Blizzards and useless chimneys

There are other ways to get fuel for a wood burner. Scrap from construction sites can be had for nothing. As can pallets which are often good oak or other hard wood. But it all requires some initiative and some sweat equity and that’s probably why most don’t have a plan B for heat even if they have a chimney.

I remember going camping with some high school friends one summer. All intelligent and mostly from the farm/country lifestyle background. But none of them could build a fire without lighter fluid or diesel fuel. I was appalled!

 

Basically I'm asking why people don't use them in power cuts. As in folks who are all electric, and have an actual fireplace in the house.

 

As a teenager we burned mostly pine sawmill slab wood. Before that, split pine and cottonwood. I wouldn’t burn treated lumber but straight up pine lumber scrap would be great—except for holding a fire overnight.

I need to experiment with the kerosene heater we bought on an auction a while back. I’ve never used one but thought it would be a good backup source of heat in an emergency. They smoke bad at startup and when extinguished, right? What do you add to reduce smoke?

Yes, one big downside to heating with wood is the mess. But you learn how to minimize that with practice.

 

100%. You just need to hunt around for free firewood. We get ours from arborists, from refuse centres (who pick through the timber for old oregon frames and hardwoods), from our own trees, and from friends and neighbours with deadfall. This can be done just as easily in the suburbs, though I'm not sure how much tree cover most American suburbs have. Our suburbs have a LOT of trees, so there is always tree lopping happening, and loppers happy to give the material to a neighbour rather than have to shred it or dispose of it at a cost.

LOL .. farm kids not being able to light a fire!

 

use what wood burning stoves it would probably be because they don't own them they take up a considerable amount of space and would be mostly useless for decades and the one time you need it you probably not going to be able to find firewood.

A fireplace doesn't really warm up a house and actually causes it to get cooler what you would really need is wood burning stove. And that's a huge piece of equipment that takes up part of your house that you will never use or you might get a few hours of use out of it every 12 years or so but only if you store firewood.

Why people don't do this is because it's not the 1800s

 

Pine is okay if it's VERY well seasoned .. as in many years since cut.

You had problems with your fireplace because it was probably OPEN. Those will work okay if you have one in every room and can therefore bring the house up to a critical mass, but a sole open fire doesn't do much to keep a house warm. To get the full benefit of a wood burner, and have it heat the whole house, it has to be sealed.

 

Poly ... I'm repeating myself!

a) I'm only talking about people who have a wood burning fireplace or stove in the house.

b) Yes .. as I keep saying, open fires are inefficient and don't provide the radiant heat necessary. A sealed fire will warm the entire house better than anything else, and it will keep warming it many hours after the last log has burned. Mine is still smouldering in the mornings, and I put the last log on before 9pm at night. That thing is still putting out warmth after close to 12 hours. Turn off your electric or gas heat and see how long you stay warm!

 

I always put a hardwood log on for overnight .. usually about bread loaf size. Pine doesn't cut it for low slow burn, but it's great for getting started!

My grandparents swore by their kerosene heater. I can still remember the smell ... aircraft

 

Dude, this isn't about you and your warm fireless house and climate.

It's specifically about those living in these 'blizzard' zones, who have houses with fireplaces. As in real fireplaces (as most of those in the pic would be, given the age of the houses). I'm asking why they don't use them in such cold conditions. Even if they still have power/gas, the fire would add heat AND improve conditions - since it prevents the moisture build-up of a sealed house in cold weather.

It just seems really odd to me. Ocassional use of a fireplace is a thing ... even in much less brutal climates!

 

dude I didn't say it was.

People don't use wood burning stoves because they don't have them. They don't need them.

again fireplaces in your house make your house colder. You have to open the chimney in the front of the fireplaces open you create hot air it rises out of the chimney.

It's really simple physics it's called convection

so you don't mean fireplaces you mean wood burning stoves that you might call them fireplaces in Australia but we call them wood burning stoves.

People generally don't have those because it's not the 1800s. We have centralized air and a furnace that generates heat

primary reason they don't have them it's not a common thing to find in a house in the US if they bought the house and it had one in there they probably had it removed because they're centralized air now.

It's kind of the reason why they don't use a horse and buggy to get around they use a car because it's more efficient.

agreed but most people don't have wood burning stoves

A fireplace does not keep your homework it makes it colder because you have convection as you heat up air it blows out of the chimney from inside the house because that's where the fire is if it doesn't go out of the chimney and goes into the house people are going to suffocate and die.

 

Okay, last one. This is a slow combustion FIREPLACE. It works the same was as a wood stove:



These do not suck warm air from the room, because they're SEALED. They radiate heat, and keep radiating long after the last log has burned. That's because they contain extremely efficient thermal masses in the form of 'fire bricks', plus the heavy cast iron carcass.

And finally .. this thread is ONLY about homes which have actual fireplaces.

 

I don't live in Australia in my country that's called a wood burning stove. Just like I measure things in inches in feet and I call semi semis and not Lorrys. That stupid game where idiots kick around a black and white ball it's called soccer not football.



People generally don't have those.

most people don't have wood burning stoves in their houses here and those houses aren't even built for those.

They have central heat that uses a furnace incredibly more efficient than any wood burning stove.

yeah but if you don't have one you can't do that. Most houses built after a certain period in the US have centralized heat with a furnace it works leaps and bounds more efficiently and better than this.

That's why I keep pointing out it's not the 1800s and people don't drive model teaser horse and buggy anymore either

I get how they work I understand they work I've been in one house in my entire life and that was when I lived in Wyoming that had one and every other house that I was in in Wyoming which might as well be called Neptune didn't have one because they're inefficient because they had central heat. That's way way more efficient.

Just because of home has a fireplace doesn't mean it's a wood burning stove.

When you see those chimneys they're not connected to that stove you have in your picture that you call the fireplace.

They're connected to this little alcove that's just open.

I've lived in the US my entire life and I've only ever seen one home with a wood burning stove in it.

 

We have 61 solar panels and two batteries for darkness. We can run all our lights, all our appliances, heat, a jacuzzi and everything else without sacrificing any functions at all.

 

I don't think so. The house I now live in was built in 1995, the fireplace is decorative with a metal tab above that which states natural gas only. The house I lived prior to this had a real fireplace and I did burn wood in it. But it was built around 1965. Brick chimney, everything. This house I live in now has a vinyl chimney above the roof with a tin pipe going up it to vent the gas fumes. Kind of like the gas hot water heater.

 

Because Fireplaces require maintenance and upkeep while the 95 to 99% of the residents will either never use the fireplace not even once and a Blizzard of this capacity only happens once every 10 to 20 years if not longer depending on the area lived in. Thus, people don't think of the need after 10 to 20 years until it actually happens. Just like Hurricanes in Florida where I live.

Now, in Wyoming where I lived for a few years in a small town surrounded by Mountains, we used Fireplaces quite often even though we rarely if ever had blizzards.

 

Just get one of these

Much cheaper and cleaner than using a chimney and can be wheeled out in emergencies. And the heat was good too - used every morning when I was growing up

 

Great! How many rooms will it take care of once the power goes out?

 

They are run on gas cylinders which last a long time and provide a good source of heat, If it's a life and death emergency why are you heating the whole house up? You can also take it to any room you want unlike a chimney

 

Sounds cool. I am sure there are tens of millions of those ready for mass marketing now and everyone in this inflated market has the money to go out and buy one!

 

One of those costs less than it would cost to maintain a chimney and there is no mess

 

I know what companies to invest in now! Lol!

 

In our other house we put in a wood heater and run the pipes up the chimney. For fuel we bought firewood, cut firewood, and cut up old pallets. If I were to use wood heat today it would be all pallet wood for fuel. Other than hauling and electricity to cut them up they are free. It is a good idea to clean out the nails often. They can be saved in five gallon buckets and recycled.