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  • From: Scott Vlaun <scott@moosepondarts.com>
  • To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [permaculture] small cooking woodstove
  • Date: Fri, 5 Oct 2007 23:09:26 -0400

Wood is a renewable resource. I have spoken directly with Mollison about wood heat and he strongly recommends masonry heaters for extreme northern climates. We can harvest plenty of wood from our woodlot and continue to restore the forest ecosystem and sequester carbon more carbon than an unmanaged forest. Except for wilderness areas, of which we have dedicated part of our land, managing a forest carefully, especially with coppicing techniques, can be more of an ecological solution than letting the forest be. Small. well-insulated buildings with passive solar and clean wood heat and hot water make the most sense in my climate. There isn't enough green power on line to begin to heat all the homes in northern climates no matter how well insulated they are.

I've been using an Amish built stove called Kitchen Queen to heat our house and hot water as well as do all our cooking during the heating season. I basically burn damaged and diseased trees as well as thinnings from where we are trying to develop mature trees for sap collection. There are probably even better stoves out there in terms of emissions. We have a footing under our kitchen for a masonry furnace with a small oven, but no time or funds to complete it at this point. If anyone has good plans for such a heater that will fit on a 9x3 ft footing I'd love to hear about them.

Harvest Hope,

Scott Vlaun
Moose Pond Arts+Ecology
Design Solutions for a Sustainable Future

450 Main St. Studio 2
Norway, Maine 04268
207-739-2409 Studio
207-890-4099 Cell
http://www.moosepondarts.com



On Oct 5, 2007, at 4:39 PM, Healing Hawk wrote:

Heating and cooking with wood is not ecologically supported. In
California's mild climate, passive solar design, especially using cob and
strawbale construction, should result in a home you can heat with a small
thermostatically controlled electric heater that might come on once an hour
or so. Buy or make green power.

Humans now have to reforest Earth to contain atmospheric carbon rather than
going the other way. I'm saddened when "permaculturalists" don't have
control of the basic systems theory that Bill and David so carefully
articulate in their books.

Designing so that we have to heat with wood is one of Bill's "type one"
errors. So is designing a cob/strawbale house without passive solar. This
is why there is a long observation stage in Permaculture design. Einstein
said the solution doesn't come from the consciousness that created the
problem.

Permaculture is about saving what remains of Earth's life support system and
designing to reclaim that which was foolishly squandered supporting
parasitic human lifestyles. Permaculture is not about making humans
comfortable in parasitic lifestyles that continue to harm the biosphere.
Heating with wood is parasitic, i.e., taking without giving back.

Humans do not possess the power to replace the manifold ecological services
provided by a single tree. As a general rule, don't cut trees. As a
general rule, make symbiotic choices. As a general rule, purge the idea of
human dominion over nature before starting the observation phase of design.


Tommy Tolson
Austin, TX

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