Wood-burning stoves are seen as being homely, desirable and useful. They’ve got that reputation for good reason; for the most part it’s true. But it’s not all plain sailing as a wood-burning stove owner. Here are some of the things people don’t tell you about owning a woodburner.
1. Your well-honed stove-lighting technique will only ever fail you when you’re showing off your beloved appliance to guests.
2. Yes, your primary school teacher was right: that metal does get very hot. But you’ll still touch it to make sure. Then instantly regret that decision.
3. Threading the eye of a needle is nothing compared to threading your beautifully arranged kindling with a lit match in search of a long lost firelighter you placed somewhere near the bottom.
4. Only a home with a woodburner installed is sufficiently equipped with the warmth need to thaw an occupant forced outside on a winter’s evening in search of more logs.
5. You will, on at least one occasion, get a face-full of ashes by underestimating the wind speed ahead of a trip outside to empty your ashpan.
6. Your attempts to create the optimum flow of air through the vents to burn through your logs at just the right rate will result in you fiddling with levers more frequently than the average mechanical engineering apprentice.
7. There’s nothing quite like the frustration of getting a roaring stove going only to remember you’ve forgotten about an appointment and need to leave the house.
8. Scrap number 7. Getting distracted by an errand in a different room and returning to find your fire has gone out is equally frustrating.
Scrap 7 and 8: You need to get the fire hot before turning it right down before you go out. But you’re late, so you never get it hot. You rush out, annoyed that the slow-burning tars are going to eat into your chimney liner. Then, you find out they’ve changed the train times only that day, and you had a whole hour more to get the fire roaring.
Scrap 7 and 8: You need to get the fire hot before turning it right down before you go out. But you’re late, so you never get it hot. You rush out, annoyed that the slow-burning tars are going to eat into your chimney liner. Then, you find out they’ve changed the train times only that day, and you had a whole hour more to get the fire roaring.