Ever since we started our homestead we are only cooking on wood stove. I live in mountain area that has olive groves as far as the eye can see and wildfires are pretty common. I also realized that when people prune their trees they just leave the branches behind only taking very thick woods and it is a fire hazard at summer. Therefor I believe cleaning our groves and forests floor is very important. Only by collecting this leftovers we can cook and even heat up our bath water. So how many of you do that? If not what are you doing instead?
by Kydyran
23 Comments
I do 99% of my space heating with wood, and we see -30 C. There’s a comfort in seeing a winter’s worth of firewood stacked up and ready to go. I could cook with that heat as well, if the need arises.
We got tbe furnace basically in case of emergencies lol, most of the heat comes from the wood stove
We heat solely with wood. One of our stoves is a Vermont Bunbaker. The oven part is relatively small but you can bake in it. We have the soapstone veneer so the top isn’t really conducive to cooking on, but could be removed if necessary. We have cooked on the top of our Waterford Erin and Leprechaun before also, but don’t do it regularly as usually our heating season is fairly short here (S. GA).
But yeah, everyone that homesteads should have a wood stove!
Literally all of us in r/woodstoving!
hey, exactly the same here 🙂 we are also in the middle of olive groves, as is our own land. it was 30 years abandoned, so it became half a forest, also the olive branches are many meters too tall so there is plenty of wood, same about the wildfire situation, some cleared areas provide a little help to slow down fires.
in the summer though we cook with electronic hotplates, the sun provides plenty solar energy and it gets a little less hot in the cabin 😅
I grew up with a wood stove and there is nothing like the warmth of that in the winter. I live in town now and use electric heat (space heaters at the moment, central heat is out) but I would love to have a wood stove insert for our fireplace. I can’t use the fireplace to burn wood now because one of the people in the house has COPD and can’t handle any smoke at all.
We heat one end of our home with our oil-fuelled Aga (like an old fashioned cast iron range cooker) and the other with a wood stove. We’re not on mains gas and prefer the heat from the stove over the radiators so we don’t use them.
PNW here, I love our wood stove. Bringing in split cedar from the rain is one of my all time favorite smells, and it keeps the whole house toasty.
Me
December has been a month of -40c and below. I mostly heat with wood but have a propane boiler as well. My propane boiler stops working neat -35 to -40 but my wood fireplace keeps the house comfortable.
Pennsylvania: wood is cheap and often free if you have a trailer and chainsaw
House and hunting cabin both heated with wood. I used to cook on the wood stove in the hunting cabin, or over an open fire outside, but eventually got a gas stove. A wood fire during the summer can be a bit oppressive.
I use my woodstove to heat my house. I can cook on my woodstove, and It has a little oven, so I can bake in it, too. However, I don’t cook on it or bake in it very often. I cook and bake with propane most of the time.
We had a wood stove for 30+ years. I switched to a pellet stove about a decade ago.
I wish i could, and have a steady supply of wood.
Yup and won’t look back.our woodstove during a 7 day power outage last winter kept us toasty and fed. Not mention its much cheaper to heat our Canadian home.
We use about 2.5 bushcord a winter. Which if buying cut and splits is about $500-600. We were paying $200 every 21 days for propane the one year we didn’t have a woodstove. 🤑🤑
This year our wood was free because of the ice storm that knocked power for 7 days. Tons of trees came down or had to be knocked down around our 1 acre property. Enough to fill the woodshed and then some.
Love our woodstove. There’s really nothing like it, especially when it’s too cold for propane.
Do you also cook on a wood stove in summer? My house would become unbearably hot.
We have a wood stove to heat our home. We’re in the country (SE Ohio) and 100% electric house, so in the winters, our goal is to not ever turn our heat pump on.
I heat my place with wood here in northern PA. Endless free wood. Propane gas is for my stove and whole-house generator.
Wood stoves are the best… Always reminds me of spending winter holidays with my grandparents in the countryside as a child!
We are 95% wood heat. We have an outdoor wood boiler and it was such a great addition to the house. We do go through a shit ton of wood (10-15 cords a year) but it’s so worth it. Helps that we have enough forested area to gather wood ourself for no additional cost. They’re not cheap but I highly suggest outdoor wood boilers. I think more people should have them.
I seriously believe its best to have alternatives for a number of reasons, the largest reason: “things change”. As much as I love wood, I’ve had times I’ve thrown my back out… and couldn’t lift anything for months, same with getting sick, same with situation where I was unprepared / didn’t get enough wood in before a 2 week long unusually bad weather situation that literally buried the pile and path to pile, in snow. Being able to flip a switch and still be warm?… yeah…. can’t convince me I don’t need backup options because life just throws too much at ya.