But, but that little knobby thingy on the wall is so much nicer! I know, I know. It’s nice to be able to just turn the knob and get a little extra heat – especially when the temp is dipping below 0. But at $3 a gallon for heating oil – can you afford to ignore your environmental conscience any longer?
In addition to being inexpensive (free if you can cut it yourself), wood is a renewable energy source. From Hearth.com: “Burning fossil fuels sends carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas, on a one-way trip. It pumps million-year-old carbon from inside the earth into the atmosphere, where the concentration of carbon dioxide is increasing. Burning oil, gas and coal is like spending the earth’s savings, and scientists say it is changing the global climate. Wood fuel is different. As trees grow, they absorb carbon dioxide from the air in a process powered by the sun. Indeed, about half the weight of dry wood is this absorbed carbon. A tree destroyed in a forest fire or one that falls and decays in the for est gives up its carbon once again to the air as carbon dioxide. So continues the earth’s carbon/carbon dioxide cycle.”
While most people think of heating with wood as an “old-fashioned” technology, let me say that new woodstoves are more and more efficient. With many, you can go all night without having to get up to feed it.
Wood pellet stoves are great – and I highly recommend them as well, but a woodstove has one advantage a pellet stove doesn’t – it can be lit when the lights are out. When the electricity is out, a pellet stove (and most other forms of heat) are out too – not so a woodstove! A woodstove can keep you warm when the electricity is out – and it can cook food, and melt snow for water (if your power is out, the water won’t flow for long!).
Burning wood is also a very safe proposition these days. With a little practice and a little help from those who know (feel free to email your questions to me, if you need to), burning a wood fire is as safe as lighting a pilot light – or turning up the thermostat.
And remember, if you don’t cut the wood yourself, ask your firewood supplier where the wood came from – make sure it’s sustainable!
Great resources for learning about burning wood:
Organically Inclined 