Heating Your Home With a Wood Burning Stove

It may sound backwards but a wood burning stove can actually heat an entire home better than a modern gas furnace.

We first started using a wood burning stove when we would go up to a little cabin in the woods that my husband inherited after his mom passed away. It was an original vintage cast iron wood stove from around the 1940’s. We were able to heat up that little uninsulated cabin so well with it.

We live in a rural neighborhood and have a 300 gallon propane tank that our furnace runs on. We had a traditional fireplace like most homes do and enjoyed making fires in the winter. Our old fireplace never really heated the home that well, but did provide a cozy ambience. When the price of propane doubled one year was when we decided to install a wood stove in our own home.

How we swapped out our traditional fireplace for a wood burning stove.

I was thrilled by this from a design perspective. Our original fireplace was shoved so far into the corner you could barely hang a mantle over it. Wood stoves are made to set in corners of the room so this was going to be such an improvement visually.

I have a great contractor who helped us out with this project. Ripping out our old fireplace insert from the 1980’s and getting a pad ready to set a wood burning stove on took about two weeks to complete. While my contractor got to work on the remodeling part, we got to go shopping for our new wood stove.

Find a local fireplace shop.

We have a great local fireplace shop near us who had the best brands on display for us to choose from. We ended up picking the Endeavor by Lopi, which is a larger size wood stove capable of heating a home up to 2000 square feet. It also meets the EPA’s low emission limits for wood heaters. You can even cook on it if you really wanted to go back to the old times.

Once the old fireplace insert was removed we had the brilliant idea of turning the massive cavity it left into a storage closet that you accessed from the outside. This “closet” is just basically the old chimney (which was not brick) so the entire thing was left in tack, saving us a bunch of money. We just had to install a door on the other side and added some drywall to finish it out.

This was a pretty basic project that I think any one the least bit handy could have taken on themselves. We had laminate flooring that was easy to remove, along with the baseboards. But I would say that hiring out a good drywall and plaster company is worth it because you want that old space filled out as smoothly as possible. My contractor did a great job at this and no one would ever be able see his drywall seams.

Choose a heat resistant material and build your wood stove platform.

The next step was picking out a non-combustable material to set the wood stove on. There is very little design inspiration out there on the internet for this specific thing. I tried my hardest to search Pinterest for wood stove platforms but never really saw anything that I liked. Finally, someone recommended I go to a landscape materials yard and pick out some flagstone. This turned out to be a brilliant idea because the stone came in a soft tan color that matched my laminate flooring perfectly. My contractor did a beautiful job on laying the flagstone.

Let the professionals do the installation.

A little less than two weeks later it was finally installation day! The store we bought the stove from does the installation and they were amazing at it. You definitely want someone who knows what they are doing when it comes to cutting a hole through your roof. The installer we met that day said he had been installing two stoves a day, six days a week – for ten years! We were in good hands.

The Endeavor wood stove by Lopi is a powerhouse.

The Endeavor did not disappoint. On her first night she got the house so warm we had to open a window. It is almost one year to the day that we have been using her and our second winter of only using wood to heat our home. We installed her in early January of 2024 and haven’t used our gas furnace since winter 2023. As I write this now I am being warmed by her glow and am listening to the tickling of the coals burning.

Wood burning stoves are a way of slow, natural living.

Wood burning stoves are a way of life. We have fully embraced this natural way of living now. Splitting and chopping wood is mentally therapeutic and good for you physically. Once you have a wood stove you’ll need to have a few wood piles going. We have had cords of wood delivered to us in the past, but my husband has really started to enjoy finding rounds of wood and splitting them on his own. Just keep in mind that the size of your firebox will determine the size wood you are able to fill it with. If you choose to go with a smaller size stove you will only fit smaller logs.

Is it expensive to use a wood burning stove?

It depends on how resourceful you are. We own a pickup truck so are able to load it full of rounds and bring them back home. You would be amazed at how many people advertise on Craigslist or Marketplace offering free wood. A lot of times people need to have trees taken down on their property and the tree companies charge a lot to take it all away. So people are left trying to find ways to get rid of it all. We have built up several wood piles this way and even managed to borrow a wood splitter from a neighbor to split everything. We have yet to buy wood for our new stove.

Is a wood burning stove safe?

From a mothers perspective I feel a lot safer around a wood burning stove than a traditional open fireplace. An open fireplace will usually have a chain curtain or freestanding mesh screen in front that embers can still get through and burn. This is why fire rugs were invented, to protect your floor in front of a fireplace. A wood stove is completely contained with a door that seals shut tight so nothing can escape, not even smoke. I can build a fire just before bed and fall asleep easy knowing this.

Do wood burning stoves emit carbon monoxide?

When soot builds up inside of the flue, gasses can get trapped inside. We have found that a simple chimney sweep once a year will ensure this never happens. The flue of our wood burning stove it easier to sweep clean than our other fireplaces that had much taller flues. Most houses have carbon monoxide alarms because all gas appliances are at risk of releasing this dangerous gas. A brand new wood burning stove is far less of a CO danger than a home with an old gas burning furnace.

Are wood burning stoves bad for the environment?

There is a misnomer that wood burning stoves must be bad if they release smoke into the air. This couldn’t be farther from the truth. Our stove has a secondary burn chamber in the upper part of the box that directs the smoke through a manifold where it is burned again creating more heat and less emissions. There are even rebates for certain EPA certified wood stoves in most areas.

Are wood burning stoves dirty?

As the person who cleans and dusts our home I can tell you that a wood burning stove is a thousand percent cleaner than an open wood burning fireplace. I have seen first hand the dust coming off of my rag when we switched to a wood burning stove. It was a dramatic reduction in ash colored dust. Of course there is going to be a bit of mess around the basket we keep our firewood and sticks in, but I don’t mind that kind of mess.

Do wood burning stoves affect indoor air quality?

You are much more likely to get “smoked out” with open wood fires than a wood stove. Most people don’t realize that their traditional fireplaces were installed when homes didn’t have great windows. If you have a home with newer windows and an older fireplace this is a recipe for filling your house up with smoke. When a home is too well sealed, a slight vacuum can be created in the room. This causes smoke to pour in and you have to crack a window to relieve that negative pressure, allowing the smoke to go up the chimney correctly.

Are wood burning stoves illegal in California or other states?

As I write this no states including California have bans on wood burning stoves. Of course California does have certain regulations like only EPA certified wood stoves are allowed in new construction. California, Oregon and Washington also have some vague restrictions like “check before you burn” so as not to use your stove on days when the air quality is bad. Again, for new stoves this is not an issue as they are designed to burn pretty clean.

How does a wood stove heat a home so well?

Think about how hot your house gets when you have been baking and using your kitchen oven for several hours. A kitchen oven is insulated and designed to keep heat in though a lot of warmth does still escape. Now image a 500 pound solid cast iron wood stove that is meant to burn at 700 degrees and emit heat. They are so efficient that you can load them up with wood just before bed and they will burn until morning. The newer steel wood stoves like the Endeavor draw in cooler air from the bottom of the stove and actually push hot air out the top vented section. There are also blower fans available that help move that hot air to other areas of the home. We have found that our home is heated sufficiently without the auxiliary fan option.

Think of a wood burning stove as an actual appliance.

The amount of control you have over the heat output of the stove is amazing. We are able to keep our home a steady 70 degrees by loading up the stove with wood a few times a day. Once you have mastered the basics mechanics of the stove it’s so easy to build and maintain a fire. You will also burn a lot less wood than in a traditional open fireplace due to the added control and efficiency. I am in a few wood burning stove groups on Facebook. They love posting pictures of their thermostats showing degrees in the 70’s.

Maintaining your wood stove.

Another reason we chose the Endeavor was for its nice large glass viewing window. We clean it regularly so we can always have a nice view of the fire. The best method for this is to spray a little glass cleaner on a paper towel and dab that into a little ash from the fireplace. Just wipe clean with this mixture for a clear sparkling window. The Endeavor, by Lopi is a standard model that they have been making for years and I love that it is easy to get a replacement glass window if we were to ever crack ours. This happens occasionally. I also love the clear, unobstructed view of the fire. Traditional fireplace views are usually block by grates or fire screens.

If you live in an area that gets cold in the winter and want to save money on your utility bill, then you should try installing a wood burning stove. You will love the cozy life around your new wood stove, and so will your dogs.