What Are The Options For Heating With Wood?
There are basically three ways to heat with wood: fireplaces, furnaces and stoves. Naturally, we are biased about which one is the best choice, but there are reasons for our bias. Fireplaces are beautiful, romantic and incredibly inefficient. When they are not being used they act as an open vent in your house which lets the cold air in and the warm air out. And, when they are being used, most of the heat goes right up the chimney. The average fireplace has a net efficiency of 0% (some even have a negative net efficiency, meaning that they contribute to an overall loss of heat in your house.) If you don’t have a fireplace, adding one will cost significantly more than buying a woodstove and you will never recover the money in reduced fuel bills. If you do already have a fireplace, it may look nice but it won’t do an adequate job of heating your home. Wood fueled furnaces (which heat air) and boilers (which heat water) both provide central heat throughout the entire house. They are conven
