ᐅ Buy a wood-burning stove as a preventive measure

Hello,

I’m currently seriously considering buying a wood stove to heat the house in case of emergency. If placed in a good location, like a stairwell or similar, it can provide quite a bit of warmth for a small house.

At the current rate, fossil fuels will soon be worth their weight in gold.

I’d like to know what others who still heat with fossil fuels think about this. Photovoltaics and solar panels can’t be installed quickly or without significant investment, and electricity for heat pumps isn’t getting any cheaper either.

Firewood can usually be found somewhere for free, so I’m planning to use the summer to install a fireplace as a backup.

Good luck

Do you have a functioning chimney? Are you allowed to connect a stove at that location (distance to the neighbor’s windows must be 15 m (50 feet) or the chimney needs to be 1 m (3 feet) higher than the top edge of their windows, according to the Federal Immission Control Act)?

Maybe it would be better to install a fireplace that you can also enjoy in your living room?

We have a heat pump and additionally a fireplace that is used every evening. For that reason, we have set the overall temperature in the house slightly lower. The fireplace was purchased because we love it and like sitting in the living room at 25°C (77°F) in the evenings, but nowadays we’re glad to have it and could even heat exclusively with it if necessary.
However, free firewood will probably no longer be available or only rarely, since many people are getting the same idea.

If it really comes to the point where a single-family home owner cannot pay for electricity or heating anymore, firewood will become the new currency and certainly won’t be available for free.

If you have the option to install a fireplace, it is definitely not a bad idea.

I don’t know where you live, but here, free firewood causes conflicts with the forest ranger, and if you burn scrap wood from somewhere, you’ll have trouble with the neighbors. Proper firewood isn’t free. By the way, if you don’t buy it pre-cut, cutting wood provides warmth three times over, which is a real effort.

WilderSueden schrieb:

and if you burn scrap wood from somewhere, you’ll have trouble with the neighbors.

And with the local chimney inspector. I also assume that private wood stoves will no longer be permitted in the near future, as they contribute significantly to environmental pollution.

The major advantage compared to heat pumps or gas from the public network is that firewood can be stored in advance. This was also possible in the past with oil tanks or still is today with liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) tanks in the garden. During multi-day power outages in winter, a tile stove can be a useful backup for heat pump owners. And don’t even mention photovoltaic systems with batteries; most of these models don’t operate during power outages, and for heating in a dark frost period, they would at best make a significant contribution only in a passive house.