Wood heat is different. Most people who use conventional fuels for home heating have a relationship with the process that consists only of paying the fuel bill and adjusting the thermostat. They know nothing about the system and are helpless if anything goes wrong. People who heat with wood are passionate about their ability to shorten that system, and in many cases control it entirely from end to end; from woodlot to woodstove.

I count myself among the latter, and have thought quite a bit about not just the mechanics of heating with wood, but the meaning of the thing as well. Here are some notes towards a holistic theory of firewood as a lifestyle choice.

Personal Control

Many people who heat with wood talk about their motivations as being a balance of economics, practicality, and pure preference.

Disaster Preparedness or Weathering the Storm

Many disasters can upset a modern energy distribution grid. Snow storms, icy conditions, floods, road cuts, import shortages caused by diplomatic spats, and industrial action are but a few of the ways in which the electricity or gas can be interrupted on its way from producer to your home. The only disasters that can interrupt wood heating and cooking are a fire in the woodshed or a broken stove glass, and then only for as long as it takes to saw more deadfall or to tack weld a sheet of steel over the hole.

While I definitely keep extra butane and propane canisters around to get through temporary interruptions in supply, only my firewood operation is a sustainable long-term solution to a distribution system collapse. It also happens to be the most economical, the most environmental, and the most equitable choice.See Three Pillars of Sustainability for more on this tripartite thinking.

Politics and Economics of Energy Production

Wood energy production (and distribution on a small local scale) is de facto unregulated beyond the laws that provide for communal forests.See Jesús Arango Fernández’ Montes comunales en Asturias y otras cuestiones agrarias (2009) for a complete treatment of the legal question of the commons in Asturias where I live. I have an app on my phone to track the spot price of electrical energy throughout the day so I know when it is most affordable for me to run a dishwasher or a clothes washer. That very tightly coupled control over my daily life by a multinational energy company is deeply unpleasant and violating, and it is part of the reason why I would never cede my wood heat to the same sort of corporation. Indeed, it is the primary motivator in my desire to be off the grid. Beginning here with heat, I can give them less and less money and create less and less demand, which lowers prices for those without the option of wood heat or solar electric or other non-commercial sources of power.

Self-Provisioning

Firewood is an integral part of the self-provisioning lifestyle we wish to have here. Given the demographics of where we live, I am the primary

Community & Control

Like the personal preference above, a community preference helps to define a place and give a local character that anchors individuals to the earth and to each other.

Placeness

Burning wood, particularly wood produced on one’s property or in one’s community, situates your home within the landscape of the local environment. My home exists both within, and on the edge of, the communal forest. Within in the sense of being in symbiosis with, and on the edge of in a geospatial sense. In both instances, the connection between where I sit or sleep (within the house) and where the house is (outside the house) are enhanced. There is not a thread connecting them, but a complex series of sturdy links, chaining my personal comfort and wellbeing to the health and wellbeing of the forest I exist in and around.

Local Economy

Firewood is not a cost-free method of heating, but it is a lower cost option than piped in gas or the electric grid. In addition, the money spent on firewood heating tends to be spent more locally. Whether you buy your wood split and stacked from a local producer or produce it yourself, there is a whole ecosystem of local woodstove sellers, chimney sweeps, chainsaw salespeople, small engine repair shops that are supported by your direct and indirect spending on firewood.

Speaking of local producers, much firewood in my experience, both in Appalachia and Asturias is produced locally by very small producers who are producing firewood for themselves and three or four other families.

Environmental Health

Sustainable forestry is not just a buzzword in rural communities where people heat with wood. It is the only way to properly manage a woodlot, whether communal or individual.

Connection to Nature

It is common for a person managing a woodlot for firewood for themselves of as a small scale production business to be “in the bush” many hours per week. Most of this is not spent in the noisy and intrusive work of felling and sectioning trees, but in observation, usually quiet walking. Not only is the physical exercise a personal positive, there is extensive empirical literature on the association between exposure to nature and health.Jimenez MP, DeVille NV, Elliott EG, Schiff JE, Wilt GE, Hart JE, James P. Associations between Nature Exposure and Health: A Review of the Evidence. Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2021 Apr 30;18(9):4790. doi: 10.3390/ijerph18094790. PMID: 33946197; PMCID: PMC8125471. Intriguingly, a feeling of connection to nature, rather than merely existing in a “natural” space for a period of time seems to be the key.Hongxiao Liu, Huifu Nong, Hai Ren, Ke Liu, The effect of nature exposure, nature connectedness on mental well-being and ill-being in a general Chinese population, Landscape and Urban Planning, Volume 222, 2022, 104397, ISSN 0169-2046, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landurbplan.2022.104397.

Sustainable Forestry

Wood is a renewable resource, and to firewood communities, a precious commodity. An entire system of sustainable forestry practices have evolved around maintenance of woodlots around the world. From silvopastureSilvopasture is a land management system that combines trees, forage crops, and livestock grazing. In my case, the “forage crop” is brush and weeds. of goats to keep brush cleared to fire mitigation by removal of snags, downed trees (and the aforementioned brush), a closely managed woodlot can be a model of sustainable forestry.

In Asturias woodlots are frequently managed for multiple crops; livestock, firewood, board lumber, mushrooms, tree nuts, honey, and fruits.