Page 272 - The Lost Ways

- By M. Richard -

“Chop your own firewood, and it will warm you twice.”

- Old Proverb

In the event of a grid-down situation, most survivalists are planning on heating

their homes with wood. That makes sense considering the long history that man has with
using wood for heating and cooking.

Wood is readily available in much of the country, can be harvested with commonly
available tools, and produces a fair amount of heat. Although some special equipment is

required to heat with wood, it is nowhere near as much as heating by other means.

For those that have a fireplace or wood-burning stove already in operation in their home,
this isn’t going to be all that hard to do. But adding in either one is a rather large job,
especially in a two-story home. That is, adding them in the way you’re supposed to is a
large job. Fortunately for us, our ancestors showed us how to do this without it being a
big job.

In pioneering times, putting heat into a public building was a luxury. Many times, churches
and other community buildings were built without any heat source, and then the heat
source was added later. This allowed them to finish the building and make it usable
without having to wait to save the money needed for a large wood-burning stove.

The interesting thing is that these added-in heaters were often more efficient than the
ones that were installed when the building was first built. That’s mostly because of the
way they dealt with the chimney pipe, which was in a manner that was much different

than a building that was built with the stove already built in.

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