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| Wood Stove | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Dec 14 2010, 11:59 PM (1,110 Views) | |
| Grizzly | Dec 14 2010, 11:59 PM Post #1 |
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We have only one wood burning stove in our kitchen to heat our whole house. We also have a furnace, that so far this year, we have not turned it on. This morning it's below zero out side and when I got up it was 50 in the house. The coldest it's been yet. Just for the fun of it I would like to see if we can go all winter without a furnace. Of course our kitchen is the most comfortable room but during the day and keeping wood in the stove, the rest of the house is between 65-70. A few years ago we tried kerosene heaters and they worked good but costs money again to run. It could be worse, my father-in-law just put his storm windows in thier bedroom last week. His wife was complaining of the cold. He finally mentioned to me it was 26 degrees in thier bedroom! She had to remove thier phone cause it didn't work right due to the cold. They have a log cabin which he built himself and is only heated with wood. It is quite a large house. Maybe that's why the houses were much smaller in the old days. This gets me thinking of what the rest of the northern country is planning on doing through winter months if we should have long term power outages. Thier remote control gas fireplaces won't be real helpfull. |
| Our ancestors left Europe to get away from this crap...as seen on a bumpersticker fns | |
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| Mommacat | Dec 15 2010, 09:29 AM Post #2 |
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Its very common up where Bull Moose is for people to heat exclusively with wood. My uncle has an outdoor woodburner that supplies hot water heat to his house. I don't think his system relies on electricity at all - it percolates. But it might, just not sure. I also know several people that have outdoor woodburners that use forced air to bring the heat to the house and I think they'd have to come up with something different. As a small child, wood heat was all we had. My gramma had a wood cookstove and I remember that she also had a woodburner in the living room, but I don't think it was used very often - the kitchen stove heated up the house nicely. I think you have a good point about the size of the houses in years gone by. Also, the two-story plan helped heat the upstairs where the bedrooms usually were. Many old farm houses had floor vents that went to the upstairs and the heat made its way up naturally. I do remember that some mornings it was pretty brisk up there, but that just meant we'd get up, get our clothes on and downstairs without wasting a lot of time!! I am still very commited to finding a wood cookstove after the first of the year. I will take it up to my uncle's and, for now, just store it, or maybe I can talk him into that outdoor kitchen!! He has a house built into a hill, so doubt he'd be too interested in putting it into his kitchen, just now! |
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| Mommacat | Dec 15 2010, 09:30 AM Post #3 |
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Oh, one one more thing - 26 freakin' degrees!?!?!? I'd hafta choke him, I don't care how much money he was saving!! |
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| Raven | Dec 15 2010, 10:46 AM Post #4 |
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My Mom and Dad got into it one year when she woke up and the juice that she had next to the bed was frozen solid. For the most part they don't sleep in the same room as she can't take it and he can't sleep without the window open. My sinus' are all stuffed up if the window is closed. I open it when I go to bed and close it when I wake up...most of the time I only have to open it a crack. I thought that it was in my head until one night I had the window open and Griz got up to close it in the middle of the night and I woke up stuffed. My homeopath thinks that I need the night air to keep my head clear. I don't know about that but I know that I am totally stuffed up at work because the air there is recycled and I have to go outside several times to keep from getting a head ache. |
| The truth is not for all men, but only for those that seek it. Ayn Rand | |
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| Mommacat | Dec 16 2010, 09:25 AM Post #5 |
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I think everyone sleeps better and has fewer cold/sinus trouble if they keep some fresh outdoor air circulating while they sleep. However, I'd just have to draw the line at having to sleep in long underwear beneath a mile high pile of blankets with three cats and 2 dogs, just to keep my chattering teeth from waking me up!! |
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| Raven | Dec 16 2010, 07:02 PM Post #6 |
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It really isn't so bad, I have a couple of blankets and a quilt. I stay very warm under it all with the nicest footie pj's I got from Griz. I even had snow on the nightstand one morning but I was all toasty warm under the covers. Getting out of bed, however, takes some self disipline
Edited by Raven, Dec 16 2010, 07:02 PM.
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| The truth is not for all men, but only for those that seek it. Ayn Rand | |
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| Bullmoose | Dec 18 2010, 04:26 AM Post #7 |
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I rented a spearhouse on Whitefish from Heath's Resort (of Les Kouba's spearing trilogy fame) and each house had a barrel stove made from a metal 5 gallon bucket. There was a kit, much like the 55 gal kit, just miniturized. He had over 30 of them. Anyone ever seen one of those kits available? I was thinking how nice they would be installed in individual rooms of a home. |
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It does not take a majority to prevail... but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brushfires of freedom in the minds of men. Samuel Adams | |
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| Raven | Dec 18 2010, 10:56 AM Post #8 |
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Something that has worked for us in the past is to put rocks on the woodstove at suppertime. By the time bedtime came along they were nice and hot. I wrapped the rocks in a towel and put them at the foot of the beds about a half an hour before we all crawled in. They were still nice and warm in the morning. You have to use nice sized (about the size of a childs head) and they have to be dense rock...like field rock or river rock. Free, handy and you can use them year to year. I like the idea of a single small stove to use for individual rooms. That could be handy for an LP/OP or other small area not to mention an outhouse or small greenhouse during the night or overcast cold nights. |
| The truth is not for all men, but only for those that seek it. Ayn Rand | |
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| Grizzly | Dec 19 2010, 12:11 AM Post #9 |
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No, can't say I ever seen one for a 5 gal bucket. Sounds like a neat thing to have but finding metal 5 gal buckets are scarce. I think there wouldn't be much to making one but I'll look around for factory ones. Ice fishing supplies might have such a thing but now days everyone wants gas ones. You ever slept with a ROCK in your bed? Kind of like an over weight cat. You always know it's there. And then accedently kick one of those rocks off your bed! A good alarm clock cause you WILL wake up. |
| Our ancestors left Europe to get away from this crap...as seen on a bumpersticker fns | |
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| Raven | Dec 19 2010, 12:47 AM Post #10 |
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In my defense...the rock was at the FOOT of the bed and you and the kids were warm. Our gas bill wasn't the equivalent of the national debt and you didn't break your foot so it was all good! |
| The truth is not for all men, but only for those that seek it. Ayn Rand | |
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