Heating With Wood

Vake and JL

Vake and Milly at their Woodpile

 JL says: Sophia (Grandmother Sampson) would probably have given up her "trash burner" (wood stove) in her kitchen only after everything else.(She refused to have an electric range unless she could keep the wood stove, too. A copper Finnish coffee pot and a bowl of bread dough rising were always kept warm on top.) Vake & Millie's family had a similar one in their Coos Bay house down the hill from Eli and Sofia's house. Dad (Johnnie), had one in his workshop during his retirement years, and Vake always had one in his shops.

     Barbara & I returned Wednesday (Feb.8,2012) after an eight-day trip to northern Florida (for the super bowl weekend with friends). My 250 gallon propane tank showed a 10% drop in that time (with the thermostat set at 60 degrees). With propane pushing $4.00 a gallon, those numbers would equal the mortgage payment on a modest house, these days, and it reminded me, yet again, of the value of heating with wood.

During our last tour of duty in northern Va ('78 - '82), when the price of natural gas (for heating) went above $100 per month, I started to consider wood heat as an alternate/supplement. When they were on sale one spring, I bought a Fisher to install into our fireplace.it was a BIG free-standing stove (about twice as long as it was wide), and I cut the rear legs off so I could back it into the fireplace opening. I then had a metal shop fabricate an adapter to the fireplace damper opening. When we left, taking the stove to Oregon with us, it had left VERY BAD creosote  (shiny & black) in the flue of the fireplace. That's principally how I learned the advantages of the cleaner burning stoves - which I immediately bought in Oregon, and lining ALL chimneys/flues with 6" stainless steel pipe. After that, we have had wood heat sources in all the places we've lived.

     After my retirement from the Army, coming back to the east coast, after our 13-month 'try-out' of Oregon (where we started to grow moss & rust), I needed to become employed (or self-employed) to deduct the moving costs for the cross-country move. Since I had been "pushing a desk" for most of my 20 years in the Army, & needed some outdoor activity, I decided to buy a 49% interest in the Wood & Coal Co. of Queenstown, MD. I was in charge of "field operations,"  producing & delivering wood - & delivering coal by the ton. We had a 6-wheel GMC truck, which burned a quart of oil a day, and I delivered wood as far as inside the beltway of Baltimore, and down to Deale, MD, south of Annapolis. One of my customers was a lady by the name of Mazie Flamer, who received wood under the MD heating assistance program. 

     Sometime during late winter/early spring the next year, my 51% partner sold out to another retired officer, (in this case, a Marine). We incorporated the business under the name: CHUN-BAR (our respective wives' first names), and proceeded to start cutting the next winter's supply of "product." We flipped a coin to see who would be president (he won), and I became all the rest. We'd go into the woods each morning, each with a gallon of water, our saws, etc., and cut down trees all day. In my meetings with our accountant, occasionally, a tick would drop off my head onto her desk (I'd either squish it or burn it with one of her cigarettes).

     Midway, or later, in the summer, when I'd had enough"'outdoor activity," and was starting to look for deer dens (in which to take a nap), I broached the idea of selling my half of the business. After awhile, my partner offered to buy me out.

     By that time, Barbara & I had sold our winter water view house and were ready to start building on the lot in Dorchester County.

jl