Heat it and Beat it

I am a big fan of wood burning appliances in the home—for lots of reasons.

The main reason is that there’s just something about it. Call me a cave-man (I’ve been called worse), but I love providing heat for my home and my family with wood that I cut and split (or at least haul in from the wood pile.) Sure, it’s a little bit of work and not perfectly neat, but the tradeoff in energy savings and ambiance is a no-brainer.

What I also like runs a little deeper though and has to do with self-sufficiency. As much as I love my truck—which runs on petroleum—I don’t think there’s a big argument that the petroleum we consume in our vehicles (and elsewhere in our lives, say in plastics and other stuff) is a process that is out of balance. So to the extent that I can contribute to burning locally sourced, clean fuel not only in the US, but in my local geographic area, well I feel good about that. To put it another way, it doesn’t take a lot of energy to get the fuel to my front door, which means it has what building scientists and green experts would call low “embodied energy.”

Magnum Heat‘s products are made in the USA too. What I also like is the choice: corn, pellet, flex fuel, wood. Magnum Heat also has fireplace inserts and furnace systems for the die hard wood burner.

Now, I’m not crazy or naive: we live in a global economy and will always and forever get things from around the world, however, this falls into my “It’s OK to buy things here too” file.

So heat the house and beat the energy bill. What’s more, splitting wood is a workout and a half. You might even save a few gallons of gas not going to the gym!