We installed a wood stove in the cabin last winter. I’ve never heated a house with wood and it was surprisingly easy. It was nice to wake up in the morning and get a fire going. We would sit and watch the fire while drinking our coffee, talking and trying to shake the cob webs from our heads.
We had cleared an area for the garden during the spring of 2014, but most of the firewood was pine. So for this past winter we ended up burning quite a lot of pine and much lesser amounts of cedar and poplar. I was a little concerned about burning pine, and to a lesser extent eastern red cedar, because locals say it causes creosote buildup in the chimney which can then lead to a chimney fire.
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| Pictured is a section of stove pipe before cleaning. This is about 3/4 of a season worth of buildup since we didn’t get the wood stove up and running until the end of December 2014. I don’t know if this is a lot of buildup or not…I guess I’ll refer back to this picture next year and compare. This year we are burning hardwoods with little or no pine. |
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| The wire brush makes quick work of the buildup inside the stove and chimney pipes. |
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| Pictured is a section of stove pipe after cleaning. It took about an hour to disassemble the pipes; clean them and put it back together. It is nice knowing that we’re ready for another winter with clean stove and chimney pipes. |
