Last year we had our fireplace cleaned and inspected and used the fireplace about half the time to keep our house warm. This year we really wanted to be more budget conscious and wanted to try and use it more. We were chatting with our good friend Bryon about this and he said he gets free wood all the time and would let us know when he got some. So one day he calls and the next thing we know we have a pile almost to the top of our garage door and takes up half our driveway.
However, all this wood had to be cut down into usable size pieces. It took us a good month to finally finish but wow, what a difference it makes to have TONS of cut up wood to use when it gets chilly here!
We were doing really well with not using the heater until about 10 days ago. Then it dropped down into the low 30’s at night. That meant that our house was dropping below 60 degrees. The fireplace did really well heating the living room and school room, but the rest of the house would stay pretty chilly. We finally turned the heater on to 60 degrees and we let the fireplace do the rest. I hope the wood lasts another 3 months.
Here’s to conserving energy and money!
The kids were work horses! They did fabulous!
This picture is us working on the pile for the THIRD time!! Crazy big pile of wood!
Keri kept us busy reminding us she was hungry, thirsty and tired. She was a big help!
Most of the wood had nails in it. We hammered them all down and then we just let them fall to the bottom of the fireplace. Then the nails get thrown out with the ashes. Niah is good with a hammer!
He was the cutting king!
Empty side yard. It’s actually bigger than this picture makes it look.
Full side yard! Yay!
The kids were rewarded generously for all their help. Even Aris, the neighbor boy who hero worships Milo, helped multiple weekends.
SO.WARM.
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