A wood fire crackling in a fireplace, with its warm glow and slightly woodsy smell, provide a sense of coziness to any home. Fortunately, if you enjoy the ambiance of a wood fire and are considering adding one to your home, there are many benefits to adding a woodstove to your home.
Save on home heating costs
A wood-burning stove or fireplace insert can lower your home heating costs. While woodstoves are rarely used to heat an entire house, they can target heat to the room or area of your home that you and your family use most. With so-called “zone heating,” you can turn down the thermostat for the remainder of your home while staying warm in your living spaces. If you lower your thermostat by just one degree, it can lower your heating costs by 3 percent.
Wood is one of the cheapest forms of home-heating fuel. If you cut, store, and haul your own wood, your only expense is your time, and perhaps fuel for a chainsaw or tractor. Even if you purchase wood by the cord, it is incredibly affordable. Wood costs less per BTU than gas, electricity, or oil.
Lower your environmental impact
While open-hearth wood-burning fireplaces are dirty and inefficient, an EPA-certified woodstove is a clean and efficient home-heating source. EPA-certified woodstoves or fireplace inserts return up to 70 percent of a fire’s heat to your home and return relatively little particulate matter to the environment. While wood-burning fireplaces and stoves do release some carbon dioxide into the environment, they are considered carbon-neutral because the wood burned would have released the same amount of carbon dioxide as if it decomposed naturally.
Be prepared for an emergency
An added benefit of a woodstove is that when you invest in a woodstove to heat your home more efficiently and cheaply, you’re also investing in an emergency heating source. Woodstoves are perhaps the top option for heating your home during a lengthy power outage. You can always light a fire in a woodstove. While the blowers may not be on during a power outage, heat still will radiate out from the stove. The benefits are even greater for a freestanding stove, which allows heat to radiate from all sides of the stove.
Add value to your home
While there are many benefits to a wood-burning stove, perhaps no benefit can beat the ambiance, style, and comfort a woodstove adds to your home. Whether you opt for an insert or a freestanding stove, you’ll be enjoying the radiant heat and soft glow of a woodstove, and you’ll have an extra asset to offer to future buyers if you ever choose to sell your home.
If you’re considering a woodstove, consult the experts at Environmental Chimney Sweeps. We’ll be able to help you select the stove that is right for your home-heating needs.