The Wood Stove: The Heart of Your Home

in Home Cooking

If you have the notion that you'd love a woodstove in your home or in your kitchen, there's a few things I want to share with you.

Yes, it is wonderful to get off the grid, even if by just a little. Home heating and home cooking eats up a lot of electricity every month, so you'll be saving money by switching over to a wood stove. Likely that was your first thought anyway.

Next you've probably thought of the presence a wood stove evokes. That back to basics, country living, quality of life, feeling. People gathered around the wood stove, the smell of fresh baked bread. A house that says "quality matters", it's no longer a question of rushing and 'good enough'. It's a statement of forethought and love.

That's good, because if you're going to be using your woodstove for cooking, you'll find that meals take a little longer than if you were cooking with an electric or gas range. Especially if you're starting from a cold stove where there hasn't been a fire burning all day long.

The Elements of A Wood Stove

All wood stoves operate the same way, although there are some peculiarities among the different brands. You'll find in each a firebox and dampers.

The firebox is most often found in left corner of a woodstove and is loaded up first with news print or plain paper, then small bits of wood (cedar if you have some), and then larger pieces of wood. Remember to leave air space for circulation within the fire box. It is much more efficient to keep a small fire burning than a smoldering or raging fire.

The dampers of your woodstove could be anywhere, but they're easy to spot. There should be a chimney damper (not necessarily on the chimney) that moves the smoke out of the woodstove and into the chimney. The other damper is your oven damper (used to let the warm air into the oven portion of your stove. You really need to consult your owner's manual if you have one, and experiment to find the right positions.

You'll get a feel for it after you've lived with a wood cook stove long enough - how far open the dampers are for the type and maturity of each fire will eventually come naturally to you - I promise!

Let's Get Cooking on the Wood Stove!

You get to cook on the entire top surface of your woodstove. You'll get a feel for this as well, moving your pots and pans around to the hotspots as you need it.

Plus, of course, cooking in the oven part of your stove. Some have temperature gauges (even the old ones), but again, you will get a feel for this. And you can always pick up an oven thermometer for a few dollars so you don't end up with too many ruined meals before you get used to cooking this way.

Recent Woodstove News

All wood stoves (except cookstoves, furnaces and fireplaces) purchased in the United States must now comply with a EPA Phase II Wood Stove Emissions Regulation. This regulated Federal standard requires that every new wood burning stove be tested and passed for low particulate emission.

The good news is that the newest, high efficiency, EPA Approved, wood stoves are exempt from any municipal or city level burn bans that local air quality authorities may impose during episodes of high airborne pollution.

However, different states, provinces and municipalities have their own sets of restrictions and regulations. Please check with your local authority on this matter. For instance, some states have adopted even further standards regarding woodstoves and cook stoves.

• Washington, for instance, requires that all wood stoves in new homes draw combustion air into the firebox from outside the house.
• In Ontario, Canada similar measures are being enforced - and not just for new homes, but any new wood burning furnaces as well!

Why is this?

Well having a fresh-air return through cook stoves, fireplaces and woodstoves eliminates possible health problems from breathing oxygen-poor air during Winter months when families spend far more time indoors and the windows are definitely closed. Add the closed window and re-circulated air problem to the fact that our homes are now so wonderfully insulated - compared to drafty, older, days-gone-by homes - that fresh air has little chance of sneaking into our houses. Hence the need for our heating air return to come from outdoors.

Is Your Woodstove Smoking?

If a lot of black smoke is coming out your chimney it's a sure sign you're burning something toxic in the woodstove.

If a lot of light colored smoke is coming out of your chimney, your fire isn't burning efficiently (adjust your air intake).