Heating your home with Firewood

It may seem strange timing to say I am thinking about Winter heating bills in the middle of summer, but I am. Each year it seems that the cost of keeping your home warm and cosy through the Winter rises, often well in excess of inflation, and more and more we are faced with the choice of keeping warm and paying huge bills, or leaving the heating off and adding another layer of jumpers. I think this is why many families are making the decision to add a wood burner to their living room and are using firewood as a cheaper source of heating.

I am giving this serious thought for my own home. I live in a Victorian terrace, so the fireplace and chimney are already in place, although the chimney would have to be opened up again to make this a possibility.  I personally love the look of the wood burners – they are really attractive pieces of equipment that add to the look of any room, but avoid the spitting embers that can often come with coal and open fires.  What really appeals is that I currently often leave the heating off during the day to save on bills – this is despite the fact that I work from home, but with a wood burner, I could heat the room I work in, and, by leaving the doors open, I could also heat much of the kitchen and dining room area too, making it cosy for when Joe comes home from school.

Another aspect of wood burners that makes this an attractive idea is that, with my husband working as a carpenter, we have regular access to offcuts and wood (although you are not meant to burn treated timber). Companies like Firewood Centre also make life easier by offering a delivery service of Kiln Dried Logs  with free mainland UK delivery a real selling point.

An article in the Daily Mail from 2014 stated that ” so long as you can afford the initial costs, it is undoubtedly a great way for households to cushion themselves from the blow of energy price hikes and gain a certain degree of independence from fuel giants…” I think this is certainly something to think about, although turning on the central heating seems a long way off in July, Autumn really isn’t that far away, and Winter is just around the corner….and a little forward planning never really hurt anyone.

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