Saved by the Wood Stove

Back in the 1970's we heated my Mom's house with a Fisher fireplace insert wood stove. We burned 5 or 6 cords a year, and it worked great. Sometime around 1990 I was in the local wood stove store picking up some supplies and they had a wood pellet stove on display. I was very impressed with the amount of heat it was pumping out, so I did some research, and the next thing you know we were replacing the Fisher insert with a Whitfield Advantage II pellet stove. Nearly 25 years later my Mom is still using that pellet stove. There are many advantages to the pellet stove over a traditional wood burning stove. For example, I used to fill the entire basement up to the ceiling with firewood, then haul 3 or 4 loads a day up to the living room to keep the fire burning. In comparison, a winters supply of wood pellets can be stacked along one wall in the basement and a single 40 lb bag poured into the hopper once a day is all that is required. I love the reduced mess and manual labor involved.

The one big disadvantage to pellet stoves is that they need electricity, albeit a small amount, to operate. So... when the lights go out, you don't have any heat! (Unless of course you have a generator, which I don't... YET... more on that later) Knowing this when I bought the pellet stove, I also bought an old used Jotul 118 wood stove and set it up in the basement for a backup heat source. We always keep a weeks supply of dry seasoned firewood on hand as well for just such an emergency.

1978 Jotul 118 Wood Stove

In the 46 years we've lived in that house we never lost power for more than a few hours, until recently. We have rarely used the wood stove in the basement except when it is extremely cold outside, but it sure is nice to know it's there if we need it.

Fast forward to October 29th, 2011. A freak snowstorm dumped 18 inches of snow on us causing wide spread tree damage and we lost power for 3 full days. That old Jotul wood stove was our saving grace! We burned up all of the wood we had stashed down there, including all the scrap lumber I had been saving over the years. So, I immediately bought another half cord of dry seasoned firewood and restocked in preparation for a future power outage.

As an added bonus, the yard was littered with trees and limbs ready to be turned into firewood. Looking for an easy and affordable way to split this wood I came across this manual wood splitter, designed in Sweden, called the Smart Splitter.

Smart Splitter in action

Fuel for the next power outage

I bought one and began to work on turning all of those downed limbs into fuel for the next power outage. It works great on small to medium sized pieces (6" to 12") and is excellent for making kindling too. I am mostly splitting oak and maple with it and have split about half a cord so far with very little effort. I have come across a few pieces that I could not split with this device, but they would be difficult to split with an axe or mall as well. I will split these with a sledge and wedge later and try them again with the smart splitter this Spring, but all in all this tool makes splitting wood fun, easy and safe. You aren't going to split 4 cords in an afternoon with it, but if you are not in a hurry and are working with small to medium sized pieces this will get the job done.

The moral of the story... an old fashioned wood stove in good working order, and a supply of dry seasoned wood, is a "sure fire" way to stay warm when the lights go out. It can also be used for basic cooking needs, like boiling water or heating soup. Even if you have a portable gasoline generator it can be difficult to store enough gasoline to keep it running for a week. And even if you can get to a gas station, the pumps don't work if the power is out.