[Greenbuilding] Splitting wood

[Reuben Deumling]

Thanks, Bob, for your thoughts. You'll have to get a lot more cheeky
before we talk about throwing you off the list (I'm not sure we even
can):-)

As for cellulosic heat vs. passive solar, you make a very good point.
I'd suggest, though, that in the houses I've worked on it was
considerably easier to convert to wood heat than to welcome large
amounts of passive solar heat into the interior. Working with
existing, sometimes very old, houses can limit the possibilities here.

And then there's really thick and well-installed insulation, which
mixes some of the advantages of both: get warm building and installing
Larsen trusses, lugging insulation blower hoses around, deepening the
door and window jambs, etc. Then, if everything worked just right,
comes the easy chair part.

I'd also add that for me heating with wood involves so many activities
and sensations which I treasure, and that put me in touch with the
building I occupy, the woods from which my firewood comes, the
satisfaction from cutting, splitting and stacking a cord of wood in a
day.... I have only lived very briefly in a centrally
heated/thermostat controlled house, so don't have much of a
comparison--but I know I prefer the thermal gradients experienced in
relation to a centrally placed woodstove, the act of building fires
regularly, stacking firewood, and looking forward to insulation. If I
relied on a thermostat *I suspect* I'd feel less of a commitment to
insulating my house, a less concrete sense of the difference it would
make to my heating-related tasks and routines.

Reuben Deumling
On 11/3/07, Bob Korves <bkorves at winfirst.com> wrote:
> Hi all,
> I am new to the group and have been lurking here just a few days.
>
> It is fun to follow the wood splitting thread.  Do you all know that burning
> wood is more than 100% efficient?
>
> You get warm cutting it.
> You get warm splitting it.
> You get warm stacking it.
> You bet warm carrying it.
> You get warm burning it.
> Loading it in and out of the truck gets bonus points.
> Oh, yeah, you also carry out the ashes...
>
> Everything but the chainsaw and the truck (both optional) is powered by
> biofuels.
>
> Passive solar, in comparison to expending all that effort dealing with wood
> burning, is easy.  Just slowly get up out of the easy chair and move the
> curtains to the position deemed correct for the current and/or expected
> conditions.  Sit back down and get back to your book...
>
> It doesn't hurt to have wood heat for backup, of course, for those days when
> nature is uncooperative.  It is also good for the soul -- mantra while
> splitting, meditation while burning.
>
> One person thought that even opening and closing passive solar curtains was
> too much work and so he automated them.  Everything worked out fine until
> one evening his wife was changing her clothes just as a car turned down the
> street and the headlights shined on the photocell...
>
> Just trying to see if I can get thrown off the group with my first post.
> 8^)
> -Bob Korves
>
>
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