Why We Love Woodstoves

Enlarge Image Image Gallery A woodstove can be the primary heat source in a house or provide extra warmth in common gathering areas. RICK WETHERBEE

Cost and Efficiency

Our Pacific Energy woodstove keeps our 2,500-square-foot home comfortable on the coldest days. With 35 acres, much of it in hardwood forest, we have abundant free fuel so long as we have the personal energy and strength to harvest, split and stack it.

Jane and Jim Foster
West Fork, Arkansas

The addition of a Drolet wood burning stove (see Image Gallery) is undoubtedly the most appreciated do-it-yourself project we have accomplished. Aside from the beauty and rustic flair it has given our home, it is truly functional and extremely cost effective. The stove easily heats our 2,000-square-foot home. The warmth we achieve is incredible — easily getting our home to T-shirt warm in a matter of minutes.

Just yesterday we received our electric bill. Compared to this month last year when we were using a heat pump, our electric use for the month decreased by 1,000 kWh. Using the woodstove is saving us $130 per month during the heating season.

Lyn Ankelman
Thorsby, Alabama

We chose to heat with wood for two very simple reasons: First, we have our own woodlot, and second, we didn’t want to pay a heating bill.

We found a neat perpetual motion stove fan, called the Free Breeze, to move the heat throughout the house. It operates with a Stirling engine, on the principle of hot and cold air exchanges. There is no energy source other than the heat from the stove to make it work.

Janice Bever
Fultonville, New York

To order a Free Breeze fan, go here or call (519) 638-5711. — Mother

Renewable Resource

I love to cut wood. We use an Ashley airtight woodstove built in the 1950s. I love the satisfying feeling I get by heating my home with a local, homegrown renewable resource.

Todd Quatier
Mission Hill, South Dakota

Originally I appreciated the woodstove because it gave me security in case of power failure. I was alone in the country with two small children, yet I knew we would be warm no matter how ferocious of a blizzard hit.

It also makes logical sense to me to selectively use the trees growing on our land to warm ourselves, rather than using oil drilled up in some far-off region of the world.

Sue Shipley
Morell, Prince Edward Island

A Wood-heated Life