Wood Burning Furnace

In spite of all outward appearances, this is not the paper mill at West Point, although when the wind is blowing just so it's impossible to tell the difference.

This is my father's wood burning furnace, which he installed several winters ago in the hopes he could reduce his fuel oil bill.

Since it replaces all other sources of heat in the house and is run entirely on wood, there's no doubt that he did achieve his goal of reducing his fuel oil costs. But the price that has been paid thus far to install and maintain this thing?

Let's see if we can tally up the bill, shall we?

1 wood burning furnace (the cost of which nobody knows except my father, but rest assured it was neither free nor cheap)

52 weekends per year, of which approximately 3/4 are spent searching for, acquiring, hauling, stacking and splitting wood.

4,698 hours spent walking back and forth from house to the woodpile to replenish the furnace. The reason the furnace is so far from the house is because my mother refused to have anything looking like this next to her house.

1 bruised foot which came from a disgruntled mother having to traipse out to the furnace to load more wood when my father was away. She dropped a log on her foot.(Note: The price of having a disgruntled mother is far higher than the price of a bruised foot. Just ask my father.)

1 pickup truck in need of extensive body work, including a front bumper and grille. Seems my father, who hauls seafood most weeknights, decided to load up the furnace with wood before leaving for work. So he drove over to the wood pile, got out, forgot to put the car in park or neutral, walked over to the wood pile, began loading wood into the furnace, and then watched in horror as his truck plowed into a wagon parked next to the whole operation.

So, in summary, the total cost of having a wood-burning furnace:

No fuel oil bill.

No free time thanks to the incessant search for and procurement of wood, including scouring daughter's yard for trees and not realizing that you've cut down one of her favorites, but that's OK, she has plenty others.

One bruised and disgruntled daughter who is donating no more trees to this project wife.

One truck that now needs body work.

Yep, sounds like a deal to me.