Heating with wood

We heated with wood back in the 70's while living in Illinois. The little box stove we used was one my father and I salvaged from a junk pile on a neighbor's property. It might not have been very efficient but we managed to keep from freezing and we saved a bunch of money not having to buy fuel oil or propane.

Wood is readily available here in the area of Kentucky in which we live so we opted to purchase a wood burning heating stove. We were not aware of the changes that had taken place in the way stoves were being made, mostly because of government requirements for efficiency. The stove we purchased was a very nice looking and solidly built unit but we soon found that it had some design problems. One thing we didn't think about or know enough about when we bought the stove was the desirability of an ash pan. To remove ashes while keeping a fire going required one to take out a lot of good, hot coals. There was also a tremendous amount of ash that got into the air and settled on everything--curtains, the table, etc. One thing that we had been able to do with our old box stove was to do some minor cooking, i.e. a pot of beans, etc. The way in which the stove we purchased was made no cooking could be done on it.

We liked the heat from wood, the lack of high heating bills, etc. We decided this past summer to get another wood burning stove but one that would not only heat our home but would let us do some cooking and one which had an ash pan. Darryl and Anne had bought a stove a couple of years ago that they were very happy with and with which we were quite familiar. So, we chose to buy a stove of the same kind. We hadn't been aware until we were preparing to order our stove that Danny had also decided to make the same move we were making.

To make a long story short Danny and I were able to drive to the Kentucky factory of the company that makes the stoves we bought. Although the units we obtained are made in their Canadian plant they stocked several at their factory about 80 miles away.

The stove we purchased is the Bakers Choice. It does a very great job of heating our home and we are doing quite a bit of our cooking on it. That saves a great deal of electricity. For tonight's supper I cooked small pieces of venison heart and then made milk gravy on the top of the stove while Connie baked biscuits in the oven.

Below is a photo of the stove taken from an internet site.

Garry