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Heating With Wood All Winter: Gear That Actually Helps
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items I heated with nothing but wood for years in Canada: a homemade barrel stove in a round house, then a Pioneer Princess cookstove in a log home, about 10 cords a winter that I felled and split myself. This is the gear that makes that work easier and sa...
Ten cords a winter teaches you what a good splitting axe is worth. The long handle and wedge-shaped head do more of the work, and it's lighter to swing all afternoon than a heavy maul.
Fiskars X27 Splitting Axe
Splitting kindling with a hatchet is how people lose fingers. Stand the stick on the blade and tap it down with a hammer or a chunk of wood, and your hands stay well clear.
Kindling Cracker King XL Kindling Splitter
If you cut your own wood, a dull chain wastes more time and gas than anything. A file kit in the truck lets you touch up the teeth right where you're cutting instead of fighting the saw all day.
Oregon Chainsaw Field Sharpening Kit
Wet wood is where creosote comes from. Split a piece, push the pins into the fresh face and only burn what reads dry. It settles the argument about whether last year's pile is ready.
General Tools MMD4E Firewood Moisture Meter
Hauling wood in every few hours gets old, and so does the bark all over the floor. A waxed canvas carrier holds a good armload and keeps the mess in the bag.
INNO STAGE Waxed Canvas Firewood Carrier
A day or two of wood inside, off the floor and stacked neat, with the poker and shovel right there. I always kept the main supply in a bin about six feet from the stove; this is for the next few loads.
Indoor Firewood Rack with Tools
Resin-rich pine that catches with one match and burns hot long enough to get split wood going on a cold morning. Nothing but wood, so no chemical smell in the house or on the cooktop.
Billy Buckskin Fatwood Fire Starter Sticks
The simplest way to know whether you're burning too cold (creosote) or too hot (a warped stove). It sits on the stovetop with a magnet, and you learn your stove's sweet spot fast.
Midwest Hearth Magnetic Stove Top Thermometer
Runs on the stove's own heat, no plug and no batteries. It pushes warm air off the top of the stove and out into the room instead of letting it pool at the ceiling.
Heat-Powered Wood Stove Fan
Long leather gloves for reloading a hot firebox, lifting a pot off the stovetop or shifting a log that rolled. Cheap insurance for your forearms.
RAPICCA Long Leather Fireplace Gloves
Ashes can hide live coals for days. A metal bucket with a tight lid, set outside on bare ground or concrete, is the safe way to empty the stove. Never a cardboard box, never against the house.
Pure Garden Metal Ash Bucket with Lid and Shovel
I cleaned the creosote out every spring without fail. Flexible rods and a spinning brush let you do the job from below with a drill instead of climbing on the roof.
Sealegend 30 ft Rotary Chimney Sweep Kit
Wood heat dries the air out fast: cracked hands, static shocks, a scratchy throat by February. A cast iron steamer on the stovetop puts moisture back, and it looks good doing it.
Cast Iron Wood Stove Steamer (Humidifier)
If the stove is hot all day anyway, cook on it. I used to put a roaster in the stove's oven before going to town and come home to supper. A heavy Dutch oven does the same job right on the stovetop.
Lodge 5 Quart Cast Iron Dutch Oven
Every house with a wood stove needs one, ideally near where you sleep. Battery powered, so it keeps watching when a storm knocks the power out, which is exactly when the stove is working hardest.
Kidde Battery Carbon Monoxide Alarm
In all my years heating with wood I never had a close call, and part of that is being ready for one. Keep an extinguisher near the stove but not behind it, where you can grab it on your way toward the fire.
Kidde Home Fire Extinguisher (1-A:10-B:C)
Hard to start a fire in the stove without one of these. The long metal wand keeps your hand back from the firebox, and with the 2-pack there's always a spare by the woodpile.
BIC Multi-Purpose Long Lighter, 2-Pack