Thursday, January 28, 2010

Woodburning for fun and profit!

Way back in the days of dinosaurs... you know, the 80s... those were my formative years. I'm of the highschool class of 1984. Feathered hair, Flashdance, hightop tennies.

My home however was in the days of the 1890s. My dad wanted to save money on heating bills so when we were at bible camp in Minnesota one summer, my folks purchased a woodburning stove. Why they thought of this 500 miles from home and in the heat of the summer is beyond me, but they did. We hauled it home in the back end of our converted breadtruck RV and Dad installed it in the center of our livingroom. Above this mysterious oven, was a tall metal chimney that was about 10-15 inches circumference. An elbow at the bottom of the chimney going into the stove and the other end disappearing into the ceiling and out the roof of the house. And a funky box thing halfway up that if you turned it on would blow the escaping heat out into the room.

The bedrooms for us girls were thru a closed door and up the stairs from there, but there was no heat up there. Not even with the gas furnace on! Some winters, on extremely cold nights, my sisters would give up and camp out in front of the woodburning stove. I was the strong one. I'd take an old mayonnaise jar full of piping hot water to bed with me to keep my toes warm and in the morning find that it had slid out from under the blankets to freeze next to the wall...

So anyway, back to the woodburning stove... Several years later, one afternoon, I got home from highschool with one of my sisters and the stove had burned down to nothing but cold ash while we were out all day. My parents weren't home yet and if you recall from my garbage burning incident, you'll know that I don't back away from a challenge, especially when it deals with fire! I stuffed the stove full of crumpled newspaper that we always kept on hand and put in several small bits of wood along with a couple BIG logs. It was going to be warm in that house even if I had to burn the house down...

And I almost did.

As the newspaper took off, the small bits of wood ignited. The larger logs started slowly burning. We enjoyed the heat and laid our snowy gloves on top to dry off. The sizzle of the stove sounds so nice!

As the stove heated up, we noticed something... The elbow at the bottom of the chimney wasn't the dull black anymore. It was turning a deep blackish/red and getting redder by the moment. I quickly turned the little valve that lets the heat escape more outside but am unsure about which way I turned it. The reddish glow slowly crept up the metal chimney.

If the elbow part had broken, the fire, I'm sure, would have sprayed out on the carpet a few feet behind and would have spread quickly. My sister and I opened the stove and with the stove stick, pushed stuff around in the fire. I think that may have made it a bit hotter... Not sure.

After several heart stopping minutes, the red glow finally started to die down and our hearts stopped beating out of our chests.

We got some "instruction" from our parents when they came home and knew better the next time we had to build a fire.
Not ours... stock photo of someone's! Ours was entirely enclosed and black with a grill, but this looks much swankier than ours ever did.

Have any of you done anything like this when you were younger? You know... accidentally try to burn the house down? twice?

10 comments:

Together We Save said...

Oh my... please don't burn the house down.... LOL We had a huge fireplace growing up, it always scared me.

slugmama said...

Ok....here's my burn the house down story. When I was about 8 or 9 I wanted to make candles. Candlemaking was all the rage at that time in the early '70s. My parents wouldn't buy me the ingredients to make candles.
So I figured out a way to make candles from my crayons. use a paperclip(unbent)to slowly to carve a hole thru the center of the crayon and then shove a piece of cotton twine through the hole for a wick.
So proud of myself, I set my 'candles' in a PLASTIC lid on top of the old fashioned metal radiator(in our 100 yr old house)in my room. I lit the 'candles' and went down to the kitchen....and forgot about the lit candles for awhile. By the time I remembered and flew upstairs the 'candle' were melted and the plastic lid was aflame and the wall next to the radiator was black.
That was one of the few times I got the belt and was never again allowed matches.lol

I did try to inadvertently burn my house down AGAIN as an adult but that's a whole other story...lol

slugmama said...

OOPs...I meant in the late '60's not the '70's. I WISH I was NOT that old...lol

Southern Gal said...

You made me recall the time my husband was working second shift. We heated our house entirely with a wood burning stove in the fireplace. (Mainly burning hot in the living room, cold in the bedroom.) Anyway, I had a few logs roll out of the insert onto our newly installed carpet. I was so upset I went and grabbed the vacuum cleaner and proceeded to vacuum up the hot coals. My upright machine had hot coals shooting out of the bag on the back! Smart, eh? Wonder how I survived this long.

Annie Jones said...

I don't have a story, but I thought you meant this kind of woodburning for fun and profit! LOL

The Old Parsonage said...

I can always count on you for a laugh!! I graduated from High School in 1984 too. Married the next October and a Mummy by the next November:)

Time sure does fly by...
Leann

Macey said...

This is strange since we actually had a woodstove, but we never had that experience! Weird.

slugmama said...

Annie Jones....LOL

Pam said...

I did lots of strange things when I was younger, but I don't remember trying to burn down our home...twice. : )

Carma Sez said...

Luckily the answer is No :-)

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