Newsflash: Woodstove yields “free" source of steam!

Our farmhouse came with an “extra" room that we've dubbed the Cozytorium.  We say extra because we already have a living room, dining room, and kitchen, so this room is basically a bonus on the main floor, with 3 doorways converging through it so we often use it as a cut-through from upstairs to downstairs.  The main feature of this room is the Hearthstone Woodstove, and we've spent practically every evening and snow-day all winter hanging out in this room.  We furnished it with some tacky but comfortable furnishings (aka a giant bean bag & papasan), and it's easy to get drawn into a book or movie or conversation or just staring at the fire.  Also this room has become the cats' bedroom since they wake up way earlier than we do so they're not allowed to sleep with us any more.  They're pretty thrilled that we got them such a luscious bean bag bed and papasan lounge which they somehow manage to occupy constantly -- not that we'd ever want to sit on our own furniture or anything!

So all winter, Chris has trudged through all kinds of weather to bring wood up to the porch to fire our woodstove.  Bea found him a $15 log-hauling cart at a thrift store that makes this job quite a bit easier, but still not EASY.  We store our wood under an overhanging roof alongside the store, a good 50' from the house.  In most weather, this is a handful of steps away but in a foot of snow and negative windchills (i.e., when the wood is most desperately needed), this is definitely a labor of love!

Neither of us has ever lived with a woodstove before now, and it's pretty fantastic.  We have an electric heat pump as well, but that costs a whole lot of money, so throughout the winter we have kept the woodstove running most days and almost every night to keep our house warm.  The heat pump kicks in as supplemental heat on really cold nights, but costs a whole lot less than if we had it running all the time.  The woodstove was especially necessary before we had one of the dampers on our heating system replaced because NO heat was reaching our dining room or Cozytorium through those ducts at all.

Quite a stash of wood (maybe half a cord) conveyed with the farmhouse, but still we had to order another cord in early February after such a cold start to 2014.  Both of us joined our firewood guy in throwing logs off his trailer, creating this enormous pile.  We then had only about 2 hours of daylight remaining to stack it all neatly before a huge rainstorm came through.  It was a mad dash but we got it all safely under the overhang, just-in-time!


Despite all the rain & snow we've had this winter, our house has stayed remarkably dry and has caused one of our cats to develop some respiratory challenges (i.e., he blows huge snot bubbles!).  Brother/-in-law Jonathan gave us a really cool cast-iron dragon humidifier to sit on the stove.  Sadly though, the soapstone stove top doesn't conduct heat well enough to make steam come out the dragon's nostrils.  In fact, the soapstone is so good an insulator that the water inside the dragon would barely evaporate at all, much less humidify our house.  However, it continues to look awesome and scare away any potential stove burglars.

The dragon also inspired Chris to conduct some ongoing experiments in homemade wood stove humidifiers.  At first, we had some paper towels draped over a hose reel/hang-all (although at the time we had no idea what it was -- just that Bea's grandma had given us 15 of them).  The towels dipped down into a cast iron pot full of water and would wick the water up where it would evaporate into the air.

Next came a series of fans hung zip tied to our vent cover in the hallway to help distribute the air (even shorty Bea had to duck to walk through that doorway).  First we had a box fan, then window fan, then a table-top fan hung upside-down; one was too loud, one was too big, one was not powerful enough...  This system worked okay, but like Goldilocks, Chris just wasn't satisfied with any of them!  The water from the iron pot evaporated too fast and needed to be refilled more often than he wanted to get up and carry a hot cast-iron pot into the kitchen.  So he added an upside-down wine bottle (filled with water) to the system, which needed a zip tie to hold it up off the bottom of the pot so water would trickle down to refill the pot as needed at the same rate as evaporation.  Eventually the paper towels tore to shreds (the cats may have had something to do with that!) and the wine bottle got off balance and smashed down to the floor one too many times for Bea's nerves, so Chris got to work creating a new system.

Using a cookie sheet as a base, Chris covered it with wet paper towels. The shovel from our fireplace set makes a temporary brace to turn a quart mason jar filled with water upside down for an exciting steamy hissing show as water escapes and hits the top of the stove while the jar is being slammed down onto the cookie sheet, aiming for as little water loss as possible.  Humidification is an exciting event in Fixettwell Farmhouse!  With this setup, the water absorbs down into the paper towels and the jar is far more stable than that precarious wine bottle.  This still needs to be refilled every couple of hours and isn't a perfect system (as noted by the slightly charred paper towels) but it works for now.

Chris vows to invent a better system before next winter sets in.  Designs & suggestions welcome!