Yeah, I did the firewood cutting permit in Westmoreland Co.for 3 yrs. Last two with a baby (single parent) in tow. Harvested, hauled, split, stacked and fed the wood burner. I do miss it and want to get back to more of a homestead at some point, if possible.
For a while, we used a cool invention to warm our entire two-story house, using very little wood.
We ordered a barrel stove kit in the mail, and used two empty oil barrels, which we put in the basement, soldered very short legs to them, installed a door in one barrel, anchored one above the other, connected by a short pipe, so that the hot air rose into the second barrel, heated it, then went up the flu pipe.
The barrel stove heated the basement and floor above it. We could put in a log section the length of the barrel and it would burn slowly for almost 24 hours, burning slowly down to ash with little smoke, and sparing us a lot of wood chopping.
It kept the entire house so warm, we'd often have to open a few windows to cool things down a bit.
We lived on a wooded farm, so acquiring windfall wood was no problem.
Love wood heat was raised with it since I was a kid wanted to put a wood stove in my Small House but at 512 square feet there just wasn't enough room
@Sheannutt I've heard that but I didn't want to give up space inside my little house so I'm actually in the process of enclosing the back porch and I'm thinking about putting it back there
Yes. You have to respect wood heat and wood stoves. They take a bit of know how. Wood heat is a hot heat and my grandparents had it. From time to time my parents did also as I was growing up. About 35 years ago I learned that a wood stove with fans properly placed around in the house would allow you to heat that house with just the one wood stove.