Burning firewood.

[Beekissed]

I live in an old farmhouse and heat with a small wood stove down in the living room. I sleep with my windows open by my bed all winter long! Sometimes its so warm we have to open a door or window in the living room as well. Even with new seals around the door, its very hard to regulate the heat on this one.

 

[BettyR]

We never burn any wood in our fireplace that we wouldn't use to cook with...we use mostly oak and pecan because that is what grows around here....but no matter what we burn we always clean the chimney every fall before we need to use the fireplace.

DH has a fireplace brush that he got at Home Depot...not expensive at all...he ties it onto a rope with a weight on one end...climbs onto the roof and drops it down the chimney and scrubs the chimney out really well each year before we light the first fire.

An old saying....An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure....is so very true. I love my fireplace and enjoy it knowing that it's clean and not going to set my house on fire.

 

[OHMYCHICKIES]

Lots of great information here. In my neck of the woods, this is how we live. Heat only by wood burning stove. We have winter 8 months out of the year. We just started using it again. We cut down in the spring, split in the summer and should be ready to use in the winter. BTW, even rotted wood burns, just burns faster than usual.

Good Luck

 

[ChickaD]

I just heard from a local man who had burned wood from pallets in his fireplace......he didn't stop to think the pallets had been treated with something, so flames shot way into his living room.......luckily he lived to tell the story, and without causing a house fire.

We've found we can heat our whole 2-story farmhouse with our wood stove at the base of the stairs..........we sure bought extra wood this year.

 

[Beekissed]

We are heading over to the local lumber mill and paying $20 a bundle for slabs and seconds. I don't know how much is in a bundle but he said it wouldn't fit on my 4 X 8 trailer! A lot of people around here have wood sheds stacked to the ceiling with mill scraps, so it must be good for burning. We also have a small factory in the area that makes small wood crafts. They will fill your trailer with wood ends for kindling...for free!

My niece says the local fire dept. in her county will come and clean out chimneys for free. I'm going to call ours and see if they provide this service, as well.

 

[Sandrachx]

Quote:
you are probably right - never thought of that! we would burn it in our furnace because it is an outside furnace.

 

[tiki244]

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I used to live in a cabin with a wood stove and man did it get hot

My windows were open too a lot. It was cheap heat. When er ran out of wood, we cut it and burned it right away, but that was downed trees int the back yard. Wake up, eat and go out in the snow and below zero weather to get wood for the day.

 

[ChickenToes]

We also use a wood stove.

It all depends on what stove you have - some can burn green wood without a problem. Ours can't handle it. The stove throws no heat when it's burning green wood. We had several 60 degree days in the house before we figured that one out.

We season wood for at least 3 or 4 months before burning it. We like to season it a bit longer, but sometimes it doesn't work out that way.

Wood found on the ground is fine, just look it over. If it's rotten, it's no good. My husband and I have been cutting firewood the past 2 weekends and have taken 2 or 3 dead trees that had fallen but were still solid.

We also clean the chimney once a month, just to be on the safe side. And depending on what we've been burning, sometimes it's very dirty.

 

[keljonma]

About 10 years ago, some of our friends cleaned their own chimney in a house they purchased. They thought they had done a good job. But one night the chimney and roof caught on fire, so obviously they hadn't.

My hubby was a chimney sweep at the time, and offered to check their chimney and fireplace, but they refused. Because they did not get an "official" inspection done before hand, their home owners insurance refused to pay for repairs. They were out of their home for a number of months while the house was repaired because they had to pay for it themselves. It was quite an expensive lesson for them.

So if you have never had it officially inspected, I would contact your fire department or a local chimney sweep to have it inspected to make sure it is in good shape.

 

[kbarrett]

Quote:
Is that the type of system that heats your water also? We've been seeing them advertised around here but don't actually know anyone who has one yet. We use propane but the price on that is climbing just like oil.