Howls

Introduction

Turn up your imagination — the wind is howling outside, you cannot see the front porch due to snow, the temperature has dropped to -20°C and the power has gone out.  Electric heat is out of the question and most forced air systems will not function without power either. Besides shivering in the dark, what is a home owner to do?

Luckily, our family has a solution to this problem — and we’ve needed it more than once in the past decade.  We do not use a forced air system and we only use electric heat as a backup system.  Instead, we heat our home with a high efficiency wood stove.

And This Relates to Golf How?

I can hear what you’re thinking:  “What does this have to do with golf?”  The simple answer to that question is fitness.  In the rest of this Two Feet at a Time series I have discussed activities that are part of my fitness regimen and wood heat falls into this category.  In fact, the use of a wood stove in our home has enough fitness issues surrounding it that I have decided to split this into 2 posts.

While this post is part 1, it will deal with the second phase of the wood burning process and its relation to my physical fitness plans — fall and winter activities.

When we moved to the Muskoka region almost 10 years ago I was not in the best physical shape of my life.  While I still have a long way to go, our decision to use wood heat has been a perfect activity to help me achieve my fitness goals, both for golf and general quality of life.

Fall Activities

During a typical winter we will burn between 12 and 15 face cords of firewood.  For those of you who are unfamiliar with the terminology, a face cord is 4 ft high and 8 ft long.  The width varies depending on how the individual pieces are cut, but 16″ is standard.  We like to use 18″ due to the size of our wood stove.

So, when the firewood is stacked in a 4′ high pile our winter supply will range from 96 to 120 feet long.

Our wood sits out in the back 40 for the summer and early fall so that it can dry enough to burn cleanly.  Before the snow comes, it is necessary to bring it in to a place where it is easy to get at.  About the middle of October — if I’ve been on top of things — the wood starts to come in.  However, this phase is only part of the way in.  There isn’t room for all the wood to come in at once.  We stack just under half of the supply in our garage.  A full 6 face cords takes up a 12′ x 8′ section along the wall in two rows (3 cords per row).  The rest of the wood is stacked in our barn (which is what we call the workshop behind the house).

I bring the wood from the back using my pickup which can hold about 1 face cord of wood at at time.  This process involves loading the wood into the back of the truck (I’ll tell you right now that I prefer to work on the top half of the pile — the bottom half is harder on my poor, old back 8=).  Then the truck is backed up to the big door of the garage or barn.  Finally, the wood is removed from the truck and neatly stacked into piles.

The entire process for a cord of wood takes me about 1/2 to 3/4 of an hour when I’m working on my own.  With help it goes quicker but there are fewer helpers now that my nephews are all getting old enough for girlfriends and other distractions.  This leaves more fun for me 8=)

I will typically do between 2 and 4 loads in a day for 2 or 3 days in a week.  At this pace I’m usually done by the end of November.  It is a good workout with a lot of twisting, bending, lifting and walking.  It improves my flexibility and strength while providing a pretty good cardiovascular workout as well.

Winter Activities

During the winter the fun doesn’t stop.  While the intense workout of bringing a cord of wood inside for storage is over, the lesser workouts of bringing wood to the stove begins.  Our stove is in the basement which means that the wood needs to be brought in through the house and down 1/2 a flight of stairs.

During the shoulder seasons we typically burn once a day and that will increase to about 3 times a day in the dead of winter (which is almost a continuous burn).  A load of wood in the stove is typically 6 to 8 pieces, depending on the size of the piece.  After a couple of years carrying wood in my arms, I discovered the wood sling which can carry enough for a stove load at one time [see the photo at the top of the post].

While this does not match the duration of the full cord press described above, there is still a good bit of cardio as well as strength training involved.  With a wood rack installed in the basement, I will sometimes bring in 3 or 4 days worth of wood in one session.  Other times I will just bring in a single days worth or even just one load.

The Rest

This is only the beginning of the physical activities involved in wood heating.  Part II of this post will detail the activities for spring and summer.

Other Benefits of Wood Heat

Heating with wood is not for everyone.  There is a lot of work involved and temperature control is often a problem.  It is also fairly dirty with wood chips, bark and ashes making life miserable.  It can be difficult to start a fire when the stove is cold.  And sometimes I just don’t want to carry the wood.

Despite all of this, there are many other benefits to using wood for heat, at least in a rural setting like ours.

• The situation described in the Introduction above is real.  We will typically have 4 to 6 extended power outages each winter.  They will last anywhere from 12 hours to 3 days.  With the wood stove and a generator to run the fridge and a few lights (and the TV 8=) we can weather just about any storm.
• Heating with wood is an economical alternative, especially when we harvest the wood from our own land.  With good forest management this property will supply us with more wood than we could ever use.  The major costs involve time, sweat and equipment maintenance for the chainsaw and ATV (for hauling).
• It is an environmentally friendly way to heat.  I know that the smoke is often seen as pollution (and it is) but with an energy efficient stove the pollution level is reasonable and when you factor in the transportation of the fuel it is pretty darn good.  I don’t have to drill miles underground or truck my wood from half way around the world.  As well, unlike fossil fuel, the CO2 released by burning firewood is not a contributing factor to global warming since it would be released as the tree rotted in the forest anyway.  [We do plan to implement solar heating techniques in the future so that we can reduce the pollution levels even more.]
• A wood fire is very pleasing to watch.  We don’t spend a lot of time gathered around the wood stove, but it is nice to sit around and watch the dancing flames once in a while.  My wife’s desk as well as the craft/work area for the kids are in the same room so they get the benefits of it on a regular basis.
• Finally, I have an opportunity to spend hours out doors in a beautiful forest.  I love to be out there in every season (the mosquitoes and blackflies can make the spring tough though).  While it isn’t quite the same as being out on the links, there is a lot to be said for just spending some time in the woods when you aren’t searching for a golf ball 8=)

As long as I’m physically able to do so, we will be meeting the heating needs of our home primarily with wood.  It just makes sense.

[See Part II which deals with the Spring and Summer activities revolving around wood heating.]