Heating your home with wood is one of the oldest methods of heating. For the past 10 years, I have only been using wood to heat my homes. Five years ago, I moved into the mountains of West Virginia. In the 10 years I have been heating with wood, I have used five different wood stoves ranging from a 100-year-old stove to the most modern. With all of them being different styles of stoves, there is one important thing with all of them. That would be knowing where the air comes into your stove so that you are able to light and maintain a fire that burns evenly.
The Air Intake of Your Wood Stove
Most of the stoves I have had experience with have had an air intake directly on the door making it important for kindling to be stacked toward the front, catching the flames from the inward flow. My current stove has an air intake from below so it is best to stack the kindling directly under my logs allowing the air to push the flames upward. Depending how you stack the firewood greatly affects the burn rate. Keeping the embers close to the airflow with the logs spaced about an inch apart makes for a hot burning, shorter fire. This type of fire is great for heating the stovetop for cooking.
Keeping the embers pushed back from the air intake and stacking the logs closer together can lead to a cooler burning, longer lasting fire. This type of fire is great for heating the home for longer periods of time, like overnight, without having to get up in the middle of the night to feed the fire. This would also be a great type of fire to maintain a good temperature in the oven portion of the stove for baking or roasting.
How to Maximize Your Heat
The fire in the wood stove is not what directly heats your home. It’s the heat coming off the wood stove that actually heats the house. The more metal or masonry your wood stove has the longer it takes the fire to heat it. That heat is then slowly released over time as the stove cools and heats the air in the home. This area collecting and releasing heat is called thermal mass. You can add thermal mass by putting a large kettle of water on top of the stove (or any dense non-flammable objects nearby). These objects will absorb heat and slowly release it, increasing the air temperature. The stove heats the air and objects around it which causes the air in the house to increase temperature. I can light a fire in the stove for one hour but not notice a difference in air temperature until the stove is hot enough to heat the air around it. The stove will then continue to heat the home for several hours after the fire has gone out.
When I used a lightweight camping stove, it would immediately warm the living space, but as soon as the fire went out, there was a noticeable drop in room temperature. This meant I had to constantly maintain and feed the fire to keep the stove warming. With the La Nordica cook stove, I am able to heat my home over a longer period of time without having to continually feed wood into the fire.
I hope this helps you choose the right wood stove for your home or better use the one you currently have.
