Our Daily Winter Bonfire

Our house was on the market for about a year before we were the lucky ones to get it. It's a normal looking house, a nice house, and one we couldn't believe hadn't gotten any other interest except from us. I think some people were a little hesitant to place an offer because of its unique furnace.

The heater is called a Heatmor, which is an outdoor wood burning furnace that is attached to a water boiler inside the basement. The water is warmed by the furnace and travels by pipe underground to the boiler. The boiler then sends the warmed water throughout the house through baseboard heat. With this type of furnace, we can choose to either use propane to heat the house or use the Heatmor to heat it with wood and fire. By the way, this is totally a nontechnical person's explanation, but it's the way I understand how the machine works.

My husband, Mike, was excited about this type of set-up. One of the first "big" gifts Mike received from me was his very own chainsaw....and let me tell you, it was love at first sight (not for me, but for his STIHL chainsaw). In my family, male bonding time consists of going out to the woods and chopping down dead trees for firewood. After he got his bright orange STIHL, my brother, dad, and him would spend hours and hours taking down trees at my grandparent's farm.

The Heatmor at the house would give Mike even MORE of an opportunity to chop down trees. This sounded like music to his soul (weirdo!). AND, since the house was surrounded by 10 acres of a neglected woods, he had so many trees to clear, plenty of free fuel for the fire.

But before we decided to buy our house, I had a HUGE decision to make...could I, the busy mother of three kids, handle the mechanics of the Heatmor or handle having another daily responsibility? Since Mike is out of town most weeks, I would be the one responsible for keeping the fire going 24/7, not him. I would have to be the one to walk 30 feet away from our house multiple times a day in rain, snow (sometimes deep snow), ice, or shine every time I needed to add wood to the furnace. If I didn't add wood in a timely fashion, our house would lose heat until I restarted the fire. No pressure, Kelly....

Since I really, really, really wanted to live our life out in the country (I wanted to get my chickens!), I decided to take a leap of faith with this unusual furnace. We bought the house...and I'm so glad we did! We love our life out in the country and we LOVE our Heatmor! It's saved us so much money in heating costs, which living in a colder part of the country, has been a huge blessing. We add about 15-25 pieces of wood every 12 hours or so, depending on how cold the weather is. Mike spends the entire spring/summer/fall cutting, splitting, and stacking about five cords of wood around the furnace, enough to get us through a normal Michigan winter....and keeps him in STIHL heaven, haha.

My chickens also love our massive woodpiles. Small animals and bugs make their home throughout the stacks of wood, so the girls are always pecking at the ground around the furnace searching for a quick snack.

Something I didn't anticipate when we bought the house, Mike and I like our furnace so much that we fight, fight, fight (bring out the punching bags) over who gets the honor and privilege of putting wood in the furnace every day. It's really quite silly, especially since it's a chore and chores are not supposed to be fun, but we both love keeping the fire going....it's become our crazy obsession and daily conversation.

Our furnace is like having a warm bonfire to constantly visit in the wintertime. We keep our work gloves on a shelf by the furnace to wear when we are adding wood. My favorite part of stocking the fire is to wear those toasty warm gloves, they feel so good on my hands when it's super chilly outside.

Just in case you were wondering, Heatmor and STIHL did not pay me to advertise their products on Kelly's Country Squawk. Heating our house "old school" solely with wood from our property is just another part of country living that I've completely enjoyed since I went from Hoosier to Michigander nearly four years ago.

Thanks for reading my Country Squawk,

Kelly

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