Last night’s gathering with Deb’s co-workers was okay. It was just like dozens of similar affairs I’ve attended in my professional and personal lives — good people, certainly, who spend most of their waking hours together anyway, getting together ahead of Christmas.
The food was good. For Deb’s sake, I didn’t take pictures of my andouille-and-black-bean soup, burger, fries and sweet tea.
We were out in the cabin by 9am on this rainy, raw morning. I lit the woodstove to take the edge off — a deliberate, almost meditative task that never fails to raise my spirits. Today’s ritual brought to mind doing the same thing the last time I heated my Home with wood, some 1,200 miles from here and over 40 years ago.
Deb and I have done lots of things “wrong” as we create our American Life on The Mountain, or at least not The Right Way. You roll your eyes. Maybe you wince.
And maybe you’re right.
But one thing I know we’ve done right is the woodstove. It works without fiddling, drama or danger. With due humility, then, I want to share some of our experience.
To be clear — none of this should be taken as advice. This is our way, not the way.
Much of what I’m doing feels familiar, like riding a bicycle. Properly seasoned wood matters. A ready supply of kindling is essential. Draft before burn. Have three sizes of fuel available — small (wrist), medium (ankle) and all-nighter. Don’t be afraid to load the firebox.
Every burn is different. Every chunk of wood is different. Every day (humidity, wind) is different.
When I built this morning’s fire, outside temps were in the low 40s and it was pouring down rain. I knew that the chimney and flue were full of heavy, damp air, so I took extra care to spike the draft before stoking the blaze.
I do that differently with this stove than I did 40 years ago. In the old days, with a flue accessible directly from the firebox, I could simply stuff the outlet with wadded-up newspaper and light it, which would quickly displace the bolus of cold air and get a healthy draft going.
Now, with a woodstove that incorporates secondary-burn tubes and baffles to boost combustion and efficiency, I can’t get to the flue through the firebox. I build a double lay — tinder, kindling and fuel on the bottom (for the fire), and on top of that a mini-lay of tinder and small kindling (for the draft).
I light the top first. Once the flame and smoke hint at the beginnings of a consistent draft, I touch off the main lay. (Sometimes an ember from the top will fall and ignite the tinder below, saving me the trouble.) This top-down method has worked flawlessly for us.
We’re also thrilled with the woodstove installation we designed and built. The hearth is ideal, big enough to accommodate an indoor supply of wood, plus tools, with plenty of room in front of the stove door to catch pops, crackles and tumbling coals.
Likewise, the barn-tin heat shield, with its air gap and cement-board backup, is performing just the way we hoped it would.
In my former woodburning life, I employed only single-wall pipe, from stove to sky. This time we use single-wall only between the stove and the thimble that passes through the cabin’s exterior wall. From there to the cap on top of the chimney, it’s double-wall pipe.
We have friends whose setups use only double-wall stovepipe, inside and out, either to allow their flue to run closer to a combustible wall, or out of an abundance of caution. And believe me, we get that.
To us, the benefit of a single-wall flue (indoors), and the reason we went that route, is that it gets hot — that is, it’s another surface that radiates heat, which is the whole point of the exercise. That’s made possible, of course, only by establishing a safe distance from combustible surfaces. The heat shield is part of that.
The last then-versus-now difference I’ll mention is a pair of tools I use to keep tabs on the temp of a burn — a magnetic flue thermometer and a handheld laser thermometer. Each has its place, and I’m glad to have both.
Eventually I’ll get enough burns under my belt to know how our setup is performing without taking its temperature. For now, knowing is better than guessing.
Primitive. Essential. Grounding. Useful. Rewarding. So many things come together in a fire that warms a Home. I’m grateful that I’m here to enjoy it all.
Take care of yourselves, Patriots. Stay calm. Stay sharp. Stay free.
#WiseUp #LibertyOrDeath #Ungovernable
#LetsGoBrandon #FJB