Heating Basics 102

Hearth & Home

Heating your own home is all about comfort. The goal is to efficiently create warmth, with minimum effort and cost, to enable easily living the rest of your life (obtaining food in all forms) while winter rages outside.


Fireplaces satisfy that basic urge to bring the flame into the home, creating the direct warmth on the face and the extended, rubbing hands around a campfire feel. The mantle provides a place for stockings with care, and a visual focus for the artwork of the Home. During a gathering of friends, the ambient flame welcomes guests to feel safe.

While it satisfies a basic psychological urge, unfortunately, in addition to being dangerous when not-maintained properly, the fireplace is not able to offer much heat into the room, spitefully pushing it up the chimney instead. Even worse, it sucks already conditioned air from every nook and cranny throughout the house, causing drafts and discomfort.

Woodstoves are a great compromise to the nearly-hands-on afficianados, providing much of the ambiance of an open flame, but turbo-charged to provide serious heat. No other source can match the saturating blanket of warmth, the embracing feel of entering a room toasty and sizzling.

The word “cozy” is perhaps best defined by an evening heated by a woodstove. As darkness descends and winter cold creeps in, the appliance becomes the center of life. The warmer you want to be, the closer you get. Children play on the floor in front of it. Animals sleep practically under it. Mittens dry on hooks behind it. The sizzle and crackle is as soothing as classical music.

Cheaper to install ($2-3000 plus labor), and one third the cost to run, wood heat is a great alternative for the energy conscious, but requires a year round commitment not suitable for the feint-at-heart. No matter how comfy the sound, heat by woodstove takes constant attention, and armfuls of work.

The adage is absolutely correct that woodstoves heat you twice: once when you burn, and once collecting the wood. As winter ends, the real work begins to secure and cure enough cords (typically 3-5 at $150 each) by late Fall. The stack must remain dry and close enough to be easily hauled inside. The chips of bark and dust fall where they may, littering the pathway, and just when you are really settled down and comfortable, it demands another log.

Efficient designs allow for stoves to burn all night, but like feeding a pet, there is a problem for those who spend the Holidays away. Additionally, the amount of heat enjoyed is directly proportional to the proximity to the stove, so the far reaches of a home tend to remain chilly and comparatively uncomfortable.

While a great solution for someone concerned with economics and a greener lifestyle, in cold climates the drawback of a woodstove is that it requires the support of another system to ensure that pipes are never frozen. Discussion of these will follow in future entries.

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Heating Basics 101

3 Ways to Heat Your Home

The high cost of heat and the number of calls for help with weatherization invites a few basic lessons on the subject of creating efficient comfort in colder climates.


This week, a friend called complaining of cold feet. With rolls of fiberglass insulation laying in the basement since purchasing the house, it was only logical for her to finally take the time to hang it between the hand-hewn (this means really old and imperfect) joists under the floors separating the living spaces from the cold basement.

In actuality, the warmth generated by finally taking this action would have only made her feet colder come winter. Like our bodies, a house is a complicated system, and a chill is not always cured by putting on a sweater.

Comfort in the home is all about the condition of the air and surfaces. In hot climates, the solution is named air-conditioning for a reason. Against the cold, heaters are the appropriate solution.

How best to heat and move the air has been under discussion since people first shivered. The invention of fire has not only led to filet mignon, but created sophisticated ways to ensure comfort in the home.

The fire itself has remained a choice for those who love the psychological warmth of hands close to the heat. From the primitive lodges with a hole at the top to Rumford fireplaces channeling hot air through the chimney, an open flame within the house has provided warmth throughout the ages.

But also danger.


Unfortunately, with the benefits has come the pain of too many lives destroyed from fire burning out of control. A multitude of heaters have been designed to contain the fire safely and distribute the warmth efficiently. In my experience, there are three basic methods: the woodstove containing the raging fire; the furnace heating and distributing the air; and the boiler heating and distributing water which radiates heat outward to condition the air in each room.

How each of these works and how to hold their heat in your home can be the topics for many entries to come as the leaves change and temperatures drop, heading towards a long, cold winter.

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Dollars & Sense

My first few jobs in Oregon 30 years ago, I attacked with all the fervor of today’s recyclers.

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We drove 100 miles to retrieve truckloads of used boards for a weathered look on the interior. I always checked the scrap pile for short pieces before cutting a long one. I pulled nails out of old lumber, bent them straight, and drove them into new homes again. There was no name for it then; just common sense and low-budget aesthetics, but some of us were paying attention.


As labor rates rose, the Energy Crisis dissipated, and developments devoured the landscapes, many habits were discarded. At $20 and $30 an hour, a lot of nails can be bought in the time it takes to straighten one. We learned it consumes more energy to drive the 100 miles than to stay put, rough up some planks, and “distress” them with stain and paint.


Now, it swings back the other way, and the carbon footprint has become larger than a site full of steel-toed boots.

Garbage dumps have turned into recycling centers, sponsoring workshops and green celebrations, building a community culture and social network in a small town. Salvage yards are sources for stunning architectural pieces which can be incorporated into new construction. More importantly, the client is onboard, and “green building” is now a requirement on the resume.



Sadly, it does cost more to rehang an old door carefully retrieved from salvage than to install a pre-hung split jamb primed unit—a lot more. Used lumber is cracked and twisted and uneven, making humps in the sheetrock. Better to tear it all out for a fresh, clean line. Engineered studs save trees in the forest, but doubles the price of framing, wiping out the gain and probably quite a bit more painful. We can separate the debris, but does it justify the added truckloads to different disposal sites?

While the focus on Green Building is an important discussion, as builders in relentless competition to hold prices down, we have a long way to go. The truth is that we are taking a lot of the Earth’s resources—whether new construction or renovation—to produce shelter for our neighbors. We are learning that each decision has a consequence and should at least be considered.

And there are success stories.



By chance, I was dropping off a sink at our recycling depot and spotted 600 SF of oak flooring, the perfect amount for my current project. Whoever took it apart knew how to put it together because every single nail was pulled, every piece was reusable. It was stacked and bound together, tongues and grooves aligned, just like out of the box. The cut ends (without tongue or groove) were clearly marked. Although it was stained very dark and worn inconsistently, sanding an oak floor new or used would make no difference. The key was in how it was packaged.


Everyone wins. The wood was salvaged and given a new life. Oak trees were spared. The other guy was paid labor and saved a dump fee. I added a gorgeous floor to my portfolio and my client saved money.

If you are paying attention, some days recycling truly makes sense.

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