fast burning, easy-to-split wood for the kindling.
~Spiders and bugs in the wood pile are real. They come inside in the wood and then, as they warm up, they go exploring. So we store our largest wood pile in a shed, but keep a smaller wood pile on our covered porch by the door nearest the wood stove, and put just a very few pieces of wood near the stove in the house.
~A good vacuum cleaner near the stove makes it easier to keep the ash and dust (and bugs) under control.
I can’t wait to see your new homestead. Blessings on your travels!
Robyn says
Hi Mavis- I have a woodstove and a gas furnace but I’m a cheapskate so only use the gas if I’m away. I LOVE wood heat- the warmth it gives is beautiful and I never tire of watching the flames dance. Yes it is work and yes it is messy. However stacking and chopping wood is great excercise and a broom takes care of the mess. It’s easy to clean mess with hardwood floors which I think you mentioned you have in the new place.
Hardwood is best for a longer warmer burn. Costs per cord vary across the country. The locals will be a great source of information on this.
I have an enviro fan on the top of the stove that works great to circulate the heat- it’s not noisy and runs when the power goes out. I have trivets on top too, to put a kettle on for humidifying and to cook on in emergencies. Make sure the stove is a high quality airtight such as Regency, Vermont Castings to name a couple. Also size of stove will determine how large an area it will heat-Do some research. Make sure the chimney is approved- it is important. Having the chimney cleaned annually is essential.
An efficient airtight stove doesn’t smoke if you follow the instructions- I’ve never had smoke issues.
I’m a seventy year old woman on my own and I wouldn’t heat any other way til they carry me out or til I have to go into a care facility. I’ve had a woodstove for 45 years and in my world – Wood Heat! It’s the best!!
Final note- the outside wood heater has always seemed like a good option but then you don’t get the joy of watching the flames! Aesthetics are important
Mrs. C. says
Preach it, sister! Amen!
Kristiina says
I live in Maine and we have a 1700 square foot home. We go through probably cord of wood and we get a lot of it from our own land. You want hard wood (oak, ash) no pine. When we do purchase wood, I try to spend about 200 a cord for seasoned wood. We have a jotel woodstove and it keeps us very toasty, I think we us about 400 gallons of oil per heating season and that includes hot water. We have an awesome pot for water on top, I don’t remember the brand but they have similar ones on llbean. A fan and humidifier are a must! We have ceiling fans and some of those ones that go in the corners of the hall. Hope this info helps!
Kristiina says
5 cord
Kristiina says
I’m sorry, and that 400 gallons is actually what we use yearly not just during the heating season
Faith Fossett Fletcher says
We have an antique wood burning stove outside on our patio! (It’s too hot here in Alabama to have it inside!) I love to cook on top of it in my cast iron. Our favorite thing is breakfast. It has two burners, so I cook biscuits in a Dutch oven (stones or wadded up foil under the biscuits to keep the bottoms from burning), and hash browns with peppers and onions on the other. I take a smaller skillet and put it on top of the hash browns to brown them, and cook eggs at the same time! I’ve also cooked pancakes, bacon, ham, etc. Chili and cornbread are other favorites! There is nothing like the taste of food cooked with hickory or apple wood on a wood burner! We have our wood cut in chunks so we don’t have to split it! Makes it so much easier!
Linda says
I live in upstate New York in an old farmhouse which has been updated to a degree. At one time in the home’s history, the people living here needed more space so they added on another two story section of house, connected by one downstairs’ door. The “new” section has only a crawl space under it. Because of the construction of our home, we decided some 40 years ago to add a wood stove. I’ve never regretted our decision.. As far as I’m concerned it’s the coziest, most welcoming place in our home. It may make more work, and as other’s have said, it’s best to get your wood ahead of the season so it can be seasoned. I hope this is helpful Mavis, but I really believe you’re a candidate for a cozy, inviting wood stove to be added to your beautiful new home. It will be the best place ever to hook those rugs.
Robyn says
One more comment- buy and stack wood for at least a year before burning. Dry wood burns hotter and creates less creosote build- up in the chimney-a very important safety consideration. Mavis- you strike me as a wood burning kind of gal! Enjoy!
Dale Ann Widen says
We are in northeast Minnesota…where the winters can and do get beyond cold. We have heated our home exclusively with wood for over 20 years with an outdoor wood stove. We also have an indoor wood stove/cook stove to use in dire emergencies.
Heating a home with wood has many variables. What size is the home…how well is it insulated…what type of wood stove is it…what type of wood is being used.
If you are wanting a wood stove to provide heat in emergencies…unless it is a very short time emergency I would not recommend a pellet stove. With this type of stove you are reliant on a supply of pellets (or corn if it’s a corn stove). Long term emergency could mean you run out of pellets (or corn).
An indoor wood stove may not provide heat for an entire home…but for emergencies it will provide heat to keep an area of the home warm enough to survive and even comfortable in. (But this all depends on the size of the home…the height of the ceilings…does it have more than one story…what are the temps outside…etc.).
All wood will burn as firewood. But there some that are best…and some that are not. I’m not familiar to what is available on the east coast…but here we prefer birch (gives a wonderful aroma when burning, and when dried gives good heat)…oak (an excellent hardwood that gives very good heat and a longer lasting fire)…maple (a good hardwood that gives a medium lasting fire)…and ash (another with good heat but as it’s name suggests…gives lots of ash quicker than the other above woods). Pine burns…but is not recommended for inside stoves or outside in dry conditions as it sparks and pops quite a bit. Popal also burns (this is the popal or poplar that grow in this region)…but to get good heat it needs to be very dry and burns very quickly providing a short lived fire.
For us…a wood stove works the best…but…for an outdoor wood stove it does require electricity to circulate the water from the stove, through the pipes in the house, and then back to the stove to reheat. Plus…we do need to be sure someone is always available to put wood in the stove when the fire begins to die down…usually a couple times a day, or more if it’s very cold out. Because of the need for electricity on these types of stoves (which does heat our entire home AND our hot water), this is the reason we have one wood cook stove inside the home. The cook stove will heat an area of the home without the need for electricity…and the cook top and it’s oven also allow us to cook, bake, and heat water if we absolutely need it.
As for available wood…we do not need to buy…as our neighbors allow us to harvest dying trees from their properties. For those with pellet stoves…a source of pellets to buy would be needed.
Heating with wood has its ups and downs…and is not for everyone. But in this stage of our life we love it…it’s affordable…and at times when the power goes out…we may have the only heated home in the neighborhood.
All the best in your new adventure!
Julie says
I don’t have a wood stove, either, but am a fan of https://www.ourtinyhomestead.com/ They have a wood stove and use it for many things – including cooking!
Carrie says
Oak and Maple are your best bets. Never use Pine because it is a soft wood (would be okay to start a fire with like others have said).
I found an old copper tea kettle at a thrift store that I use to add humidity. I used a big mason jar before that (be sure not to add cold water to a hot glass or it will bust!) I get terrible nose bleeds if I forget to add water.
We have natural gas heat and only supplement with the wood stove. It doesn’t have a fan so it only heats the living room and our bedrooms are always so cold before bed. I hear whole house stoves are much more efficient and people can rely on them to heat the entire house.
We have never paid for wood. My in laws have 50 acres where we can harvest what we need or when we see wood by the street from someone’s clean up we will pick it up. We only use 1 6-foot truck bed full per year, but again we only supplement with wood heat. My partner enjoys running a chainsaw and splitting wood. It makes great exercise for him. I stick to stacking. 🙂
debbie in alaska says
definitely used season wood. We use our stove insert in our fireplace but we have trouble keeping the other rooms warm when we do. We have a geothermal system that heats the house and that system has a circulation fan so we use that when we have a fire going but it still in’t as effective at heating the outlying spaces as our geothermal is. We use the wood stove more for ambience and our love of fires more than actual heating– or if power goes out which isn’t often.
Also we heat entirely with electric — and out electric is 100% renewable here in Juneau Alaska (we are hydro from high mountain lakes). We have three buildings on our property. the main house we heat with a ground source heat pump (geothermal) and the two out buildings we heat with an air to air heat pump. For all three buildings (including a hot tub) we average $210 a month — our peak months are in the mid $300s.
When I lived in Connecticut we heated with natural gas and rarely used our fireplace. Fireplaces are notoriously inefficient. Wood stove inserts seem to work better — especially if you have an open lay out. But if you have an old home with not great insulation and lots of walls and doors – it can be very hard to heat with a wood stove.
debbie in alaska says
Also, we keep a cast iron kettle filled with water on top of the stove to add moisture to the air. We don’t tend to use that water that’s int eh kettle for any other purpose.
Knico says
I’m really surprised that not more people have piped up about the use of pellet stoves. They are much cleaner than wood stoves and very efficient. The newer stoves have auto ignition and thermostats so you don’t have the highs and lows of a wood stove. The only real drawback is during a power outage you’ll need a generator. The costs to run are minimal, my electric bill runs roughly $50.00 a month year-round, that includes electric HWH. A ton of pellets is roughly equivalent to a cord of wood and costs about $250.00 – $300.00. An average winter here in upstate NY usually runs me 2.5 to 3.0 tons.
Cait says
I was coming to comment about pellet stoves as well. We relocated to central VT and wanted wood stoves, but landed somewhere with pellets instead. For the full heating season with some crazy cold snaps along the way we order 5 tons, and use most of it (October-May). It is very efficient and very clean. Plus, you can still see the fire burning happily which adds to the visual warmth. We have backup oil forced hot air for when we go away, but use maaaaaybe a 1/4 tank in a year. We have one in the basement for the pipes (usually only run it if its 10 or lower out) and one for the main floor (about 1,000 sq ft). If both are running we only have to have them on very very low, or we soon get way too warm.
Krystal says
We too have a pellet stove to heat our two-story 2k sqft home and find it highly efficient. We do have a furnace (in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, you have to have a backup heat source for emergencies!) but we only use it to circulate the air throughout the house. We go through about a bag of pellets a day on average. It has a built in thermostat. As far as maintenance, we use a shop vac to remove any debris once each week, and take it apart for a more thorough cleaning once per year. Also, this time of year you can score a floor model at a discount at many shops!
Leslie says
Mavis, now I’m wondering if you’re familiar with masonry heaters. If you want to heat with wood, they might be a good option. They are expensive, yes. Empire is a company located in NY that we are working with. Have talked to the owners (super nice folks). The owner said his sister heaters her 3,000 sq ft home with only the masonry heater. Lives in Upstate NY and only uses 1.5 cords of wood per year.
Emmie says
Came here to sing the praises of masonry heaters, they are like a giant radiator in the corner of your room. We Scandinavians use them religiously throughout the winter to save on electric bills. Birch is the wood of choice here. We have two of the round-shaped ones that you can see a picture of in the Wikipedia entry for masonry heaters: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masonry_heater and we use them every day in the winter and sometimes in the summer to dehumidify. You heat up the stove, let it burn out til it’s all black, then you push in the damper which stops the hot air from going up and out of the chimney so all heat stays inside and radiates into the room, warming it up for the next 12 or even more hours. Highly recommend!
Emmie says
We also have an antique cooking stove in the kitchen which doesn’t store heat like masonry stoves do and only stays hot as long as you keep the fire burning. My husband loves to cook on it because it’s cosy and free compared to the electric cooker. It’s also useful for keeping pot dishes warm when you’re throwing a family dinner.
Mary says
Mavis, I know this doesn’t apply to you anymore, but I remember our pediatrician specifically cautioned us against wood heating. Aparently is can contribute to children getting asthma.
My husband, who has done HVAC josb in the past, says that wood heating is inefficient for modern homes around here in the PNW. Perhaps the older homes on the East Coast were built with it more in mind.
It’s fun to see everyone’s opinions and stories. Thanks for sharing, Mavis!
Lori SA in BC says
We had a wood stove in the basement of our 35yr old house that we used for several years. It heated the basement to crispy-ness but didn’t heat the main floor very well, even though we had open registers going into the basement. We used a stove top fan but it still didn’t help with the upstairs rooms. (A friend also used a wood stove in the basement to heat the house and had extremely large registers to get that heat to really come upstairs). We had to remove our wood stove because of insurance requirements. The insurance company was getting very picky about the installation and the stove. The questionnaire they sent us needed to be filled in by a qualified installer, which would have required him to take apart the stove and chimney inserts to answer the questions. The installer noted that, although the stove was absolutely surrounded and sitting on bricks, it didn’t meet building codes anymore. We replaced it with an main floor gas fireplace which I love because of it’s warmth and ease (but I still miss that stove at times!)
Carrie says
While I don’t live on the east coast, we do heat almost exclusively with wood. Our bedrooms have wall heaters that we use on cold nights in the kids rooms (they sleep with their doors closed). Our bedroom heater only gets turned on during really really cold mornings when we are getting dressed). We have no furnace.
Here are some things to consider:
-what kind of wood stove do you have? Is it energy efficient? Our house had a huge old stove when we moved in. It was in our 5 yr plan to replace, then it cracked ans we had to replace it. We went 1.5 months without heating the house in December when the temps were not above 30. (They kept pushing out the delivery and install dates, the last week I did break down and get a space heater for the living room, but with vaulted ceilings and a wall of windows it does do much. Anyway, we got a Jotul stove and love it. It is easy to stock so it does not go out overnight. It will not be hot in the morning, but you don’t have to restart the fire. If you do buy a new stove, size it appropriately for your space.
-learn how to run your stove efficiency. We use a thermometer to monitor the temp. And we burn a load down before adding more wood (my husband has a system after lots of research). This will reduce the amount of wood that you use.
-We don’t use a humidifier here, as its so humid in the NW in the winter, but you will probably want one. Find out what type of finish your stove has, you may need a trivit for it.
-I don’t know the amount of wood you’ll need or cost, as we get all ours for free. What you will want is a moisture sensor so you know the wood you have is actually dry and seasoned. Wood takes a while to dry/season and we see freshly cut wood being sold as ‘dry’ all the time. It may be dry to the touch, but it needs to sit cut for a while for it to dry all the way through.
Diana says
I have an antique cooking stove in my main room. For you, I definitely recommend looking into an antique cooking stove, because of the way it heats and the small firewood it uses, not to mention, cooking and baking with it is lots of fun.
Firewood: The firebox is tiny in an antique cooking stove. You use small pieces of wood, which means you can gather scrap branches, cut them with a reciprocating saw, and there’s your wood supply. The fire is tiny compared to a regular wood stove or a fireplace, but the tiny fire heats up the cast iron stove, which heats an entire part of the house. I use it as supplement to natural gas heat in KS. It makes my house super cozy.
Humidifier: Just buy a regular humidifier. I have a ridiculously expensive pretty red enameled cast iron kettle of water on my stove, which looks very cool, but it doesn’t do anything. I think the steam is evaporated by the heat, rather than humidifying the room.
Fan. Look into ‘Eco-Fans’. They are on Amazon. I was given a small one as a gift, and it is fan-tas-tic. It runs on the heat from the stove, and really moves the air. Now that I know how well they work, I wouldn’t be without one.
I bought my antique wood burning cookstove here, 15 years ago. Lovely people, beautiful stoves. http://www.millcreekantiques.com/cookstoves.html
Ruth says
Yes, Eco-Fan !
thermoelectric peltier power. You can find DIY tutorials on the web
Very “hot” idea, moves the air when stove is hot and stops when stove is cold.
Diana says
I had no idea you could DIY the fan! I’ve got to look that up. Thanks for the tip!
Elise says
Please consider the option of a pellet stove. We burned wood exclusively for 20 years. It was a horrendous amount of work. Even if you have wood delivered you will need to have a large storage area, a place to split the wood, the gumption to haul in multiple loads of wood and the commitment to cleaning up the debris you drag in your house with every load of wood…then there is the expense…likely anywhere between $150-$275 a cord for a product which may or may not be seasoned properly…we went through 4-5 cords per year.
Enter the modern pellet stove. Pellets are made from the waste wood of lumber harvest, they are clean, easily stacked and if you compare the BTU output for the dollar spent, really economical. I live @ 2000 ft. Elevation in the Cascades and have much, much more snow than many PNW residents. My heating bill for the entire year is between $400-$500 for my modest but elderly 1200 square foot home….and I am warm…we keep the heat @72 degrees and with our “retired” status we are home and “heating” a lot. If we do decide to leave the house we do not have to wait until the fire burns down…we just set the thermostat on the pellet stove and it lights itself as needed…I have a pretty, warm, environmentally friendly clean burning fire and my entire winter fuel supply (plus an extra half ton) is stacked in a 4×10 foot area.
The only downside is the need for a backup source of electricity in the event of power outages. We do not consider that an issue as a small generator is a necessity for just about anyone as modern refrigerators only hold safe temperatures for 2-3 hours.
Cindi says
I’m in the Colorado mountains at 8000 feet. We heat our house with wood — it’s a 2600 foot one-story, open concept floor plan. We do have in-floor hot-water heat as backup — it keeps the house reasonable during the night and warms it up in the morning before we start up the stove.
We have a Hearthstone stove and love it.
We burn about 4 cords of wood a winter and unlike most of the commenters, we burn mostly soft wood — because that’s all that grows around here. Hard wood is definitely better, but work with what you have.
We spend about $100 a year on wood — primarily on chain saw gas and fuel for the wood splitter and permits to cut wood in the National Forest ($10 a cord for the permit — fees vary depending on the forest service district.) We also spread the word that we want firewood and have people give us downed trees to cut up regularly.
We enjoy the physical exercise of cutting wood. Obviously to do this you need some tools — good chain saw, chain saw chaps, gloves, hearing and eye protection, a trailer to haul the wood, log splitter.
We use a cast iron pot similar to what you show. I find it helps to raise it up off the stove on an iron trivet — this keeps it from boiling dry but still puts humidity in the air. I also dry clothes on a rack in front of the wood stove in the winter and this adds humidity to the house (Colorado is DRY). Also saves money and wear and tear on the clothing.
We love wood heat — love keeping the house toasty, love the exercise of gathering wood. It is dirtier — wood chips tracked into the house, ashes to clean from the stove, and a film on the inside of the windows. Nothing I own smells like smoke, so I wouldn’t worry about your wool, and I don’t find the small amount of extra dirt to be much trouble. And I have asthma, but the wood stove doesn’t bother me — it’s a closed system and the smoke is going out the stove pipe, not coming into the house.
Mrs. C. says
Wow, what great questions.
Let’s see: prices are specific to regions. Where I live, in a zone 6, a cord of wood, which is 8x8x4, is $200. Delivery is another $50. This is for SEASONED HARDWOOD. Seasoned means that the wood has been allowed to dry for a year, which is what you want to avoid excessive creosote buildup.
Hardwood can be things like oak, ironwood, etc. softwoods, like pine, or rotted woods, burn very quickly and don’t generate enough heat.
The important thing to do when picking a stove is to take your time and do your research. I live in a ranch style house, which is very long 3500 square feet. I got a wood stove, with a built in blower (fan), for 4200 square feet, and it keeps us toasty warm. I have the thermostat set at 53! It kicked in once all winter when the fire died out overnight, and it dropped below zero. Our stove is a Quadrafire. If you don’t get a stove with a blower, which helps with heat circulation, you can get a little fan that sits on the stove and the heat from the stove causes the fan to spin. None of these are necessary, but they increase efficiency.
We have water container on top to help with humidity, but honestly, it doesn’t help that much. I highly recommend a humidifier, especially in the bedrooms. Stipudies have shown a decrease in colds, etc., with proper levels of humidity. Plow and Hearth sells some lovely cast iron water holders on their website. They get really rusty over time, so I ended up getting an enameled one. As others have said, purchasing an old pot or kettle at a thrift shop is an option.
In zone 6, we usually go through about two cords of SEASONED HARDWOOD. There is a reason why I keep capitalizing that! We heat our whole house with wood, even though we have electric as a backup. You may need a stove on both levels.
There are AMAZING and expensive stove systems from Scandinavia. The brand is Tuli Kivi sopastone wood stoves and fireplaces.
Mrs. C. says
Just some info – pellet stoves are great for many reasons, BUT they have a hopper that feeds the pellets into the stove, and the hopper runs in electricity. That means if the power goes out, no fire. It happened to my neighbors this year. They are in their 80s. They just thought the propane heat would kick in…and the tank was low. Scary for them.
Beth Rankin says
One consideration about wood stoves is if anyone in your house has sinus or lung issues…..not a good idea to heat with wood. I was appraising houses in CT in the 1980s and saw the magic of solar gain. A small sunroom addition sited correctly can provide a significant help to lowering heating costs and if you look into thermal mass features you can radiate heat even after the sun goes down. Besides, even on a cloudy day, it was the brightest room of the house. Coming from the Pacific NW I know you can appreciate that idea!
Mimi says
I love wood stoves BUT (big but) currently I only use one for occasional supplemental or emergency heat. Too much pollution both indoors and out. How about adding solar?
Arbie Goodfellow says
I would do it all over again! We really miss our wood burning stove.
We had one for 10 years in Michigan and LOVED it! ( We moved to the coast of North Carolina and are thinking about getting one installed here.
The warmth from it is wonderful.Nothing compares.
We had soapstone wood burner and it saved us a ton of money each year even buying the wood.
We saved money by purchasing the wood and having it delivered and we stacked the wood ourselves… good excercise.
Mavis from reading your blog for the last few years… this is right up your alley girlfriend and you will be so happy with it and the savings. The only drawback to me was the dust I had to clean. which I did once a week which I would normally do anyways except it was more with the wood burning stove.
A tip the little expensive fan made in Canada is worth the money and it sits on your stove. My enamel ware water holder to keep the air moist was from L.L> Bean. Good Luck!!
Julia Park Tracey says
Hi, Mavis — we have an electric forced air heater that we use a little, but evenings are for the wood stove. I suggest you google “convection fan for wood stove” to find reasonably priced fans that run on the heat of the stove to push the warmth around. Works for us. I also pickup deadfall wood when I’m out walking, for kindling and for keeping the fire going. A bundle of wood is $10 at the nearest grocery, so I figure I’m saving at least $5 a day by picking up and chopping deadfalls. We live in the redwoods, Northern California between wine country and the coast. Super hot in the summer, super damp/cold in the winter. And rare sunlight. So it’s kind of PNW-ish here.
Martha Harris says
Hi Mavis- I grew up in VT with a wood stove and now live in central OH where we supplement our winter heat with a wood stove. It takes a lot of work to heat a home with wood-even supplemental. It can be fun (because gardening is work too) but be prepared to work it. It helps if you can also go in with a neighbor on wood purchasing. We always went in to buy uncut cords of wood with our neighbor and the two families rented a splitter and did the work for both houses. Saved money & more fun. We had a dragon steamer on top of the stove and while those are cute, they don’t generate a lot of steam. You could probably do a teapot. And my mom used to use the radiant heat to put her bread dough to rise. Definitely invest in humidifiers around the house. One might be enough depending upon how open/big the home is. You will need to add moisture for sure! Our VT house had vents from the first floor to the second. Also having good down comforters/ flannel sheets help a lot too because it’s when you go to bed at night it will be the coldest. And, my sister in law works for the Vermont Country Store so I can attest their products are the best.
In our Ohio home we have had to take down a lot of ash trees so we haven’t had to purchase wood for our wood stove and run it a lot. It is a bit of a pain to keep it going and there are times when we just have to let it rest to get all the coals out (there are only so many hot coals you can scoop out while it is running). We switched from fuel oil to a heat pump that also provides our AC in the summer. We’ve been very happy with it, but I know folks on our street who have gas as well.
Another thought if you don’t want the mess of all wood is a pellet stove. I know folks in VT and here in Ohio that use pellet stoves for a cheaper heat source.
Linda says
We burn wood. The house has baseboard electric, which is expensive, and I keep it set at 50 degrees, but it doesn’t kick on. We have a fireplace insert called Glacier Bay. My friend has a Buck stove and says my insert is better. Here in southern Ohio we burn about 5 cord of wood in a season, but two years ago, we had over 30 straight days below zero. Maine (I’m from there, have I told you that more than 20 times yet?) is colder, but dryer, so I’d guess 7 cords. The humidity is high here, too, which makes it seem colder, and we like being warm -72 degrees. Ohio has a law that says you can’t sell less than a cord, which is 8x8x4, but people regularly sell a truckload, or a rick,, or whatever they can get away with. If I were buying wood, I’d want to KNOW it is hardwood, and stacked tight. There are lots of ways to give you less than you think you are buying.
My husband gets free wood regularly by hustling. He considers it cheaper than going to a gym, and he is still nicely cut. But it is hard work- you get heat from cutting it AND from burning it. Many people have trees cut down and just want to get rid of the trees. He’s willing to do cleanup of branches, etc. for the free wood. We’ll burn anything, but like oak, and ash, apple and other hard woods. Apple and cedar smell wonderful burning
It is also dirty. I dust often in the winter and love summer. But we have better things to spend our money on- grandkids, for example.
I love having a teakettle on the stove for tea, and humidity, but we have a lot of lime in our water, so the pot has to be de-scaled regularly. Maine has a lot of minerals in the water- not sure where you’re going yet. I also like that if the electricity goes out, we have heat. We went to an Amish store and they had fans that operate on heat alone. We bought 2 Ecofans- you can now get them on the internet. They are great for warmer winter days; not as good as an electric blower, but again, if the electric goes out, we have fans. That is all I have running today, and most sunny winter days.
As far as heating the whole house- we have 2 bedrooms and an office plus the regular stuff and the wood stove heats the whole house adequately. The bedrooms are cooler since they are further away from the stove, but we sleep better cooler. A big house with high ceilings will likely need more than one stove- and you’ll be heating the ceilings. When you go through Ohio, you might consider stopping in Amish country- Holmes County and going to Lehman’s Hardware in Kidron, an old Amish hardware store. They are spendy because tourists like them, but you’ll get lots of ideas.
You’ve got mu email if you have more questions, feel free.
Brynn Fogerty says
We live on the California/Nevada border. It gets pretty cold here and we heat with 75% wood. On a normal winter we go through 4-5 cords of wood and burn Juniper/Pine. We used to live in the valley and burned Oak which is a better wood, but you can’t find it up here. Your winters will indeed be longer with larger snow accumilations. In the valley I could buy a cord of split, dry oak for $250 delivered. Here in the off season I can buy a cord of juniper or pine for $170-$200. I have little kids so I keep the heater on as a backup in the middle of the night. Otherwise the bedrooms tend to get chilly. We have replaced all windows and have excellent insulation (just to give you reference). Air gaps and insulation makes a huge difference on how well your house holds the heat. Get a kinetic fan to set on top of your wood stove. It will be silent and not take electricity but will work well to circulate the heat. You can get them from the corners of your door jam too. In regards to heating oil, my in laws used to live in a very cold area of Oregon in an old victorian house and would spend $700 per month on heating oil and used their wood stove only 25% of the time! It can be really spendy so be careful. You could easily put a tea kettle on your stove…but the kettles you typically see are actually for humidity not for drinking. Wood stoves can really dry out your sinuses and the leather on your furniture. 🙂
PD says
Remember to install/test Carbon Monoxide detectors if you’re heating with a wood stove! Wishing you all the best with your move east!
Brenda says
If you can get natural gas do it…make sure house is insulated and use wood for back up. Just know as you get older hauling it is a b**ch and you do not want to keep it near the house because of bugs.
Barbara Gantt says
I am in Southern Vermont. We have a soapstone stove that heats out first floor. It holds 40 lbs of wood and will burn around 8 hours is really loaded. You want hardwood to burn. Softwood can cause chimney fires. Wood is around $200 to $250 a cord. We use around 6 cords per year. We have backup oil for when we are gone for several days or in the extreme cold. This winter we had over two weeks of temps in the minus. Make sure to have your chimney cleaned each year or learn to clean it yourself. There are special brushes that you can buy.
I just use my Revere kettle on my stove. I have to trivets that are made for wood stoves. I also have a lantern that charges from the heat from the stove. We use that for our light in our den at night.
Barbara Gantt says
I forgot to add, you can get door fans that will pull the heat to other rooms. They are around $35 and worth the cost. We buys ours a Ace Hardware. They have two sizes. The larger size is best.
Pam says
I live in northern Vermont and heat primarily with wood in an 1860’s farmhouse. It is definitely a lifestyle and only you can decide if it is worth it to you! Some people hate the mess and the work, but I love the earth and site of the wood fire. We buy truckloads of wood, so it lasts several years and saves money in the long run. Some people hate gardening and cooking, I think you’ll just have to try it and see where your comfort level lies. I do like having back up heat for those days I’m feeling busy or lazy!
Tracy says
You have received some good advice in others’ posts, but perhaps I can also add some value here. I live in New England, have for over 50 years, and I can tell you, you may curse the expense, but you will be very glad you have some supplemental heat source (in your case, oil) come your first winter. You have no idea, coming from PNW, how bone chilling weeks after weeks of single digit temperatures can be, preceded and followed by many weeks of low 40s. Unlike some posters, who were glad to convert from wood heat to the convenience of gas or oil heat, I love wood burning fireplaces, and wood stoves. I don’t mind the heavy carrying, I don’t mind the mess, I don’t mind the occasional beetle or bee hatching out of a log when roused by warm indoor temperatures. I love the smell, I love the crackle, and I love, love, love, sitting next to a roaring fire on a cold night. That said…wood burning fireplaces are gorgeous, but actually suck heat from your home by creating a steady draft, right up your flue and chimney. Very few fireplace’s firebox designs actually heat your house. Unless you have rumson designed fireboxes with fan assists, look into finding a cast iron steel plate that sits upright at the back of the firebox in your fireplace– these help retain and reflect heat back into the room. So when you do want an open fireplace’s wood fire, you can enjoy its beauty and not lose too much heat.
What does give off a lovely heat is, of course, a wood burning stove insert or freestanding woodstove. Even so, these won’t heat your entire home on its own unless you live in about three rooms. Even with fans. But they can provide great added heat, a lovely flickering flame, and glorious wood burning smell. Research which type of stove to buy very, very carefully, and very exhaustively. Ask your local neighbors, less so the dealers and showrooms. Once you’ve found the stove that will work well for the size of room(s) you’re trying to heat (bigger is not necessarily better– you can buy too big a stove and superheat the room it’s in, and only barely warm others). There isn’t one good answer on type– really ask around.
If your house does not already have a wood storage building, consider erecting one not too far from an access door to your house. These can be loosely constructed, but should be able to protect up to six full cords of wood from rain (including sideways rain) but also from direct sun, which will dry the wood out too much and it will burn too quickly.) These wood sheds cannot be too large, in my opinion. Also find a place on a covered porch where you can stack a cord or so to get you through several weeks of deep snow when it’s hard to get to the woodshed to replenish supplies. I stack about 1 cord on my covered front porch and it sees me through about 2 months, sometimes 3, burning almost every day.
If you’re planning on being home much of the time, I would do as one poster suggested and leave your gas heat on all winter, but set low, and every morning, fire up your wood stove, then once it’s hot, adjusting dampers and wood supply to keep it gong, but not roaring. You’ll be amazed at how much heat it kicks off. Just give in now, and put Lucy’s favorite bed close to it. Let the stove go out at night. You don’t want to go through the nonsense of tending it through the night, and while having fires is fun, it’s not like you’re Laura Ingalls. Separate the fantasy from the reality of day to day life, when you’re in and out, running errands and leaving the house. Keeping gas heat set to the high 50s will keep any pipes from freezing and trust me, this alone is worth it.
I do suggest putting a cast iron receptacle on top, filled with water–steaming but not boiling. The design you showed in the picture in your blog is a good one, but buy the absolutely largest size that will fit safely on top of the woodstove. Mine holds just under 2 gallons and it evaporates in two – three days. Keep it pretty full and try not to let it run dry, but be sure to buy one that will not be damaged if it does, i.e. large, heavy cast iron is best here, they take an amazing amount of abuse. I boil my tea water on my stove most mornings but remove the kettle immediately after boiling. Again, heavy cast iron is best here as the heat can get intense, even with protective iron disks underneath. When purchasing your stove, take care to look for designs that have lots of top surface space for steamers, kettles, etc. Many don’t.
Wood should be hardwoods only. No pine or firs. I buy my wood already cut and split and make sure the lengths of the pieces will fit with room to spare inside my stove. If you’re going to cut and split your own, buy an electric or gas splitter. It will save your husband’s body. I buy wood in two lengths –shorter pieces for my wood stove and longer pieces for my fireplaces. And I use both almost every day. I buy wood in late spring, very early summer after most of the tree trimming companies have just finished taking down trees and have lots. I buy it in bulk –5-6 cords at a time, and I will stack it properly (as the New England adage goes: “loosely enough for a mouse to run between the logs, but tightly enough that the cat can’t follow”) so it has decent air flow and let it dry out and ‘season’ for a year before I use it. Year old, dry hardwoods are divine fuel. I buy my wood from the same tree trimming company and have such a good relationship with them now that the price for me has not moved in 15 years AND I get a few truckloads of fresh wood chips dumped free to recoat the paths between and around my 22 raised bed garden. (I ask for only pine chips here and the paths smell divine all year, especially after a rain!)
Buy a two wheeled, very well balanced (well balanced is key here) cart to bring the wood from the shed to the porch in large loads, and a two handled canvas sling sold for this purpose to load up to bring 6-7 logs at a time to carry into the house. I fill a wrought iron “U” shaped log holder with 6-7 slings-full at a time, which lasts me about two days for the woodstove. I also have a similar log holder next to each fireplace, filled at all times.
One of the things I love most about living in the NE is preparing for storms. (I know…I’m nuts.) I immediately make sure the porch log stacks are high and full. Keep in mind that depending on where you live, winter nor’easters often come with temporary power outages, making pellet stoves useless (they rely on electricity to keep feeding pellets to the flame), and render most fans systems dead. A nice, efficient, wood stove –be sure it has a very large glass front so you can enjoy the view, many don’t have this!–a good supply of homemade soups and stews, some great books, and I’m set. Good, double pane windows and a supplemental generator to keep the freezer and fridge going (you don’t need a “whole house” generator for heaven’s sake),and a well tended woodstove and you can make it through most storms just fine. But you’ll be glad you have that backup gas source. Finally, don’t be afraid to ask some smart neighbor to walk you through what they do to prepare for winter or a storm. Every house has its own peccadilloes but you’ll learn a lot and it can prevent very expensive mistakes and associated water damage, falling branches, broken gutters, etc. Sorry to be so long winded–trying to help.
Trish says
Thank you so much for this! I’m bookmarking this page just for your instructions! 🙂
Lisa-Marie says
I live right on the beach called Sandy Beach in Stockton Springs in Maine in an old house built in 1768. I have oil but we use our wood stoves to cook and heat with.
We use about 6 cords of wood a year for both the wood cooker in the kitchen and the Vermont Stove in the TV room. We are often without power due to storms so having 5 working hearths ( one is a beehive oven) is the best thing ever! I wouldn’t be without! Oil is dear which is why we mostly use heat with wood. Make sure you ask locals who to buy wood from so you don’t end up being overcharged! We have a guy that delivers and we are very happy with the wood! We’re elderly so we need the help these days.
Make sure you clean your chimneys every year! Our house has stood the test of time due to proper chimney care. Enjoy the east coast! It’s the best !
Laura Z says
I don’t have a wood stove, but know that you can buy a cast iron tea pot which is lined with enamel for exactly that purpose. I know that you can cook using a dutch oven on top a wood stove, so anything that you can do in there, like bake bread, roast a chicken, make stew, steam veggies, etc. etc. can be done on top of a wood stove with a little practice.
Betsy in MN says
Wow lots of opinions on burning wood.
Let me count what we have done in central Minnesota: (Hot water heat with baseboards)
1. Boiler that used oil – stinky and expensive. When it died we elected a propane boiler.
2. Small boiler using propane – pretty efficient, but used chimney and sat on floor, so there was lots of upkeep
3. Outdoor wood boiler – used for a couple years when propane prices skyrocketed. Got wood for free. Husband changed jobs, so would not work for us anymore.
4. High efficient propane boiler that mounts on the basement wall and direct vents. LOVE IT! We saw our propane use drop drastically.
5. Wood pellet stove in our living room. LOVE IT! Direct vent out side wall, so no need for chimney. We buy pellets by the pallet at the beginning of the season. The beauty of burning wood without the mess! Yeah!
Good luck in your decision. Cutting wood heats you twice – once when you cut and split and again when you burn it. 😉
Wendy says
Is it really practical to heat an entire home with wood heat?
We have been heating our home, exclusively, with wood for ten years. I say exclusively with the caveat that over that 10 year period, when it has gotten extremely cold (double digits below zero) at night, the furnace has kicked on a few times, but we keep the furnace at its lowest setting (50°), and haven’t had an oil delivery since 2008. And it has to be REALLY cold for the house to cool off enough for the furnace to kick-on. The ONLY time it comes on is in the middle of the night when the fire burns too low and we’re asleep.
I’m assuming we’ll need some sort of steamer/humidifier to place on top of the wood stove. Can you recommend one?
We have never used any sort of steamer or humidifier in our house. We do keep a kettle of water on the wood stove for making coffee and tea, and I don’t have a clothes dryer. We hang our wet clothes on a drying rack, which probably adds humidity to the air.
Do I need some sort of fan to circulate the heat?
We do not have a fan. I suppose this would depend on the layout of your house. We have a single- story house with a, kind of, open floor plan. Some rooms are cooler than others, especially if doors are left closed.
How about a tea kettle? I have visions of heating my water for my afternoon cuppa on the wood stove. Do you do this? Do I need a special kettle? Do you have any tips I should know about?
We just have a regular old metal tea kettle. I also do a lot of cooking of soups and stews and things other people would put in a crockpot (I don’t have a crockpot). I use my dutch oven filled with whatever I’m going to cook. The key is to ensure that there’s plenty of liquid … I guess, just like with a crock pot. We also fry foods in the cast iron skillet on the wood stove, and I toast bread or make flat bread right on the surface of the wood stove.
How many cords of wood do you think someone in the NE would need during a typical winter? We use 5 to 7 cords of mixed hard and soft woods (lots of pine up here in Maine). We have a 1500 sq ft house.
We plan on buying our first winter’s worth of wood, but hoping to harvest our own in later years. What kind of wood should we be buying/looking for? Most people will tell you to buy only hardwood. We burn a mix of hard and soft woods. Hardwood is best for night time, as it burns slow. The soft woods burn hotter and faster, and we like that for during the day, when we’re home, and for cooking, as the stove gets much hotter much faster. Whatever you get, the most important thing is to make sure it is well seasoned. Hardwood needs a good year to season. So, an oak that was cut down in April is probably not ready to burn by winter. If you decide to burn pine, which most people advise against, because of “creosote” concerns and chimney fires, the pine is well seasoned in less than six months. Any green wood can cause creosote build-up, which can result in a chimney fire. Just make sure your wood is well seasoned. Seasoned wood isn’t as heavy had green wood.
What is a fair price for a cord of seasoned, cut firewood these days? Where I live, split wood will cost $200 a cord (minimum) during the spring and summer. Sometimes you’ll tell them you want seasoned wood, but what they deliver is not what you ordered. In the winter, you’ll pay $300 for a cord of green wood. If you can cut and split it yourself, you can get tree-sized logs delivered for half that price. Pro Tip: Find a tree service and inquire about removing tree trimmings. Sometimes you can get free wood that way, but you have to cut it to length and split it. My husband has a chainsaw and we bought a manual woodsplitter, which is easy to use (although time-consuming) and doesn’t require any gasoline.
After having spent the last decade with wood heat, and having survived several day-long power outages, and stayed comfortable and warm, been able to cook and heat up water for baths and other cleaning, I wouldn’t live without a wood stove. Having it has allowed us to save a great deal of money on heating costs (we have been getting free firewood from a family member’s wood lot for the last few years). We also save money on electricity by cooking on the wood stove. And the warmth of the wood stove and the ambiance of the flames … there’s just nothing like it. I love my wood stove. I can’t imagine life without it.
Kat says
Wow, there are so many factors regarding all the questions you ask.
The cost of wood is completely dependent on where you live. I live in central NH – used to live in central VT. We heated with ONLY wood for over 20 years. We bought it by “log load,” which is a log truck full of whole logs. It can range from 7-9 cord in one load. Definitely the least expensive way to go if you have to buy. If you do buy this method, you’ll need a chainsaw to cut it as well as a splitter. We always used a gas splitter as they are usually the most powerful, so you can split bigger logs quicker. We were four couples who heated with wood. In the fall, we would, over four weekends, all come over to one home each weekend (kids too), and do up the entire log load of wood. This week, my house, next week, your house, etc., until everyone’s wood was put up for the winter. One home stacked it in the garage, one outside, and two in the basement. We all made a ton of food, had a blast, and all made certain everyone was warm for the winter.
You can still buy by the log load, or by the cord. Back to location – The closer you are to cities, like everything else, the more you pay. If you’re in northern ME, NH, or VT, you’ll pay a lot less. CT, RI, and MA, expect to pay more. I can’t tell you if they even have log loads available there.
How much you need is dependent on a number of factors. How big is your house? How well insulated is it? How cold is it in any given year? Are you on a hill or in a valley (windchill factor)? How warm do you like it?
Equipment options:
Wood furnace – only needs to be fed twice a day because they tend to have a huge wood box. Great for bigger houses. Puts out even heat throughout the whole house. Difficult to regulate during spring and fall so that the nights are nice and cozy, but with warmer days at those times, the house can get downright hot.
Wood stove – We had a big one (an old Cawley Lemay, super heavy cast iron with a huge wood box, lined with firebrick). It heated a 1600 sf house with no problem. Stayed good and hot through to about 6:30 am unless it was 20 below or colder. Then it had to be filled once during the night.
Pellet stove – I’ve never had one, but my sister does and loves it. It costs her about $1200 a year to heat an 1800 sf house (all one level), keeping it at least 70 degrees.
Pros and cons
Wood stove:
~Uneven heat, meaning the room the stove is in is way warmer than rooms further away. It’s great if the room it’s in is far away from the bedrooms so that they are cooler at night. It’s GREAT to cozy up to when it’s cold.
~EXTREMELY dry air. We always had a lage console type humidifier in the room the stove was in and three smaller ones throughout the house. If we let the dry out, we got sinus infections.
~Very messy. Wood scraps all over the place after bringing wood in. Very dusty. And….spiders and other crawlies in the wood pile that get to come in.
~Never needs any electricity, so power outages are still nice and cozy, no matter how long they last. And, you can cook on it! My HH made me a stainless steel oven for the top. I baked bread, pies, cakes, casseroles, etc. Regulated the temp by adjusting the rings on the top.
~Always super quiet.
Wood furnace:
~Usually, these are in the basement, so the dirt and wood pieces factor is less. There’s still a lot of dust, and it’s as dry as a wood stove.
~All the rooms are equally warm. This is true for outdoor wood furnace as well.
~Great in the cold months, but difficult to regulate in spring and fall.
Pellet stove:
~Uneven heat, like the wood stove. The pellet stove itself remains fairly cool, even when it’s blowing out some serious BTU’s, so that nice, cozy up spot isn’t he same as with a wood stove.
~Also very dry and dusty, but no mess because you just open a bag of pellets and pour it in – usually twice daily.
~NOISY! The fan runs constantly as long as it’s producing heat, which distributes the heat well, but makes a racket.
Humidity:
Heating with wood is probably the dryest heat there is. You’ll need to add A LOT of moisture to your home. If you have a stove, definitely put a kettle on top. I had two – one huge cast iron one, just for humidity, and another, regular kettle for making tea, soup, or any time you need hot water. KEEP THEM BOTH FILLED ALWAYS! In the colder times, you might need to fill them 3-4 times a day.
I like ultrasonic humidifiers now. I have a big one in a central location in our house as well as a smaller one in each bedroom. Can’t live without them.
Fans:
I liked having small fans, in the upper corners of almost all the doorways. They circulated the heat and were almost silent.
Conclusions:
You can certainly heat a good sized house completely with wood.
It is likely significantly less pricey than oil or gas.
It’s definitely more cozy.
It’s definitely more work and messier than oil or gas.
I apologize for the length of this post. It is, of course based on my experiences and opinions. I hope you find something of value in it. GOOD LUCK!
Jane says
This has been our first year with a woodstove. I love the warmth it creates and when it is snowing outside and the flames are going….nothing better! We usually start a fire in late afternoon and keep it going through the evening. It does save money on heat. The biggest negative for me is that burning wood triggers a sort of asthma response in me. If any of you have allergy/asthma it is something to consider.
Mrs. Z says
We heat a 1700 sqf home mostly with wood heat. I don’t even seem to need humidity. Maybe because I’m always cooking out something. We have a lupi stove. It is legal for Washington. I dream of a blaze king because they can burn 12 plus hours. We burn 3 1/2 cords a year now that I’m home full time. We do have a ductless heat pump but it just doesn’t have the same feeling of warmth. We collect wood from our property or national Forest. Now that may not be available in North East. I love the feel of wood heat. And we have heat when power goes out.
Keralee says
Rocket. Mass. Heater.
More efficient even than scandinavian masonry stoves. Heat a,large house in Montana with 1-2 cords per YEAR, and ZERO other heating sources. No, not a joke. I cannot believe a,gardening-mad frugalista such as yourself has never heard of these?? You could heat your house almost for free.
Stop by Paul Wheaton’s place as you go through Missoula, MT, and he will ahow you what these are, how to make one, and so much more! Prepare to have your socks knocked clear off! You can reach him, and learn all sorts of stuff about rocket mass heaters and more at his website, Permies.com.
You will save a fortune. And maybe forests full of trees too, if you elect to implement and share this with your followers.
And if you do visit Paul, ask about permaculture gardening too, for some more sock-blowing action. You are an awesome gardener already…how would you like to kick that up to more than you ever sreamed possible, with a,fractiin of the work you currently invest? Also not a fairy tale, just good science.
Implementing permaculture techniques in my own tiny garden has made worlds off difference, so much more food, so much less work. I guess I will have to send you pictures.
Please, do yourself, your wallet, and maybe the world a huge favor and learn about rocket mass heaters and permaculture. With your love of knowledge and reason, down-to-earth practicality, and frugal ways, I am sure you will absolutely love, love,,love it!
And you will save tens,of thousands of dollars whilst staying toasty warm!
Bonne says
We are living in the Netherlands. The winters are mostly mild, but every now and then there is the bitter cold from Siberia.
We are central heating the land house with a wood burner, backed up with a 2000 litres buffer storage of hot water.
The burner is always burning at maximum capacity, till the back-up is full. This gives a rate of about 93 percent.
In the morning we start with using the hot water from the buffer.
Preference is for oak wood. Gives the minimum of ashes. Compared to fruit trees is a factor of about ten.
We have the possibility of heating with natural gas. Because of the high costs, we haven’t used gas for approximately the last ten years.
Our house consumed before 10,000 Nm3/y of gas.
We installed in the living room a wood stove. This brought the consumption down to 7,000 Nm3/y
Since the central heating is on wood, the stove is rarely been used.
Today you have to pay about 0.8 Euro per Nm3
We buy the oak wood in bulk 30-40,000 kgs for about Euro 60-65/1,000 kgs.
You have to saw, splice it and store for 2 years to dry.
Our heating costs are less than one third, compared to gas.
And it is always warm and cosy at home.
Roz says
The heating with a wood stove adventure! You should try it, you will learn a LOT! All these comments are very helpful, but in the end it’s how much work YOU want to put in for the money savings. Something I didn’t see mentioned much above is a consideration for how effective the stove will be (aside from location, brand, and house layout) is how well insulated the house is. My house is ~1000 sq ft, with little rooms, and we have to use space heaters pretty much all winter (and we live in Tennessee, it’s NOT cold like up north!). I also had to close off part of the kitchen with an insulated curtain to keep the heat IN the living area, making a mud room, but in the morning the mud room windows are covered in condensation and some years I have to run the dehumidifer in there all night or part of the day.
On the other hand, my neighbor heats his whole house with his wood stove, but his stove is in the basement, and his house is MUCH newer and also very well insulated. My house (which used to be his also) has very little wall insulation, he tells me. There is a fair bit in the attic but I also have a dirt cellar which may suck some of my heat up also. The house layout and stove brand can be surprisingly critical, because my old house had a wood stove in the basement that heated most of the 2000 sq foot house well, once it got going.
The biggest con, though, I think, is when you aren’t home and no one is around to stoke up the stove, or at night if you don’t wake up to put in more wood. It can get COLD! It takes a goodly bit of time to get everything warm again, and a cold stove can be tricky to start up. The first year in this new house I made a blog post about heating with wood, but I’ve learned more in the years here since. There is always more to learn I think! http://gaeasboxofrocks.blogspot.com/2015/12/the-real-story-about-heating-with-wood.html
nuri says
An angle you might want to consider: Insurance.
Some carriers do not allow for indoor solid fuel appliances. Some (like mine) only allow it as supplemental heating. There will almost certainly be an additional charge for the wood stove. Make sure that the stove is UL certified, installed correctly and to national specifications (NASD). Follow all clearances listed on the stove, or the national ones if those are not available, in particular, the floor clearances.
You’ll probably need to take pictures and submit a form on the wood stove, or something similar.
Wendy says
We live in Massachusetts in a drafty house built in 1923 and have oil heat supplemented with a wood pellet stove. This winter was brutally cold and we have gone through three tanks of oil already. I love the pellet stove because it gives you the warmth but not the mess. We have it installed in the room we spend the most time in. It fit into the existing wood fireplace as an insert and has a blower built in to keep the air circulating. There is also no issue with smoke backing up into the house when the wind changes direction. We don’t try to heat the whole house with it, but it has certainly cut down on our oil usage. The pellets come in 50 pound bags and we order them by the ton and stack them in the garage.
Pauline in Upstate NY says
Hi Mavis,
Even though we’ve heated our 1830 house with (mostly) wood for over 40 years (with natural gas back-up), I’ve really enjoyed reading others’ comments about how it’s done in other parts of the country/world. Some interesting ideas for me to look into, too!
Here in Upstate NY, winters are long, gray, cold, and typically snowy, so dealing with the woodstove becomes part of daily life (ashes out in a METAL bucket), wood in). We use 2-3 cords of hardwood in most years, some purchased at (most recent price) $400/2.5 cord truck of split wood, some from our own property. Much of your quantity needed has to do with the construction of your home — how open is the floor plan, how well insulated is it, what you have for back-up heat, etc.
A few other thoughts to add:
* consider adding a chest-high clean-out on the outside of your chimney — then you can put a chimney brush UP through the bottom (on multiple screw-together rods) to keep it clean; we do this once a month. The accumulated soot can be troweled out of the bottom annually.
* try to get a year *ahead* on your firewood, i.e. double up on your first year purchase. It’s worthing asking wood sellers what “seasoned” means to them. There is no real standard. Also check references, as some sellers deliver better wood than others (you don’t want punky, half-rotten stuff…)
* the bug thing is real. When the weather gets cold, they tend to crawl into nooks & crannies in the bark of your firewood, and then, when you bring the wood inside, the bugs think “oh it’s spring” and wake up. But it’s manageable.
* I strongly second the idea of a woodshed or covered porch to stack your wood and keep it dry. Shovelling snow off a tarp-covered pile in order to get to the wood loses its charm real fast…
*And a cart is an incredibly useful device if you have to move the wood very far from stack to house. We have a “Woodchuck” from Vermont Carts, and it’s worth every penny we paid for it. Know that in snow the wheels of a cart may pick up so much snow that it becomes useless. (Depends on how moist the snow is and how well cleared the path to the woodshed)
* We tried a cast-iron humidifier for a few years, but gradually moved away from it for two reasons — the build-up of hard-water deposits on the inside and the inconvenience of needing to move the heavy humidifier to a safe spot on the floor before we could open our top-loading stove. (We have an old Vermont Castings — have loved it for nearly 40 years…)
* A front-loading stove (ours does both) will occasionally spit out red-hot embers when you are loading it. Depending on how far your hearth extends, you may need a fire-proof mat in front of the stove to protect the floor/carpeting.
* Smoke detectors… ‘Nuff said.
* No one else has mentioned it (and we have not done this ourselves), but you might look into a geothermal system to heat your home. Initial cost is high, but it might be worth it. Most of the people we know who have one love it.
* Beware of fireplaces… An unused-but-open fireplace is nothing but a conduit to suck your house’s heat right up the chimney.
Enjoy!! Can’t wait to hear more about where you land.
Angela says
Hi Mavis,
We built a home in NE PA (Poconos) that was dependent on a wood burner for heat. The home was one story (2500 sq ft) with an open floor plan. The wood burner had a circulating fan(blower) that we kept on all the time. We cut and stacked our own wood ( it needs to dry out before use) from our property and burned six cords of wood a season. Our central heat ran on propane. The thermostat was set at 60 degrees. We spent at most $350 a season on propane. The wood burner kept the home at least at 65 degrees. The propane (central heat) kicked in when the outside temp was below 10 degrees. We LOVED heating this way not only because it was cheap but because the fireplace was beautiful to watch. I think the key was not never let the fire go out. My husband had a wood stacking method that kept the fire going for 5 hours at night without attention. One of us always got up at least once and tended the fire. We like you never hesitated to wear a sweater inside. Best of luck on your new home. I love reading your blog – keep up the great work
Jumbe says
We heated with just wood for two winters here in the PNW. Having down comforters for when it gets cold overnight and for when you go to start the fire in the morning made it totally doable and no big deal. That will likely not work well in areas where it gets colder because if you let it get below freezing overnight Your Pipes Will Freeze. So be sure to supplement with oil overnight so it stays at least 45 to 50 to also give you some time and wiggle room if something happens to your furnace.
Carol says
Great advice from everyone. I have a wood burning stove with a catalytic burner (Vermont Castings), which burns cleaner than the alternative, but not as clean as a pellet stove. We use it only for back up heat here in the PNW, because of air pollution concerns. Depending on how rural you are and your county regulations, you may have days with an inversion layer, when you are asked not to burn. For us, this usually happens on those cold, sunny days, when it would be a help. A couple more things to keep in mind:
*I have friends who took out a wood burning stove and installed a pellet stove in their log cabin, only to find that the pellet stove did not heat their somewhat drafty cabin as well as the wood stove. They went back to burning wood. Keep in mind any difference between heat output.
*The first year I had the stove, I closed off the rooms that weren’t being used during the day. I was sorry to find that mold had grown on the walls in the closets, so do monitor parts of the house with little air circulation.
*Remember that if you use wood exclusively to heat, you may find you need to have your chimney cleaned every 6 months to keep it free of build up. It should also be inspected to see if it is safe to use for a wood stove.
*Get your local fire department on board with your installation. I had them give me advice on set backs, heat shields, where the stack should go and how big the hearth should be. Of course, I also got advice from the stove installers and stove company, but found that the fire department recommended a significantly bigger hearth than the stove installers. The upshot is that if your installation is inspected and approved by the fire department, your insurance company is much more likely to give it’s O.K. Mine did.
*Heating exclusively with wood can be messy, arduous, and requires discipline, like being there to monitor and maintain the fire, even during the night.
Mrs. Mills says
Hi Mavis, just a quick note about wood stoves. Living in Vancouver all my life I used to rent cabins in the Gulf Islands just to enjoy the stoves. When my husband and I retired we moved to the Okanagon and have a small hobby farm (chickens, ducks, pigs, turkeys, goats, one horse and five dogs). We have a 1700 ft. cabin with a large wood fireplace in the living room/dining area and a small one in the kitchen. I cook on the kitchen stove all the time plus all day tea. We occasionally use our electrical heaters but not often and it can get to -28 C here. One of my favorite things ever is to sit knitting watching the snow and listening to the wood crackling. It is also good exercise for us as we get cords of wood delivered and split the logs ourselves or spend great fun with our dogs foraging for wood with our chainsaw. I also collect pioneer and Native recipes for cooking on a wood stove that I could pass along to you if you like. Anyway hope this helps a bit with your decision.
Marie says
Solar! Solar! Solar! Install a water heater coil in your wood stove and batteries to store your solar energy. ALWAYS stay at least one season ahead with your wood so it is seasoned and lessens the amount of buildup in your lined chimney. (Splurge on 2 cords this spring, before breaking ground for your garden). A fan is a must to circulate the heat you have produced all on your own!
Sadye says
1. We heat our entire Upstate NY home (2 levels over 3,200 sq. ft.) with two wood stoves. We have a small wood stove upstairs and a larger one in our finished basement. We do have backup baseboard heat that we use when we are out of the house for periods of longer than 24 hours to keep the house at a constant temperature.
2. We keep steamers on top of both of the stoves. We’ve used different kinds in the past, but are currently using old Salvation Army tea kettles. The expensive cast iron steamer I bought ended up getting a hole in it so we haven’t purchased that again. We do have hard water and that leaves quite a bit of residue in the kettles.
3. Our downstairs wood stove has a blower which circulates the heat very well. We also have a ceiling fan that we sometimes use. The upstairs wood stove doesn’t have a blower so it is harder to get the warm air throughout the entire house. We do have a small triangle door fan (similar to this https://www.amazon.com/Suncourt-EntreeAir-Frame-Booster-RR100/dp/B0007N5LHM/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1519998315&sr=8-2&keywords=door+fan) that moves some of the heat.
4. Depending on how hot you run the wood stove it is entirely possible to heat your tea kettle on the stove. We actually make maple syrup in small batches and boil that down on our stoves.
5. We actually harvest all of our own wood (okay, the husband mainly does, but I help unload and stack) so I’m not entirely sure but would estimate that we use 4.5 cords of wood a year and about 325 gallons of fuel oil that heat the hot water tank and the backup baseboard heat. I assume that your winters will be worse than ours are so you’ll probably need more than that. I don’t know how much land you will have, but we have 40 acres of our own and access to family land that borders ours and there is more than enough wood and still a great deal ends up rotting.
6. While harvesting your own wood can be time consuming, it is excellent cardio and proves to be good family time. We play 20 questions while stacking wood and watching the kids grow and be able to help more and more is great as well.
7. As I’ve seen other posters mention, one of the downsides of the wood stove is the dust it creates. We run an air purifier 24/7 to help with the air quality, but that doesn’t stop all.the.dust. Dusting and vacuuming are needed routinely. You also need to make sure that the chimney is cleaned before, during, and after the season. My husband takes care of that for us, but it is really important to prevent chimney fires. I’ve always had a wood stove in my home, growing up and as an adult, so it is something that I am used to. I have plenty of friends who have steered clear of wood stoves and gone with pellet stoves because they are apprehensive. I personally appreciate wood stoves (minus the dust) and like the fact that we help clean the forest of dead trees, save money, and get a workout while doing it.
Mim says
Mavis, so thrilled you are moving to New England. Dare I hope it will be Vermont?
Yes, you must have a wood stove. Unless you do something silly like putting it on the second floor where you then have to schlep wood, you will not regret it. Our house (in VT) is 3600 sq ft. We keep the stove going basically from October to May. The thermostats on the 2nd floor are turned off because the heat rises and it’s plenty warm, and the ones on the main floor are kept at 62. We are NEVER cold.
We burn about 3 cords of wood a year. After living with wood stoves for 25years, I discovered kiln-dried wood and I have never looked back. It is more expensive — about $300 a cord vs $200 — but it is totally worth it. It burns hotter, cleaner, more easily, and there are no bugs. Plus your chimney stays cleaner because you aren’t producing creosote, which means less danger of chimney fires. We still have the chimney cleaned every two years, but our sweep says we could probably go three between cleanings. We store the wood in the basement, which is also a huge improvement over trudging out to the woodpile in the snow and ice.
Re. Stoves, we had a VT Castings for 25 years and had no problems with it (although our chimney sweep hates them and says they’re junk….) When we finally did have to replace it, I got one by Hearthstone. It’s beautiful and efficient and we’re very happy.
Cooking on a modern wood stove is probably a non-starter. A well-insulated stove is not meant to get hot enough on the surface for you to cook. I mean, you wouldn’t want to put your hand on it, but it’s certainly not hot enough that you could boil water.
I’ve never found steaming kettles to be of much use, even when I lived in much smaller houses. As for fans to disperse the heat, that totally depends on your floor layout. With our house, which is pretty open and well-insulated, there is no need for fans. It is evenly warm throughout.
So excited for you. Can’t wait to see the garden take shape and for you and Lucy to have chickens again. Welcome home!!!!!
Wendi says
Is it really practical to heat an entire home with wood heat? I don’t think so. We’re in PA heating a 3,000 sp ft 1780 stone farmhouse. Some areas would be very cold and others blazing hot.
I’m assuming we’ll need some sort of steamer/humidifier to place on top of the wood stove. Can you recommend one? I just use an old pot.
Do I need some sort of fan to circulate the heat? We use a thermo fan…no electricity required.
How about a tea kettle? I have visions of heating my water for my afternoon cuppa on the wood stove. Do you do this? Do I need a special kettle? Do you have any tips I should know about? IMHO a tea kettle is too small. You’ll be refilling it every 2 hours.
How many cords of wood do you think someone in the NE would need during a typical winter? We go through 6 cords of hard wood plus 3 full tanks of oil.
We plan on buying our first winter’s worth of wood, but hoping to harvest our own in later years. What kind of wood should we be buying/looking for? Seasoned hard woods and get it early summer as they sell out.
What is a fair price for a cord of seasoned, cut firewood these days? In eastern PA we get it for $190/cord.
As others said, it’s dusty and dirty and by the end of the season I’m very ready to shut the stove down. But I love having a few warm rooms and I enjoy the fire. We never let it go out….fill it before bed and it will easily catch in the morning.
Enjoy the east coast and Welcome!!
Practical Parsimony says
If anyone has asthma, the particulates cast off by a wood stove will keep them ill. There is a fan that sits on a wood stove which somehow makes the fan work. well, the heat makes the fan work. I found wood for my friend. I saw a man cutting wood from trees he had felled. He was getting paid to clear the land and said she could get all the wood she wanted. It saved him having to cut it, load it, and transport it. You might find people cutting /clearing. However, be careful about what woods you burn. You do need to have fireplaces inspected with a mirror! Well, that is what I have heard. Mu three fireplaces were made to burn coal. So, they have never been used by me. There are fans run by electricity that fit in the upper corner of the door to spread the heat to other rooms. The fans are a quarter of a circle. Ceiling fans help to push air down, too.