[hirundo]

I live in a very rural area where wood burning for heat makes a lot of sense. We have vastly too much deadwood on the ground and it is a serious fire hazard. There is simply no other economic way to dispose of it than to burn it. Most of it gets burned in vast piles by the county and forest services. From my lot, I divert a few cords per year of that to my woodstove. Either way it is going up in smoke. This way, for an acceptable amount of labor, I heat my house and save about $1,500 a year in propane charges.

This is less healthful for me than propane in terms of indoor air pollution. But it is more healthful in terms of exercise and fire prevention. I've accepted that compromise with the help of an air purifier that stays on all winter. Also, when I can get all of my fuel within a few hundred yards of my front door, most of the extraction and transportation costs go away.

And there's something else that's very important to me: When I burn propane, I micromanage the thermostat to save money. I wear heavier clothes all winter and end up tolerating being more cold and uncomfortable. With wood fuel being so much more economical, and surfing the edge of comfort less practical, I just keep the woodstove going all day and cool the house at mid day by opening some windows ... getting fresh air that I just don't get when using propane. So the house is mostly warmer all day than with propane, and I'm wearing less and generally more comfortable.

It's a pretty easy choice for me. I'd like to keep it up as long as I'm physically able.

[dghlsakjg]

He’s not saying that wood heat isn’t practical or rational for you, he’s saying that the byproduct of smoke and particulate matter imposed as a negative externality on your neighbors is not fair.

I live in a semi rural heavily forested area where wood heat is an option. I definitely notice the drop in air quality when winter comes around. Part of the problem is that for whatever reason wood smoke from stoves tends to hang out at ground level and cover the area rather than rising away. I don’t get any benefit from wood heat, but I do suffer the costs…

[nerdponx]

I wonder if all that excess heat from burning can be captured and stored somehow.

[genewitch]

It can, but it requires building around heated seating in a building. You have an intake, a horizontal inlet pipe, a firebox, and then a 90° into a chimney inside of a dome, made of thick clay. You then use a horizontal outlet to the dome near the floor, with a rectangular cross section a ratio to the interior chimney size, ideally, and you build concrete or clay benches, bedframes, etc around your room, with these rectangular exhausts in the middle.

The fire gets going very hot, burns off all of the stuff that comes out of wood, on purpose, to turn into heat, which heats the masonry, which will stay warm for a very long time. The dome also radiates heat for a very long time. The final outlet, out of the house, expels tepid, wet, clean air; contains only CO2 as a byproduct, iirc.

[InvaderFizz]

For others reading along, just lookup rocket mass heater. You'll find plenty of pictures and YouTube videos.

[nerdponx]

My question was specifically about burning of deadwood for forest management, which apparently is available in huge quantities that need to be disposed of, but perhaps not consistently enough to e.g. use it to heat a city hall or gymnasium.

[hkt]

Wood pellets might be an answer. Some houses use pellet burning furnaces as an alternative to gas fuelled boilers etc. It is niche though.

[ahartmetz]

There seemed to be a small wave of pellet furnace installations in Germany 5-10 years ago or so. From what I heard, pellets became so expensive in the meantime that new installations declined. Long story short: there is demand for wood pellets. The price is about 300€/(metric) ton right now.

[hkt]

Drax[0] in the UK have outfitted their old coal plants with wood pellets which are apparently sourced from the US. Questionable how much value there is in it given the carbon footprint of the shipping and the unclear stewardship of some of the wood.

[0]: https://www.drax.com/

[14]

I also heat water with my stove. 2 hot water tanks, the first tank is unpowered has cold city water coming into it and is ran through a coil on my wood stove and then cycles back into the tank with a hot water pump. The second tank is powered and draws from the first tank. So cold city water is heated prior to going to my second tank it saves me lots of power each year.

[jkaljundi]

From the point of ecology and nature the best thing would be to leave the deadwood in the forests.

[jtbayly]

Only if he then let forest fires burn his house down. Not exactly a hard choice there either.

[dghlsakjg]

There are plenty of forested ecosystems where forest fires aren’t an issue…