Monday, January 5, 2009

Warm!

We had lots of things planned for this weekend, but shelved everything when we found out our wood stove was in. Although it's Texas, and not that cold compared to most of the rest of the country, we have had quite a few miserably cold, foggy breath days in the house. We were quite excited to have heat in the house, so naturally it was 80 degrees the day we picked it up. We drove to the store in t-shirts, with the air conditioning running in the truck.

We discovered that even in winter, it's difficult to find stovepipe and chimney pieces in Texas. We found everything we needed, but only after visiting several stores and buying an expensive five-piece kit from which we only needed two pieces. Why these things aren't sold separately I'll never know.

We spent the following day installing it, which went fairly smoothly since part of the chimney was already in place. By mid-afternoon the stove was burning, and just in time too, since a cold front came through and we're now looking at a couple of days of freezing rain. The warmth feels downright luxurious now. I'm already amazed at how well it works. Even though the stove is on the opposite end of the house, I got up this morning and the kitchen was even warm! Finally, it feels fairly civilized in here. Working at my desk without a hat and coat on is quite a novelty. The dogs seem to like it too, they're having trouble getting out of bed today. :)

6 comments:

  1. Oh lovely, lovely stove!

    If you haven't already, get a kettle or pan full of water, fill it up, and on top of the stove. Wood heat tends to dry out the air and you'll be more comfortable with a DIY humidifier in the house.

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  2. Hi Tara,
    That's so cool! How did you go about choosing that particular stove? Was it anything particular about it? I'd love to hear how it works out for you - maintenance and upkeep, etc.
    How's the menagerie?
    Happy (belated) holidays and new year!

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  3. Lewru- I put up a post to answer your question. The menagerie is great, and surprise, surprise - the two ducks that took to the pond came back to the house today. The four of them had an amusing little duck reunion - they were out in the yard just yaking up a storm!

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  4. Ooh, I'm jealous! You've got yours going. Ours is still out in the garage...

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  5. Beautiful. We're also looking into stoves, as we save up for it. Here in central New England it gets cooold... We have oil heating but I don't like to rely on it exclusively. My question was: did you install it yourself? If not, what was the cost of the installation? And if so, does installing it yourself require special skills?

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