Heating your homestead

Megan using the wood splitter!

We love our wood burning stove.. here's why
Free heat!!! We heat our house in the winter with free firewood. People that come to our house have asked us about our wood stove and how it works. Let me be clear, Megan and I are not doomsday people. We just choose a simple more thrifty way of living.  We heat our house for free; it just takes a little searching, time and work. No kidding, with two days of work Megan and I can put back enough firewood to heat our house and one of our greenhouses for an entire winter.  We live about 30 minutes east of Nashville so wood is plentiful, especially after a storm comes through. I can go on craigslist any giving time, click on the “free” section and find firewood. We can actually be fairly selective about it since it’s so abundant. Sometimes we will find it already cut into perfect lengths for splitting, which saves my chainsaw.

I call the person that posted to craigslist and ask these qualifying questions.

1. Do you know what type of wood it is?

• Hickory (good hardwood)
• Bodock or hedge apple (good hardwood)
• Cherry (good hardwood that doesn’t smoke too much)
• Hackberry (good wood)
• Sweetgum (not great, but you can burn it)
• Cedar (burns hot and fast, great for starting fires
• Pine (Soft wood)
• Bradford Pear (avoid)

2. How long has the wood been sitting?
    If it been sitting for more than 3 months uncovered then it has probably started to rot.
3. Is the wood in a location that is easily accessible?

Silver pipe is used for heat and black pipe goes through
wall and pushes smoke outside

We usually spend one day loading then unloading when we get back to the farm. The next day we rent a wood splitter for the day which usually cost about $80. Not bad in my opinion. Get ready for a workout on splitting day. We split, and then stack in one day.  We make it family affair and have fun working together.  Remember firewood needs to season before you burn it. We let ours sit for about 1 year before we burn it. Always keep the firewood covered.
Our house has central heat/air. Our wood stove is in our basement, we designed it this way because heat rises. However, we took it a step further and built a small catchment box around the wood stove that traps heat. We bought metal pipe they use for ductwork and tied it into our return line on our central heat/air unit from the wood stove. We simply cut a 12 inch by 12 opening, large enough to place a filter when the heat draws off the woodstove. When we turn the unit to fan mode it pulls the warm air from the catchment box and distributes it evenly through our house using the vents your regular heat/air comes out. After winter is over we just place a cap over the pipe that feeds into the return and it shuts this off allowing your regular airflow to continue when you turn the air condition back on.
You can take it a step further if you want to invest in a thermoelectric generator also called a seebeck generator which converts heat directly into electrical energy. You can buy these to go on your wood stove.  Happy homesteading!

Jason Smith
Homesteader and Market Gardener
Email: jason@smithfamilyfarmtn.com
YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCH_6SzCMTTkjND
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Website: www.smithfamilyfarmtn.com