I have to admit, my husband and I usually base our house renovation decisions on budget, artistry or simple nostalgia. But living green is all the rage these days and, for the sake of appearing hip, I’m going to write about us using yellow to be green.

Southern Yellow Pine, that is.

Recently my husband dismantled our “lovely” pantry (said with great facetiousness). This was the 8×9′ room we used as our kitchen for 20 years. The cabinetry was limited. And it was falling apart. But much it was constructed with clear Southern Yellow Pine, a strong, glorious wood that, believe me, you won’t find in your neighborhood Home Depot or Menards stores.

At one time, forests of  Southern Yellow Pine were prolific all along the southeastern coasts of North America. Also known as Longleaf Pine, this resinous wood was used by 19th century craftsmen for everything from furniture, flooring, woodwork and cabinetry, to the actual building construction.

Of course, we over-harvested and under-replenished. Why do we always do that?

According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species, the Longleaf Pine was “a once-abundant tree which has reduced in area of occupancy from 24 million ha to 1.6 million ha in 1985″ (from 59 million acres to 3.95 million acres). Thankfully, organizations such as the Longleaf Alliance are striving to restore such forests.

Nowadays, Southern Yellow Pine is a valuable treasure and we certainly don’t want to throw any out. That’s not how my husband does things anyway. Instead, he stripped the wood of it’s painted finish and used it as side and back pieces for our new kitchen cabinets.

We’re being green and we’re saving money. Best of all, we’re saving one more bit of our house’s heritage.

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• The Kitchen’s Getting There…
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Heating with wood warms you twice, once when you cut it and once again when you burn it.

Thus said Henry David Thoreau, or supposedly something to that effect. As a longtime wood-burning compatriot, I agree with his poetic words.

We’ve burned wood as our primary heat source for over 20 years. My husband grew up in a house heated solely with wood. Between the two of us, we’re qualified to say wood has a charm all it’s own. Its warmth and nurturing nature can’t be replicated with conventional oil, gas or electric. Perhaps even more charming is the huge savings it offers in fuel costs.

There are many options today for heating with wood. I have zero-tolerance for technical details, so I won’t go into any product comparisons. But, as mentioned above, HDT and I are like kindred spirits so instead, I’ll expound on the wood heating system we use and how it warms us twice.

Our Wood Heat

We live in a 1917, three-story, 2500 sq. ft. American Foursquare house. This doesn’t include the 1170 sq. ft. field stone basement because, needless to say, in a house this old you do as little basement living as possible.

Our heat is a combined furnace system of wood and LP gas generated by forced-air. The two furnaces sit side-by-side in a basement wood room. We burn wood for 95 percent of our heat and should the fire ever go out, the gas is ready to kick in.

Our setup is about 15 years old. By today’s standards, its likely not the most efficient and it certainly has some drawbacks. For example, someday we’d love to replace the dusty forced-air with radiant floor heating. But for now, our system suits us well enough because:

1. It’s located conveniently in the house yet the mess isn’t in our living space,
2. As a graphic designer, I work from home and can easily put another log on the fire,
3. My husband is dedicated to proper maintenance and cleaning (in winter he cleans the chimney once a month),
4. We have free access to “making wood,” which is field jargon for cutting wood.

So, even with this 15-year-old furnace system, what are our annual fuel costs? About $500. Five hundred dollars a year for LP gas, which includes the gas we use for our stove top and hot water heater.

Pretty sweet, eh? Yep, it is.

But wait. There’s a kicker (of course). This is where “heating with wood warms you twice” comes in.

The Real Cost of Wood

Wood isn’t free. You have to either buy it or make it, meaning you’ll pay for it one way or another.

Buying wood pretty much negates the idea of saving fuel costs. Depending on its availability, wood may or may not be cheaper than conventional fuel. Here in Wisconsin, a full cord of hardwood averages $200 on Craigslist. Comforting, nonetheless, is the fact that wood is a renewable resource compared to finite fossil fuels such as coal or gas. If managed right, burning wood can be environmentally beneficial.

We’re fortunate enough to be able to make our own wood. We have access to woodlots where each fall, winter and spring we cut enough dead and fallen trees for an ample supply. Well, I should clarify—my husband cuts the wood and, as is his nature, he continuously cuts enough to keep us warm well into the future. I simply help load it into the trailer, stack it, and later throw it into the basement through a wood chute. Yep, we handle our wood quite a few times.

Which leads me to the costs of making wood. Making enough wood to heat a home requires tools, time and labor.

A good chainsaw is a necessity. So is a means of transporting the wood from the woodlot to the burner. We also use a gas-operated log splitter, because as he-man as my husband is, splitting wood with a maul gets pretty tiresome after a while.

Time and labor? Well, yes.

If you’re one who has more productive things to do with your time or if you’re the least bit adverse to outdoor physical activity (hey, aren’t we all, at one time or another), consider that heating with wood may not right be for you.

That disclaimer aside, think of wood in more optimistic terms. Wood heat is warm and comforting. Making wood is cheaper than any gym membership. And spending time in the woods is a beautiful reminder of God’s creative hand.

Go for it!

Check Out These Related Posts:

• Living Green with Southern Yellow Pine
• The Kitchen’s Getting There…

The gist of the article is an answer to the question “Is it worth it to spend hours in the workshop handcrafting your own furniture when you can find instant gratification with trendy, relatively low-cost furniture from a store?”

One of my children answers this question from the same viewpoint that many Wood Magazine readers did. She says handcrafted furniture has spoiled her. She looks at furniture her friends have purchased from reputable, expensive companies and finds it no where near the quality of pieces made by her brothers, father and grandfather.

Once again, my child is right (such is the case with parenthood).

In today’s throwaway world, as the article says, furniture is massed produced with staples, fiberboard and melamine. Even the so-called “finer” furniture from expensive stores is often constructed with lesser-quality woods and poor joinery. “Disposable furniture” is a term the article uses to describe this furniture and the reality that within five to seven years it will need to be replaced.

Compare that to a piece made by a hobbiest or professional artisan who spends days, weeks, even months choosing the right wood, carefully cutting and joining parts, and finishing with multiple layers of a durable coating. This piece shows pride in workmanship. It’s a labor of love. And not only has the artisan created something that will last during his or her lifetime, it will also become a treasured heirloom to those following.

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For our accounts, it’s not easy living a green lifestyle. Living green, or ecological living, is defined as a philosophy that aims to preserve the earth for future generations of human beings and other life. It’s an understanding that the decisions we make today affect the environment and all living things within it today and tomorrow.

My husband and I like to think we’re doing our fair share of green living. We do a bit of gardening and raise our own meat. I work from home and save commuting costs. Ninety-five percent of our home’s heat comes from burning dead wood. Heck, we don’t even use air-conditioning.

But are we really living green? For every green, or ecological, thing we do, it seems there are anti-green consequences.

Let’s take our home for example. In order for us to garden and raise livestock, it’s necessary for us to live in a rural setting. This is a choice we’ve made and we love the county life. However, for anything we do away from our home—for groceries, for school, for church, to visit family—absolutely everything requires at least fifteen miles of driving and a half hour of time round trip to the nearest town, which in our case is rather small.

Driving to town has always been part of my life and I’ve never given it much thought. But just to keep me from becoming too smug in my greenness, author George Zens writes about ethanol in the Sustainable Times. He describes our insatiable dependency on fuel for our cars and how producing ethanol has a negative affect on food prices, the environment and our national budget.

What about burning wood for home heating? By burning wood in conjunction with our natural gas furnace, we save a bundle on heating costs, reduce dependency on depletable fuel and get a good physical workout to boot. Sure seems like a natural and ecological thing to do. But is it really? If everyone burned wood, how would our quality of air compare to the overall cleanliness we enjoy today? How concerned should we be about the growing number of outdoor wood burners, which often are less efficient and considerably more pollutant?

And finally there’s our air-conditioning. Or, lack thereof. We live on a hill with large, old shade trees that blow beautiful breezes throughout the summer. I never want to confine ourselves inside when we can easily relish the outdoors through open windows. Besides, are we becoming such wimpy people that we must always have air-conditioning? Ah, but let me confess. We have a swimming pool. It’s a 25-ft. above-the-ground eyesore that regularly requires electricity for filtering and chemicals for cleanliness.

Maybe I shouldn’t sound so self-righteous and hoity-toity after all.

No, it’s not easy being green.

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