Superchemicalgirl, you need to get an EPA wood stove. When we bought our homestead, we heated with a Vogelzang boxwood stove. That thing ate firewood like M&Ms. I swear (since I'm the light sleeper of the family) I was up every 90 min to 2 hours shoving wood into that fire breathing dragon. I told DH either we got a different stove or I was just going to throw a sleeping bag in front of the stove so I could be closer to the wood. All I'd have to do was sit up and toss an arm load in. We bought a Century EPA. Not the most expensive. We figured if it worked well, when we replaced it we would buy a better one. If I could hug this stove I would. Stoke it full of hickory rounds at bedtime, there are still glowing coals in the morning. When we go to bed, the temp in the house is 77. When we get up, like this morning, the temp was 66. The top gets hot enough that you can make simple dishes on it, fried eggs, grilled cheese, etc. I keep a gallon tea kettle full of water on it for hot water. If our power goes out, yeah, we'd miss the computer....only until we fired up the generator. We lived without electricity for almost 4 years. Discovered we could do it, we just didn't want to any longer.
Of course, having a summer where the temp hit 110 was motivation all by itself.
