# Calling all wood cookstove gurus!



## unregistered358967 (Jul 17, 2013)

I need to be schooled. What book/website(s) would you recommend?

:thumb: Thank you all.


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## Helena (May 10, 2002)

Woodstove Cookery by Jane Cooper is a good and easy to understand book on this subject and also..Country Women..the book..by Sherry Thomas is another one too...If you happen to have anyone that uses a kitchen coo:hammer:k stove perhaps they will help you get started when you light your first fire. Elderly neighbor or family member or perhaps ask at your senior center for some advice from the women there too. Your stove will have it's own personality and you will learn how to move the drafts to get the heat where you want it. It will take some time but once you do..you will make the best pancakes on your stove that you have ever tasted. Good Luck and let us know when you make those pancakes..we'll be right over !! :thumb:


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## unregistered358967 (Jul 17, 2013)

Thank you so much!!


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## backwoods (Sep 12, 2004)

If you bought a new wood cookstove, best advice I can give you is to read the book that came with it.


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## unregistered358967 (Jul 17, 2013)

I'd be potentially moving into a place where that's the primary source of heat, but I'm sure it came with a manual. Thanks!


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## Helena (May 10, 2002)

If this is a new cook stove I guess it will work for your 100% of heat.How big of a house are you going to heat ?? My 100 year old kitchen cook stove will not heat this old farm house. Heats a lot of the down stairs if you continue to feed it wood or coal. It does not have a big wood box in the stove. Hopefully, your new one has a large wood box so you don't have to tend it continually..​


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## unregistered358967 (Jul 17, 2013)

Thanks Helena - it's a smaller home and apparently heats the entire thing..I think it has a large woodbox.


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## Mattie420 (Apr 2, 2013)

I took what I knew about fires, former Boy Scout, and watched a few old timers on YouTube. Last winter was our first winter and it went well enough, and I learned enough, to want to do it this winter as well. It's gotten pretty cold a few days in a row here the past few weeks and so far I've done a good job maintaining heat so just watch some YouTube and get some practice and you'll do great! God bless!


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## Mattie420 (Apr 2, 2013)

...and maintain a good thick bed of embers


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## MichaelK! (Oct 22, 2010)

Less-is-more said:


> I'd be potentially moving into a place where that's the primary source of heat, but I'm sure it came with a manual. Thanks!


That is not the best plan for winter heating. Cook stoves are designed for cooking, not heating a whole house.

My cookstove burns hot but goes out in 60 minutes without constant feeding. A cookstove will keep you up all night trying to keep you warm.

A stove designed for heating will do a much better job of heating the whole house than a cookstove will. I also have Jane Cooper's book and it is a valuable reference. Another reference I've read is Bushway's "The New Woodburner's Handbook".
http://www.amazon.com/Woodburners-H...&sr=1-1&keywords=the+new+woodburners+handbook


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## unregistered358967 (Jul 17, 2013)

Thanks Michael.  We won't be moving there after all (long story) but believe it or not, it was the only heat source. It was a small strawbale house. I can't remember the brand of stove it was, but it was a really good, expensive one..


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