A question of heat

A couple days ago, our home's forced-air heating system died.

This heating system was in place when we bought the house (there was also a pellet stove, which we de-installed and sold when we installed our wood cookstove). It was a convenient heating system when the temperature was cool-but-not-cold in the house, usually the transition times in spring and fall, and occasionally on those winter days where the temperature spikes.

When the heating system died, it died suddenly. You know Don. He can fix just about anything. He studied the system's owner's manual, did some research online, watched YouTube videos, and concluded it needed an HVAC expert. When he draws a conclusion like that, I'm not inclined to doubt him.

We were never overly crazy about the forced-air heating system anyway. It was NOISY, and it used a lot of electricity. Our electric bill would always spike in cooler months when we used it. So ... we decided not to go through the expense of getting it repaired immediately. There are other options.

Today, Don ordered a ventless propane wall heating unit similar to one we had in our old house, and we'll install that when it arrives in a few days. Fortunately, last year we put in a much larger propane tank, so we have plenty of propane.

But for the next few days, with the weather getting cooler, we're down to a single heating system: our wood cookstove. Time to get it ready for use.

Don climbed up on the roof and used the chimney brushes to scrub the stove pipe.

This is the brush with its detachable rods. They're stored in the barn between uses.

Then I cleaned the stove itself. Tools of the trade include a metal (never plastic! or wood!) bucket, as well as a flashlight.

Other tools were an ash scraper and a handle for turning firebricks (which I'll demonstrate shortly). Both these tools were custom-made and came with the stove.

The first thing to do is remove this little plate from the front of the stove, held on with wing nuts.

This reveals a little hole into the lower portion of the stove below the oven box, where ash tends to accumulate.

I tried to get a flash photo of the ash accumulation, but it didn't turn out too well. Still, you get the idea.

Anyway, the ash scraper is designed to fit right inside this hole. It allows me to reach alllll the way to the back of the stove and scrape the ash toward the opening.

Must have gotten a good quart of ash from this area. It's exceptionally fine stuff.

After that portion was done, I turned my attention to the firebox. First I scraped off the ash from the top of the oven box.

Next, the firebox itself needed cleaning. Notice the gap in the center floor of the firebox? Keep that in mind a moment.

The floor of the firebox consists of two fire bricks that rotate for easier cleaning. To rotate them, notice the square knobs below the firebox, above the ash box.

That's where this other tool comes in. It fits over the square knobs.

Like this.

Rotating the firebrick above drops ash from the firebox into the ash box below. Notice the left-hand firebrick is turned on its side.

I use the ash scraper to pull all the ash through into the ash box below, leaving the firebox reasonably clean.

My hands were pretty dirty by this point, so I didn't want to soil my camera for every step of the process. Let's just say this ash box was quite full. I pulled both it and the bucket outside, and dumped all the ash into the bucket.

Then I scraped any overflow ash out of the box into the bucket as well.

After that, I laid kindling in the firebox, ready to start a fire.

The very last thing we did was lean this piece of green sheet metal against the right-hand wall as a heat guard. Originally we were going to install a permanent heat guard, but somehow we never did, and this sheet metal works perfectly. We simply tuck it away in the barn each spring when not in use.

Now we're set for the winter. Even if we didn't have the propane wall heater, we can use the woodstove just during the chilly hours (say, early morning or late afternoon) and then let the fire go out.

And you know the lingering thought in my mind after the forced-air heating system died and we prepared the woodstove for the season? I thought how much better low-tech is than high-tech. Our cookstove can never die.