Does your wife operate the stove as well?

[woodconvert]

Yeppers. The wife runs it on the day shift (she works at home) and I take over in the afternoon. She does a good job.

In fact, she set an all time record yesterday. I told her to run it hard as I thought it was supposed to cool off in to the lower teens. She did and it didn't and we hit 85F!!. THAT was OBNOXIOUS...

 

[struggle]

Yes here as well but she is aware of all my rules on stack temp verse stove temp and which to shut back and when.

The only thing she kind of has a tough time with is getting a cold fire going. She has done it several times but seems to struggle a bit at times.

 

[Henz]

huh..in my old house when it gets to 82 degrees we are just feeling really comfortable!

 

[SlyFerret]

I'm so surprised that nobody has cracked a joke about their wife being so hot, she doesn't need a bed of coals to get the fire started...

[rimshot]

-SF

 

[LarryD]

My mother in law is shocked that my wife deals with the stove. My wife is home with our kids and loads/runs the stove during the day. She is getting better at loading it right up. It can be tough with two small children when trying to get stove up to temp w/o overfiring. I give her a lot of credit. Glass is always clean!

She doesn't clean the ash pan or bring wood in. She did help split this year, which was pretty cool. She actually thought our splitter was a pretty good investment! Now if I could get her to feel the same way about my snowmobile!?

Larry D :smirk:

 

[cmonSTART]

My wife is great about helping to stack the wood, bring it in, and run the stove.

The sad thing is, with all the time I spend online researching wood stove and burning, she can still whip up a fire faster than I can. 8-/

 

[WILDSOURDOUGH]

My wife's a REAL TROOPER-
Runs the power tools (air nailers, chopsaws), mowers, trimers etc. She is a OWB champion burner- just learning the Lopi last week, she did good !
Shes the woodstacker and Lawncart/Wheelbarrel driver - she says she won't use the chainsaws (must be pretty smart too !).
Work doesn't know gender.

 

[Girl]

Hmmmmm.... I feel a little offended, lol.
I can start a kick ass fire super quick & do all the other necessities, except for the stacking & splitting is hard for me.
I have a very angry back & neck, so I enlist my friends in the spring or when ever it is warm enough to swim in the lake I live on
to take part in wood stacking parties. (actually I don't have to enlist them anymore, they offer now after I enlisted them the first time & we had a blast)
My kids do bring in wood when I ask.
My BF actually stacked ALL my wood this year! Did a fab job for a city boy & I told him he is in trouble now because he did such a good job.
I do have to say~
I have been barged with questions like, Don't you get scared? Isn't that dangerous? Your house will catch on fire!
I often turn around & ask them "Why? Because I am a girl?"
Jerks!
Okay thats my rant & for the record I hope you know I really wasn't offended by the question.

 

[JimWalshin845]

Heck... it is just one of our TWO-Gether projects... one of the reasons I love her to the max!

 

[stonehouse]

My wife is so hot, she doesn't need a bed of coals to get the fire started...

[rimshot]

-SF

Fixed it for ya.
Since no one took the chance, it's yours to take.
Don't sell yourself short. I bet your wife's hot. Mine sure is.
Doesn't do anything with the stove except sit right next to it all the time though.

 

[luv2byte]

My GF used to (used to) race me home so that she could rekindle the stove. Now it appears to be too much work. Ellie - you got a sister?

I do but trust me they are not one that you would want! I love getting out there and getting dirty with the hubby - yeah, I wine and wimper about being sore or tired but I am usually the first one changed into grubby clothes and have my equipment powered up! It is just more time together with the hubby and we usually end up having a great time. We often can do projects without really talking, we just know what to do when we work together on things so much.

 

[colsmith]

I'm the wife, I do the whole shebang. I bought a single handed sledge hammer after Thanksgiving, so hubby can now do splitting with wedges, but all the maul work is mine. I admit I am behind on splitting, it has been up to just me for over a year. (Hubby has a bad elbow, recurring back problems, and cracked his ribs too many times, so he has to just use his left arm for splitting.) I carry just as much wood, stack it, load the stove, empty the ashes, etc. He chainsaws a lot more than me since we got a Husky 353 w/18" blade simply because the weight and vibration is too much for me. (I have carpal tunnel and ulnar nerve problems. Had surgery but it didn't help much.) I can and do use the 14" electric chainsaw, which I bought myself for an anniversary gift years ago. To be honest, I have been a pyromaniac my whole life (burned the backyard up at age 4 with my brother), only had to call the fire department once (a test prairie burn that I wasn't supposed to be doing, on a windy day.)

Gee whiz, guys, if you marry somebody who is lazy or stupid, don't blame the whole gender for it. (Donning flame retardant suit.) Woodburning is a guy thing? How about: Every society makes up stupid rules for which gender should do which things, and it is contagious, and that is how stereotypes develop. Why should women cook but not make fire? That one in particular makes no sense at all. For most of history you needed to make and manage fire to cook, so they went together. If your wife doesn't help with the stove, and you wish she would, have you tried to encourage or teach her about it? Or do you just strut around and think that makes you more manly somehow? My she-gang has several bonfires every year, we are all pretty keen on fire.

 

[molly1414]

Here's another wife who does everything. If it was up to my husband he would throw the stove out. He would rather turn up the thermostat then burn wood. Of course he is always hot and I get cold if the house falls below 70. I burn to keep nice and warm and like the whole wood burning lifestyle. He just does not understand. Of course he likes having a very small propane bill.
My 12 year old daughter is interested in how the stove works and I have been teaching her how to work it with supervision of course.
I can see her using a stove when she has her own house.

 

[JimWalshin845]

You go Girls.... I don't know what the age brackets are here, but I bet the LADIES who are posting are (no matter what age) young at heart and vivacious. I bet if they were single and looking they would post a personal stating:

Wanted... man with chain saw and splitter... send photos of chain saw and splitter! :red:

But seriously, Kath and I go out and harvest a dead fall face cord, split and stack it in 2-3 hours. Usually back in time for the beer and wine whistle.

We haven't put the furnace on except when we did a 3 day modification of the hearth and Kath was right beside me (as I was for her) while kicking up dust and laying down mud.

Very refreshing to see the Ladies posting here, most have only made a few posts prior.. but keep up the good work.... behind every 'good' man.. there is a GREAT Lady!

 

[woodconvert]

"My wife’s a REAL TROOPER-
Runs the power tools (air nailers, chopsaws), mowers, trimers etc. She is a OWB champion burner- just learning the Lopi last week, she did good !
Shes the woodstacker and Lawncart/Wheelbarrel driver - she says she won’t use the chainsaws (must be pretty smart too !).
Work doesn’t know gender."

hh:

....does she have an outboard motor???........

 

[Cearbhaill]

You go Girls.... I don't know what the age brackets are here, but I bet the LADIES who are posting are (no matter what age) young at heart and vivacious.

This lady woodburner is 53.

 

[pegdot]

Lots more women around using wood than you might think. There seems to be a growing trend around here for the wives to take over running the family farm while the husbands hold down a full time job to make ends meet. Oddly enough every woman I know, in that position, uses wood as the primary source of heat in their home. I guess it's just a hold over from the old days but I really haven't heard any of them complain about it. They complain about fuel prices, fertilizer prices, market prices, the cold, the dry, the heat, the wet, and everything else under the sun but never about having to keep the stove going.

My personal theory is that woman are generally more cold natured than men so once they discover how much warmer they can keep their house using wood, rather than with a conventional furnace, they like it. They might have it so hot that hubby wants to sleep in the barn but.... :lol:

BTW, I'm 47 and all the woman I'm referring to are my age or older. My hubby tries but just isn't very good with the stove although he will split and carry if he sees it needs doing. We recently installed a pellet stove which he doesn't even know how to turn on. Gotta do something about that... %-P

 

[Lignums]

My city woman is learning the things that we knew on the farm growing up. It's old hat now. I rarely touch the thing anymore, just to clean it out and bring the wood in.

 

[eba1225]

Unfortunately she cannot. (need not say anymore)

 

[chad3]

Pegdot,
My exact reply was going to be the above. My wife has her hands in the stove more than I do as I work full time and she is the one home. Other than cleaning out the ashes, she is the "heater".

 

[Henz]

yeah, my wife would like to help split/stack and run the atv but she deals with our 3 year old son and 8 mos old daughter when I go out and do that..Couple more years when the kids get alittle more indepepndent, we can all be out there working on it. That I am looking foreward to.

 

[pulldownclaw]

We had an old smoke dragon at our old house for 9 years, so my wife learned the ropes on that. She is thrilled with our new Hampton, her quote the other day was "this thing is so easy to operate". I do all the bucking, splitting, and stacking, but she doesn't mind running the stove! I have to get her to help stack soon..."y'know honey, if you want to be warm next winter..."

 

[Girl]

Oh & for the record since I am the fire starter, maker keeper, etc., etc....
I like to keep the temps tropical so my BF gets nakie!
hahaha

 

[timfromohio]

My wife grew up in Western Mass. They had two wood stoves and went through over 10 cords a year. She feeds our PE Pacific insert all day while at home with our two little boys (budding wood burners who help me in firewood collection already). We also have a Napolean 1150P that will be installed in several months, so she'll have 2 stoves to feed.

 

[KateC]

I'm 46, weigh 110 soaking wet and do everything except chainsaw and heavy splitting. I do all the stacking (by size, age and species of course)---and built the pallet racks it's all stacked on. I pick it, haul it to the house and burn it. I have tendonitis in both elbows but if I have pieces that are too big or I'm short on kindling I can sledge and wedge well enough. I clean the stove and glass and dump the ashes and prefer the BF not go near the stove. I've woken up a couple mornings choking with the house full of smoke because he tried to restart a full load and forgot to open the air. Once I walked into the room to find him alseep on the couch and a load burning with the door still open. Don't know how many times I'd find one damp pathetic blob smoldering on a 5in. pile of lukewarm cinders. He has no patience, no attention span and no aptitude for it. He can't even manage the charcoal grill.
I also do most of the yardwork, gardening and landscaping and all the cooking, cleaning and laundry, re-finished all the kitchen cabinets and made the marble mosaic extension pad for the hearth.
He works his patootie off to allow me to stay home eating bon-bons and watching soap operas. :kiss: