Last night I wrote about the basics of using a wood burning stove. I thought about it a bit more and there is some gear I would recommend to anybody getting into wood burning. Welding Gloves
A cheap and easy trick for any wood burner is to pick up a pair of Welder’s gloves. They come in handy for picking up hot logs. I don’t know how approved it is but, I can reach into a hot stove and move burning logs around with these babies on. I’ve had mine since I bought the stove and they seem to be holding up reasonable well. One thing to know is they can smell to high heaven if they start to scorch.
Fireplace tools can run the gamut from Home Depot cheapies (what I’ve got) to brass and wrought iron masterpieces (what I want). The bare minimum would be a shovel, brush, and a poker. My budget set came with wood tongs too, but they are pretty poorly made and hard to use, so I could do without them.
An Ash Bucket is another useful item to have around. A metal one lets you clean out a hot stove safely.
A flue thermometer is a nice thing to have too. I feel I really learned how to use my stove by watching this thing. It gives you an idea what is going on in the stove. It lets you know if the stove is burning to hot, or to cold, or just right (yes, sort of like Goldilocks). To cold and creosote forms, to hot and “Hello, Mr. Chimney Fire”. Now from watching this little bad boy I know what combination of wood in the stove, and the amount of air intake gets me the most efficient fire.
A cast iron pot or kettle puts a bit of humidity back into the air. I’ll admit that a wood stove can REALLY DRY the heck out of a house. Now that we’ve got the Jr. Backyard Pioneer running around we use an additional humidifier too. The cast iron steamer just has way more style and authentic feel to it than our elephant humidifier.
I think these few items will help you get the most out of your wood burning stove. Did I miss anything?
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Mike, thanks! This is awesome for new folks to wood burning stoves. We appreciate your practical and sound experience and the way you share it openly with us!
Thanks for the kind words, Dene. I really do appreciate them, you’re a big inspiration to me.
Have you heard of EcoFan Airplus Heat-Powered Wood Stove Fan, we have a two story house and I got a couple of these to assist in getting the heat dispersed through out the house more. We do have a blower, but these are pretty awesome to have too. They are pretty spendy, but our friends swear by them. I am loving all of your wisdom and writing on this subject. The timing couldn’t be more perfect, since we will be installing ours this spring. We have an Osburn stove:)
I haven’t heard of them, but I’ll have to check them out. I need to get the hot air moving out of my den, it gets way to hot in there. Those fans sound like just the ticket. Thanks!
We used a fan on the stove pipe itself, called MagicHeat. My dad found it for us at an auction. It’s identical to the one pictured here: http://www.peasefeedandcoal.com/Magic-Heat.html (not my site). It was wonderful for moving heat throughout the house.
We have the same fence/ gate to go around our wood stove. It was great for keeping out toddlers and creating a safe space around the heat source. We got ours from One Step Ahead; is that where you found yours?
My wife found ours on Amazon.
Its funny how sometimes I just happen upon a website that I normally don’t visit and it turns out there is something I can add. I have a cabin in the North Georgia mountains that I stay at most of the winter. I am trying to be as off the grid as possible for economic and also ethical reasons/beliefs. I have an abundance of wood up there, and didn’t like having to get propane delivered to heat the home. A friend of mine told me to look at getting a wood stove instead or in addition to my fireplace and to use a stove top fan. I already had a wood stove that I had bought at an estate sale but hadn’t used. I had that installed and absolutely love it. But for the stove top fan, I bought one off of ebay that was a piece of junk. Then I bought one off of amazon that made the first one look great. I searched around a good bit and came upon a website called stovefanreviews.com that was awesome. I promise I don’t work for the company or anything like that. It was just the first site I found that had honest information that was useful. I got a stove fan from there that I love and am using only that to heat the cabin now. Like I started off saying, funny how sometimes being in the right (virtual, online) place at the right time just happens. I strongly recommend the site, and also the use of a stove fan to increase your efficiency and heat your place.