tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2634969979683449053.post7443692953608766006..comments2024-03-27T22:32:32.190-04:00Comments on Granny Sue's News and Reviews: Woodstoves:The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of Heating with WoodGranny Suehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01129064020727041161noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2634969979683449053.post-78271987621488114692007-11-30T16:59:00.000-05:002007-11-30T16:59:00.000-05:00I also really love wood heat. My office is on the ...I also really love wood heat. My office is on the cool end of the house, so I take my laptop into the living room to soak in the heat. Do you have hedge trees, a.k.a. Osage Orange, a.k.a. Bodark (bois d'arc) in WV? This wood has the most BTUs but sparks like crazy. I get some wood for free and also buy some--just got a cord of hedge. Aaah.<BR/><BR/>By the way, "No story left behind" was a big winner on my buttons at the Bizarre Bazaar. Thanks!<BR/><BR/>PriscillaPriscillaHowehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01675234720604602209noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2634969979683449053.post-33004109973034797302007-11-30T14:22:00.000-05:002007-11-30T14:22:00.000-05:00Marion, it's good to hear from you! I do remember ...Marion, it's good to hear from you! I do remember you. Ripley continues to clean up its act. Now they're installing underground electric and telephone downtown, and it's so much prettier. New sidewalks too! Compared to a lot of places in West Virginia, Ripley's ahead of the pack. Compared to the northwest, though, I think we're probably still about 25 years behind. At least we have a coffeehouse now!Granny Suehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01129064020727041161noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2634969979683449053.post-17397386530145054612007-11-30T14:21:00.000-05:002007-11-30T14:21:00.000-05:00Last winter a natural gas well was drilled on our ...Last winter a natural gas well was drilled on our property. We didn't own the mineral rights on that 30 acres, so we won't get royalties but as the surface owner we were paid for surface disturbance and we can hook up to the well and use the gas for our own use for free. <BR/><BR/>We have to run the pipe. The tap is there, but it's our responsibility to install the lines and whatever we need in our home.<BR/><BR/>The kicker is that the well is a half-mile away. So that's a lot pf pipe! We're still debating it. Will it pay off for us, assuming we live in our house another 20 years? I think it will, but of course first we've got to have the cash to install it! And the time, there's always that.<BR/><BR/>I have pictures, etc, of the drilling on my blog. Look under "drilling" and "gas well" in the labels--I think it was in February that I wrote them.Granny Suehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01129064020727041161noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2634969979683449053.post-36365642493183845742007-11-30T13:16:00.000-05:002007-11-30T13:16:00.000-05:00So it's a trade-off, and one we'll keep making unt...So it's a trade-off, and one we'll keep making until we decide when we want to hook up the free gas. After the cost of pipe and furnace, our heat will be truly free.<BR/>I don't understand "free gas" -- explain please ;-)<BR/><BR/>And thanks again for so many lovely glimpses of your life and family. I could almost taste the fruitcakes!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2634969979683449053.post-46630140162947021762007-11-30T06:08:00.000-05:002007-11-30T06:08:00.000-05:00Hi Granny Sue,Marion here--we met at the WVW confe...Hi Granny Sue,<BR/><BR/>Marion here--we met at the WVW conference this past June.<BR/><BR/>I'm familiar with both the wood stove business and the free gas business (I prefer both of them to heating with kerosene, and I preferred that to not having heat, but that was a long time ago, and I digress....)<BR/><BR/>Where I live now it's not hard to obtain stovepipe, as so many people here in the Pacific NW heat with wood (even in the city), so it bemused me a little to see that it's hard to get in your neck of the woods. I guess that's creeping civilization, or some such thing (I am utterly goggled every time I get a look at Ripley these days so maybe that civilization thing really is the problem.)<BR/><BR/>Anyway, yeah, wood's a pain in the neck to clean up after and creosote is forever. Then there's the risk of chimney fires. And that smoke-and-ash undertone in the house that never really goes away. I'm now so smoke-sensitive that I couldn't get away with living with it at this point in my life. Or kerosene, either. I'd be on a nebulizer for sure.<BR/><BR/>On the other hand, while it may catch your house on fire if you screw up once too often, wood isn't going to blow the place to smithereens. But then, modern gas appliances and piping are designed to be so safe that if they're properly installed they won't either.<BR/><BR/>The older I get the more I appreciate the free gas idea. It seems like I'm never really warm any more in the winter, or at least not for very long. I understand now in my bones why the old folks used to turn the heater up to glory. I wrote a poem about it years ago. Don't know where I tucked that paper away. <BR/><BR/>--MarionMarion K.https://www.blogger.com/profile/14898789297265654983noreply@blogger.com