Homestead mailing list

["Lynda" <lurine AT softcom.net>]

O.K., James, maybe others???, did they perhaps make the stoves different for 
the West Coast vs. East Coast?  Cause the fireboxes on Gramma Dorothy's and 
others I've used aren't that small and they do bank but we've never had the 
coal out here to fire them.  We've always used wood and a lot of it is soft 
wood.

Lynda
----- Original Message ----- 
From: <Clansgian AT wmconnect.com>
> This is a factor with old cookstoves.  The fireboxes are small and if you 
> use
> wood as fuel, it you have to bank the contents of the tiny firebox well 
> and
> use very hard wood to keep coals overnight.  It can be done, but it 
> doesn't put
> out any heat at all in the process.
>
> Many (or most) of those stoves were designed to use coal as a fuel, which
> easily keeps its heat overnight.  But it also wears out the stove (grates,
> shaker, vents, water jacket, etc) with its much hotter heat.  It's also an 
> expense
> and dirty.
>
> Many modern stoves have much larger and airtight fireboxes.  It's a
> trade-off.  The drafty firebox of an old stove will burn literally 
> anything for fuel:
> stalks, haulms, nut shells, roots, branches,. sappy wood, resinous pine, 
> etc.
> and because of unlimited oxygen to the fire, it burns so completely that 
> there
> is almost no residue in the flue.  The big airtight boxes of modern
> cookstoves will keep heat longer and heat more of the house, but you have 
> to use the
> best of the best of the best wood to achieve those goals or else you will
> percipitate all manner of things on the inside of the flue (and the 
> stove).
>
> As with a great number of other things, the solution we found to resolving
> the disadvantages is to use the cookstove as it is, and then if we need 
> more
> heat, there is a separate stove (a Franklin stove) to add more heat and 
> keep a
> fire overnight.  We paid nothing for either stove, but I notice the 
> equivalent
> of both for sale all the time for a couple hundred dollars.  New 
> cookstoves of
> modern design are on the order of $2000 to $7000 or so.
>
> If I had no cookstove, I'd still consider a new one.  Sounds like a very 
> good
> use of (the first) stimulus check to me.  But having used an old one, I 
> can
> say that most of the disadvantages are minor, if not trifles.
>
> But having a wood buring cookstove of any type is a huge advantage to the
> homestead.  Along with our crops of hard corn and shell beans which 
> require
> absolutely no input from outside to grow (not for seed, fertilizer, or 
> power) and
> the abilty to cook them from random wood from the forest, we have a line 
> drawn
> if ever we need it .... we could lock the front gate and survive until 
> better
> times.
>
> It's beginning to look like that's going to come in handy.
> _______________________________________________
> Homestead list and subscription:
> http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/homestead
> Change your homestead list member options:
> http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/options/homestead/lurine%40softcom.net
> View the archives at:
> https://lists.ibiblio.org/sympa/arc/homestead