Splitting and stacking firewood in the 80-degree heat of a steamy August afternoon, I got to thinking about the old saying, “Wood warms you twice.” As someone who’s burned wood, and only wood, to heat my home for 37 years, I came up with a list of ways wood warms me and my family—and we don’t even fell the trees or clean our own chimney:

• Sawing loads of 16-foot logs into 16-inch lengths
• Splitting these rounds into two, four, or sometimes six or eight pieces so they fit into the stove
• Stacking the split wood in the woodshed
• Hauling armloads of wood from the shed into the house during heating season
• Loading the stoves and basking in their radiance
• Cleaning out the ash pans and hauling buckets of ashes into the cellar for storage in steel garbage cans
• Spreading the accumulated ashes on our lawns and gardens in the spring

Wood also preheats the water we use for bathing and dishwashing and warms our bellies with winter soups, stews and sauces simmered on the stovetop.

By any standard, our household firewood operation qualifies as primitive and labor-intensive. We have a Husqvarna 350 chainsaw and tools to maintain it, two 8-lb. splitting mauls (in case the urge to split strikes two parties simultaneously), a couple of wedges, a lightweight axe for splitting kindling, and a cheap plastic wheelbarrow for moving split wood across the driveway to the woodshed. The rest of the work we accomplish with what my dad called the “Armstrong Method.”

Wood does more than keep us warm. It supports our values and our way of life. Wood heat dries the laundry we hang on racks around the stove on winter evenings, simultaneously humidifying the dry indoor air. It gives us a concrete form of homeland security, keeping us warm and able to cook and heat water from the gravity-feed well when the power goes off.

Wood ashes neutralize the acid soil in our big vegetable garden and add minerals our crops need for optimum health. We use the strips of bark that accumulate on the ground in our wood-splitting area as mulch to mark the aisles between planting beds in the garden.

In a nation where obesity has reached epidemic levels and threatens to overtake smoking as the Number One public health concern, working up our winter wood supply helps keep our weight in check. Exercise physiologists say a person my weight burns between 300 and 400 calories an hour doing various wood-working activities. I once did the math and figured that a single intense weekend of wood-splitting and stacking provided the calorie-burning equivalent of running 50 miles. Not bad! As a side benefit, splitting wood relieves stress better than anything else I’ve tried.

Living in a state that’s 84 percent forested, I’ve always assumed it makes economic sense to heat with wood. The various years I’ve looked at charts comparing the relative prices of firewood, propane and home heating oil, the facts have borne out my assumption. No matter how low the prices of fossil fuels have dipped, wood has always come out ahead, even in years when we bought our wood cut, split, dried and delivered. Because the work of it adds so much to our quality of life, I don’t factor the value of our unpaid household labor into the price we pay for our fuelwood.

I like knowing that my decision to heat with wood supports the New Hampshire economy. Joe Broyles, energy program manager at the State Office of Energy and Planning, estimates that two-thirds of the $2 billion New Hampshire consumers spend on energy products leaves the state. But the money I spend on firewood stays right here in New Hampshire.

The firewood business represents a significant and essential component of New Hampshire’s forest industries, which collectively provide jobs for 10,000 to 15,000 New Hampshire residents and pump $1.7 billion directly into our local economy.

Even if you don’t cut down your own trees or learn to use a chainsaw and splitting maul, home woodburning does require savvy. You need to learn to evaluate the quality and energy value of the wood you plan to burn. You need to know how to season and store firewood, how to size, install and maintain your woodburning appliances for safe operation, how to burn wood safely, maintain your chimney and handle your ashes.

 “It’s worth building a long term relationship with your wood supplier,” advises Sarah Smith, UNH Cooperative Extension’s forest industry specialist. “That’s the best way to ensure you’re buying a good cord and getting a good mixture.”

11/08/06

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