You Can Get the Wood, You Know

[kevin_standlee]

The walnut we bought from Flame-O's Firewood in Fallon has burned nicely, running hot but also burning all night so it's still relatively warm in the morning, but we've (literally) burned through the half-cord of it and needed more. This afternoon we hitched the utility trailer to my van and Lisa backed it up near the wood box so that we could unload the half-cord of Douglas fir we bought before Christmas and free up the trailer. We spent the next 45-60 minutes with her handing pieces of wood down from the trailer over the fence to me where I refilled the wood box and stored the rest near the wood box, stacking it on a pallet to keep it off the ground. After confirming that Big R in Fallon still had firewood, we drove over there and bought another half-cord pallet from them. As it happens, someone else bought one just before us as well; as of our purchase they had seven pallets left. It's not been as horribly cold as in the upper Midwest, where I saw a weather map that translated into -50°C in places, but it still takes a lot of firewood (in the house) and propane (in the trailer) to keep us warm.

While at Big R, we also picked up some additional weather-stripping to help plug leaks in the doors on the house and the trailer, so that a little less of the heat will be uselessly vented outside.

As we drove to and from Big R, we passed Flame-O's, where it turns out that they are completely out of firewood, so even if we'd wanted another half-cord of walnut, we couldn't get it.

Comments

[a-cubed.livejournal.com]

Far from his best book but Stan Robinson's 50 Degrees Below is looking like a reasonable forecast of weather extremes in the coming decade or two.

[saare-snowqueen.livejournal.com]

Be careful you don'y seal your house up so completely, you run the risk of carbon monoxide build up. People in the UK are dying from gasses in unvented houses.

[nojay.livejournal.com]

You need draughts to keep the home fires burning, one of the major disadvantages of heating using coal or wood burning stoves indoors. The sooner you get your gas furnace up and working the better for you as well as cutting down on the need to spend hours each month driving back and forth getting loads of wood.

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

It's not much of a worry at this time in this house. We reckon the previous owners did actually use the Furnace of Death (with a full-of-holes heat exchanger) but that the house is so leaky that it didn't kill them. But in any event, we have CO detectors.