With LondonGirl off at her parents, having taken the 2 London little'uns to see the grandparents, I've been in the house alone for a bit and this has allowed me to turn the gas central heating off and see how I can cope with just 2 wood stoves for heat. Its not because I expect to do this regularly, more an experiment to learn what can be done, wht sort of temperatures 2 small stoves can manage to keep comfortable. Well we've finally got some wintry weather with overnight temps at close to freezing, or just above, and daytime temps of about 4-6C. I've found that loading 2 small stoves with softwood is a job to keep up, but I can keep the house comfortable, just. If I go out nd the house cools down as the stoves are out, it'll take a long long while to get enough heat to the bedrooms upstairs to warm them, but it does get there eventually. I need th floor fan to shift air around, and i need the lounge to be t-shirt warm, but it can be done. If outside temps were to drop much further though the gas boiler will be needed. I'm churning through the wood too, which is fine as far as I'm concerned, every log saves money on gas.
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Started working over the oak scrounge this morning. Figure if I get big ugly out of the way first it'll only get easier from here.
My scrounge so far this fall with limited trips into the timber. Mostly dead standing red elm and bitternut hickory. I’m several years ahead, so not sweating it too much...but, there is more to get if I can make more trips. Shotgun deer starts this weekend, so I’ll hold off until that circus ends. I wear chaps, but don’t have a “vest”.
