Wood Burning Stoves - An Introduction
Wood burning stoves have several unique advantages as a primary method of heating your home.
They aren't perfect for every situation, but modern stoves are made of solid metal, extremely efficient, and they put out a tremendous amount of heat.
For some people they are the most energy-efficient method of heating available.
Wood stoves are designed so that you can easily control the amount of air that gets to your wood.
This allows you to have some control over how hot the wood burns, and how quickly it burns.
When you initially light your wood, it's important to get your chimney or flu heated so that it will properly draw smoke, and during that process you will want to have your air control wide open.
Most of the time you will want to keep it at a lower level.
Leaving it fully open all the time can risk damaging your stove, and it causes too much of your heat to rise through the flu or chimney.
One of the main advantages of burning wood is the money you can save.
In some places, wood can be cheaper than gas, especially with the chronic instability and wild rises in gas prices.
This can vary some depending on where you live, but it's one of the first things to look at when determining if a wood stove is right for you.
It's very possible that you could be wasting money by using gas heat in your home, and sometimes the differences in price can be startling.
Your house design can be a factor to consider when determining whether or not you would want to heat with wood.
Open designs work much better, because they allow heat from a central source to be easily transferred to other parts of the home.
If your house is more separated, it can be hard to heat the whole thing with wood alone, but in some cases you can still save money by using wood to heat the main part of your house, and supplementing in other rooms with electric heat when needed.
They aren't perfect for every situation, but modern stoves are made of solid metal, extremely efficient, and they put out a tremendous amount of heat.
For some people they are the most energy-efficient method of heating available.
Wood stoves are designed so that you can easily control the amount of air that gets to your wood.
This allows you to have some control over how hot the wood burns, and how quickly it burns.
When you initially light your wood, it's important to get your chimney or flu heated so that it will properly draw smoke, and during that process you will want to have your air control wide open.
Most of the time you will want to keep it at a lower level.
Leaving it fully open all the time can risk damaging your stove, and it causes too much of your heat to rise through the flu or chimney.
One of the main advantages of burning wood is the money you can save.
In some places, wood can be cheaper than gas, especially with the chronic instability and wild rises in gas prices.
This can vary some depending on where you live, but it's one of the first things to look at when determining if a wood stove is right for you.
It's very possible that you could be wasting money by using gas heat in your home, and sometimes the differences in price can be startling.
Your house design can be a factor to consider when determining whether or not you would want to heat with wood.
Open designs work much better, because they allow heat from a central source to be easily transferred to other parts of the home.
If your house is more separated, it can be hard to heat the whole thing with wood alone, but in some cases you can still save money by using wood to heat the main part of your house, and supplementing in other rooms with electric heat when needed.
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