Lawrence Hall
Wood Stoves and Thinking
About Stuff
Every winter our old cast-iron wood heater was useful
both as a source of heat and of conversation. During the long freeze of last
winter, after we missed our flight to Cancun, the wood-burner was a necessity.
After the worst of the cold passed the good old Birmingham heater, after some
sixty years of service to several families, failed. A leg (the stove’s leg, not
mine) crumbled, which led to a cascade effect, more pieces of iron falling to
the brick base.
I bought a new stove, a small one I could afford, and friends
Gary and Mickey worked a few hours heaving the old one out and the new one in.
The most interesting part was fitting the stove pipe. Anyone who works with
sheet metal and can keep his language clean is a champion.
The guys dollied the old heater to a concrete slab out
back to replace the cheap chimenea that lasted something less than sixty years.
Later I installed a remaining stove pipe segment to the
Birmingham to help the draft and to keep more of the smoke up and away while
sitting outside. Joining this one section to the heater required precision
adjustments and careful fitting, which I skillfully and methodically
accomplished by beating the (snot) out of it with a fence post.
There was no one around to hear me speak…plainly…to it.
Friend Jake at American Firewood advised me where I could
find a small grate, and on a cold evening I lit the new stove’s first fire in
accordance with the instruction. The coating needs three different burnings for
bonding with the iron, and I’m following that carefully. I also checked the
fittings for smoke-leaks, and all is well. The new heater features a tight
glass door and a clever new way of fluing the air, which results in a very
efficient small fire that lasts for hours and whose heat lasts even longer.
Nice.
Birmingham Stove and Range Company was in business from
1902 until 1903, and made lots of different cook stoves, wood heaters, and
cast-iron cookware. One source (Birmingham Stove Company - Easy Access To Information
Company (ninan.org)) says they invented the corn-shaped cornbread skillet.
Birmingham Stove and Range did not have the cachet of, say, Vermont Castings™,
but their products were less expensive and so more common in homes and railway
stations and businesses all over America.
A properly installed wood heater is a good thing. It
provides auxiliary heat and, in case of a power failure, it would make your
house safely warm. You really do need to know something about the different
kinds of wood and how they are dried and stored, and basic physics for lighting
a fire safely. Beyond that, a wood heater does not require programming, cannot
be hacked, and does not send you annoying messages about new software.
A wood heater smells of wood, one nature’s many types of
incense, and the flames give you a center for thinking about stuff while
sitting before it with a cup of coffee as the early winter night falls.
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