[Greenbuilding] one more pleasure of heating with wood

Reuben Deumling 9watts at gmail.com
Thu Dec 30 19:43:49 CST 2010


We've had lots of fun on this list lately enumerating these pleasures, but
one that hasn't been mentioned occurred to me this week.
I've been helping several folks upgrade their furnaces lately--natural gas
furnaces, heat pumps, etc. Anyway, in the course of these upgrades, I've
realized one must trust the experts (of which I am not one) to assess the
value of upgrading from, say, one 1970s vintage heatpump to another, new,
'high efficiency" heatpump. Not for me, these kinds of upgrades. Lots of
money and the damn thing still runs on fossil fuels. But back to the matter
at hand: a wood stove lasts. This may be my favorite characteristic at least
of well made European ones (I am not familiar with other styles). There
isn't really anything or at least not much of anything to wear out--and they
have nice lines that don't go out of fashion. I've now replaced some cast
iron baffles and heat shields in several Morso stoves, and recemented some
of the seams, but other than that, there's not much to be done. The stove
I'm most familiar with my parents bought new in 1981. It has been heating
their houses for thirty winters straight. I don't see why it wouldn't do
another 30 or even 60.
In this field, where we breathlessly follow the newest most efficient
wizzle-beep, it is nice every now and then to stop and appreciate the stuff
that lasts, that was always good, that we aren't likely to improve on any
time soon.

Reuben Deumling
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