{"id":5093,"date":"2007-12-06T08:02:09","date_gmt":"2007-12-06T15:02:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/JackieClay\/2007\/12\/06\/readers-question-root-cellars-heating-and-wood-cookstoves\/"},"modified":"2007-12-06T08:02:09","modified_gmt":"2007-12-06T15:02:09","slug":"readers-question-root-cellars-heating-and-wood-cookstoves","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/JackieClay\/2007\/12\/06\/readers-question-root-cellars-heating-and-wood-cookstoves\/","title":{"rendered":"Reader’s Question: Root cellars, heating, and wood cookstoves"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dear Jackie<\/p>\n

You were kind enough to answer a quetion I asked a few years back
\nregarding buying land in BC – we have since realized that we
\ndefinitely can’t afford to buy land in BC or Alberta anymore –
\nhowever we can in eastern Canada which is why we moved out east. We
\nare now looking for land and hope to buy a nice piece by this summer.<\/p>\n

I have a couple of quick questions to ask you about cellars – we had
\noriginally planned to build a separate root cellar but after reading
\nyour ‘starting over’ series I see that you built a basement and you
\nuse the basement as you cellar – is it better to have a basement for
\na cellar or a separate root cellar outside of the house? Also what
\nmake\/model of wood cooking stove do you recommend? Lastly, we have
\nheard differing comments about external wood furnaces vs just having
\na wood stove unit or central fireplace in the house – what would you
\nsuggest – what do you use for heating your house in Minnesota?<\/p>\n

Thanks<\/p>\n

Monica Blaney
\nOttawa, Ontario <\/em><\/p>\n

I’m so excited for you!\u00a0 Wow are you in for adventure.\u00a0 I love it.\u00a0 I really prefer a root cellar in the basement for cold climates.\u00a0 First of all, it’s really hard to keep a separate root cellar from freezing when the temperature gets below zero for a week or more.\u00a0 And secondly, it’s sometimes brutal running back and forth to one when it’s snowing and blowing.\u00a0 In the basement, you can pick the coldest corner, usually a north corner, partition it off from the rest of the basement, which is heated at least to some extent.\u00a0 If it is a warm basement, you can just insulate the walls of the root cellar to keep it cooler.\u00a0 Then if it gets really cold, you can simply open the door to circulate some warm air into you storage area.<\/p>\n

Right now we heat our house with a combination of propane wall heaters and our wood burning kitchen range.\u00a0 Next spring, we’re continuing our new greenhouse around the southeast corner of the house and running it along the east end.\u00a0 Then in the southeast corner, I’m putting in a wood burning stove.<\/p>\n

Eventually, we want to put in a masonary chimney from the basement up to the peak of the roof and we’ll install a wood stove down there.\u00a0 Or maybe we’ll opt for the outside boiler.<\/p>\n

I do like these; they are totally safe, no wood mess in the house and you can burn some big stumps, etc.\u00a0 You get free hot water and can also heat a workshop, garage or whatever.\u00a0 My son, Bill, has one down at his place and likes it a lot.\u00a0 We need to figure out a way to operate it via battery bank, as they do need a pump to circulate the water.\u00a0 Now you’ve got ME excited!<\/p>\n

As for make\/model of wood kitchen range, I really don’t have a favorite, although Monarch is a tried and true brand.\u00a0 I have one now and like it just fine.\u00a0 There are sure some nice ones on the market, new now, but I don’t have that kind of money.\u00a0 Only in my dreams!\u00a0 Try to find one with warming ovens and a large fire box so you can keep a fire longer on a fill.\u00a0 And if you buy a used one, make sure the grates aren’t burned out.\u00a0 This sometimes happens when folks either burn coal in a wood grate or burn a lot of hardwood.<\/p>\n

Have fun!\u00a0 And keep us posted on your new homestead. — Jackie<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dear Jackie You were kind enough to answer a quetion I asked a few years back regarding buying land in BC – we have since realized that we definitely can’t afford to buy land in BC or Alberta anymore – however we can in eastern Canada which is why we moved out east. We are […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/JackieClay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5093"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/JackieClay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/JackieClay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/JackieClay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/JackieClay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5093"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/JackieClay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5093\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/JackieClay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5093"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/JackieClay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5093"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/JackieClay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5093"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}