Cheap firewood!

That would be tough to heat with just fireplaces! I love the older homes as well. I few fireplace inserts would not go amiss there, if you were wanting to keep the fireplaces and still have some more efficient heating source.
 
Beekissed said:
I'm glad its not just me, then! I can get paranoid about things at times, but this is a feeling on which I can't put my finger. Sort of a foreboding, I guess.

I hope I'm wrong, but then it may be just what this part of country needs, really. They need a little shaking up to bring them out of their complacency and to help them remember the things of which they should be grateful. Not advocating hard times, per se, but a little harsh weather in these parts can bring out the best in people, and may jump start a feeling of "community" that will be so badly needed in the times that will come.
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I have that same feeling about this winter.....
I am still fuming about yesterday and the stupidity of many of the people in this "land of waste". I went with a friend who didn't have a pickup truck, she had been told she could pick up some old tile that had been dumped. Well when we got there I found out these rich people had taken out a 600 square foot outdoor patio, beautiful expensive tile, not even grouted on the back just silicone around the edges, and get this: They dumped it in the arroyo! Then they pushed dirt over it with a tractor! I spent an hour or so digging out tile after tile, many completely unbroken. All these stupid people would have had to do was place one phone call and people would have come and picked up the tile and it could have done a whole living area for a Habitat for Humanity home. The "nice" lady who let me dig out the tile went back to her new tiled patio and climbed in the hot tub so she wouldn't have to watch anyone actually get their hands dirty.
 
We thankfully, have some wonderful neighbors who had their standing timber logged this year. They asked my husband if he would clean up their yard after the loggers had trashed it. In return, we are allowed to take all of the tree tops we want for firewood.

On top of that, the windstorm that Ike blew up into our area (we are in Ohio) dropped several trees in the woods right across the street from us. Um actually, it mowed a path right down the middle! My parents own the woods and told us to help ourselves to all of the trees that were knocked down. :) One of which is a gigantic oak! My husband said in my parents woods alone we are getting equivalant of $500 worth of wood!

So hubby has been working all summer getting our wood from out of those wooded areas, and he cuts, chops, the kids and I stack!
 
Hi Quail
that is great you have such a good supply of wood available to you! you sure need alot cause it seems ya go thru wood like crazy in wintertime..LOL..

Do you heat solely with wood or is it a backup type situation?
 
We heat mainly with wood. We have a small wall heater that runs on a 100 pound propane tank, but we only use that on the coldest of nights and only when we go to bed.

We have a huge cast iron woodburner. It was my FIL's and he passed it down to us.

Can't afford to heat with propane! Those 500 tanks cost nearly $1000 to fill, and we could run through a 500 tank in a month!!
 
We got the cheap wood! It took us 3 loads with a 4X8 trailer to haul home one $20 bundle. That bundle created a very tall and long stack of wood. So we got another!

My garage is half full of wood now. You don't know how good that feels. This time last year we had no money as I was out of work, we had no wood and no source for getting any. We scrounged wood here and there all winter, and barely got by. If it hadn't been for the firewood ministry at our church we would have had no firewood at all. We scrounged around on the leftovers from a few years ago that everyone said wouldn't burn, but it did. We also picked up all the scraps that noone else wanted and burned those. We got by, but just barely. So, this feels awfully good. :)
 
Quail, so that firewood is very important to you...I understand why now.

At least with the propane backup you have control to warm up the coldest nights. I just put in a 250 gallon propane tank to run my new propane stove (I got it for winter emergencies and not be stranded) and yes, it cost alot. Propane was $3.14 a gallon and I will use it sparingly.

Curious, one big cast iron stove? Is it in the main room and how do you keep bedrooms warm enough? Just curious when I hear someone heats with wood only?? thanks for enlightening me..LOL
 
wow beekissed...so glad you got thru that hard and scary time and I know what you mean exactly when you say you smile when you see a garage full of wood. it is no laughing matter when that winter gets cold and the family needs heat. So that load of wood means so much more! Glad you are stocked now!!!!
 
Farmer Chick said: Curious, one big cast iron stove? Is it in the main room and how do you keep bedrooms warm enough? Just curious when I hear someone heats with wood only?? thanks for enlightening me..LOL
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I don't know about lots of folks but I have a smaller, cast iron stove that heats about the whole house. The only place that doesn't stay reasonably warm in the coldest times, is the laundry room in the very back of the house, the farthest from the stove. Even then, I can turn on the baseboard heater to about 60 and it keeps it warm enough.

Heat travels up, amazingly so, so that I have to keep my bedroom window open all winter long to even sleep! And that's with a small stove! I can't imagine the bigger stoves and how much more heat they put out. Sometimes we have to open the door in the living room to stand the heat generated. That's why I always wanted a soapstone stove, as they are supposed to have a more regular heating pattern.
 
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