End of An Era

 It all began in the spring of 1977-over 45 years ago as of this writing. We had just come off an especially hard winter which featured an ice storm in February of that year that left us without electricity for 4 days.  The house we lived in did not have a fireplace so we had to move to my parent's house.  They didn't have a fireplace either but they did have a gas kitchen range so we lit the oven, left it open and managed to stay warm by huddling in front of it.   Picture that with two children-one toddler and a baby.

It was at that time that I vowed we would somehow figure out a way to install a wood burning stove in our poorly insulated 1840 house because I was determined that we would never be forced out of our house again.  So over the summer of 1977 we did our due diligence, talked to some friends who had wood burning stoves, consulted a mason for a chimney and set the whole process in motion.

By the time winter rolled around in 1977 we had our first wood burning stove up and running.  It was a Franklin stove that we had bought on sale for $100.  While our chimney was being built I had bought a chain saw and with the help of a friend who taught me how to use it I worked up a supply of fire wood.  We were fortunate in that department because my parents lived on 4 acres of land and there was an ample supply dead wood around that could be easily converted to firewood. Nineteen seventy seven was also the year I bought my first pickup truck.  It was a little Chevy step side, 6 cylinder engine, 3 speed stick shift.  It was a great little truck.   So with all of this stuff I was officially a wood whore as my friend Brian called it!

The Franklin stove was great for a year or two but it wasn't air tight so it wouldn't hold a fire all night.  From there I went to an awesome stove called a Vermont Castings Defiant.  It churned out enormous quantities of heat and held a fire all night.  We used that until we sold the old house in 1986 and moved to our current residence.  At that point we bought a smaller Vermont Castings stove called a Resolute.  It was a great stove that we used for the next 30 or so years until we gave it to my daughter for use in her house and we bought a new Vermont Castings Resolute.  We used that stove for 8 years up to now and we'd still be using it but for health reasons having  to do with my wife Sandi we had to discontinue burning wood.

So our wood-burning days have come to a close with the sale of our last wood stove. September 2022 marks the end of 45 years of wood burning.  We plan to install a gas fire place where the wood stove used to be. The upside to this is healthier air in the house, it's cleaner and no more hassles trying to work up a supply of wood every year considering I'm pushing 80.  The down side is the cost of burning propane. 

But I have to admit. I'm going to miss having a nice wood fire on a snowy afternoon. 

Here are our stoves in the order we had them.