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I grew up in a 200 year old school house in northern New Hampshire. Let me tell you from bitter experience that burning wood in a stove for primary heating is a

I grew up in a 200 year old school house in northern New Hampshire. Let me tell you from bitter experience that burning wood in a stove for primary heating is a nightmare on multiple levels. First you have to chop and stack cords of wood in the fall (a thankless, back-breaking task), then go out into the snow to bring in loads of wood every other day all winter to heat the house. You can't store enough wood indoors to last months, so it's always piled up outside. Dealing with the wood is a never ending shitty job that nobody likes or wants to do. It's not a "chore", it's full on work - with cuts, splinters, bruises or worse injuries. Slipping on the ice with an armload of cordwood is a great way to break a bone or get a concussion, let me assure you. I cannot tell you how much I hated it, and how many family arguments were caused as a result. Since all wood stoves leak, no matter what, you end up smelling like a campfire all winter. And I still wonder if the secondhand smoke effects will rear it's ugly head in the future. I've never smoked, but won't be at all surprised if someday I have lung cancer from years of breathing all that crappy air filled with soot particles. Oof. So many horrible memories. Thank heaven I live in California now.

war1025 6y ago
My wife's parents built a house out in the country when she was ~10. They put in a functional wood fireplace and used it as their primary heat source for a couple years. Her main memory of it was that the living room where the fireplace was would be really nice. Her parents bedroom up in a loft above the living room would be too hot. And her bedroom would be super cold because the furnace never kicked on and the heat from the fireplace never quite made it over to her room. But then again, it probably wouldn't win any "new old home" or other design awards. Once they stopped homeschooling, the desire to heat the house with wood dried up pretty quickly. These days I think they have a fire maybe a couple times a month on Winter evenings. One great thing her family introduced me to though: The in home sauna. They are Finnish by way of Northern Minnesota. I dream of one day having a sauna in my own home.
StillBored 6y ago
Yup, 7 year old me... carrying wood from the back forty and stacking it for the winter. Looking back I can't imagine my parents thought it anything but "busywork" for a kid with to much energy. OTOH, a lot of the old coal boilers were converted to heating oil, and more recently I think people have been converting some of them to NG.
nmfisher 6y ago
This was part of my childhood in South Australia, too. The winters aren't as brutal as those in North America, but sub-zero temperatures in an under-insulated house needs heating wherever you are. Firewood is certainly a PITA and I can't stand the smell of woodsmoke, but I still feel that fireplaces produce much more pleasant heat than any modern system. Plus there's much to be said for the ambience of a flickering fire.

war1025 6y ago

My wife's parents built a house out in the country when she was ~10. They put in a functional wood fireplace and used it as their primary heat source for a couple years. Her main memory of it was that the living room where the fireplace was would be really nice. Her parents bedroom up in a loft above the living room would be too hot. And her bedroom would be super cold because the furnace never kicked on and the heat from the fireplace never quite made it over to her room. But then again, it probably wouldn't win any "new old home" or other design awards. Once they stopped homeschooling, the desire to heat the house with wood dried up pretty quickly. These days I think they have a fire maybe a couple times a month on Winter evenings. One great thing her family introduced me to though: The in home sauna. They are Finnish by way of Northern Minnesota. I dream of one day having a sauna in my own home.

StillBored 6y ago

Yup, 7 year old me... carrying wood from the back forty and stacking it for the winter. Looking back I can't imagine my parents thought it anything but "busywork" for a kid with to much energy. OTOH, a lot of the old coal boilers were converted to heating oil, and more recently I think people have been converting some of them to NG.

nmfisher 6y ago

This was part of my childhood in South Australia, too. The winters aren't as brutal as those in North America, but sub-zero temperatures in an under-insulated house needs heating wherever you are. Firewood is certainly a PITA and I can't stand the smell of woodsmoke, but I still feel that fireplaces produce much more pleasant heat than any modern system. Plus there's much to be said for the ambience of a flickering fire.