The Mushroom Factor

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.

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!

So recently, as we were sitting around watching Bershawn “Batman” Jackson run his 400 meter hurdles at the Beijing Olympics, a bat came out of nowhere and was flying around in our living room. Really. An actual bat, with uncanny timing.

We live in the country and often see bats on summer evenings flying around our yard light, which is atop an electric utility pole set away from the house. Supposedly that’s kind of good because they eat mosquitos, right? But seeing bats high in the sky is very different than having one swooping around in the house, frantically trying to find its way out. Even my husband, who normally deals with anything, admitted to heebie jeebies. Eventually he was able to throw a blanket on top of the creepy critter and get it out of the house.

Needless to say, we want to know how and/or where a bat came in and should we be worrying about more? According to the Internet Center for Wildlife Damage Management, there are several clues that indicate bats living in your house:

1. Two or more encounters with bats flying around in your house within one calendar year
2. Piles of mouse-like fecal material in your attic or on the ground outside your house
3. Bats observed flying around your house from dusk to dark
4. A bat in the house during winter months

What to do if you suspect bats living in your house, besides putting up a for sale sign? The Internet Center for Wildlife Damage Management advises the following:

1. Locate the points of entry, commonly on roof edges, valleys, eaves, gables, dormers, vents and the chimney. Bats can squeeze through openings as small as 1/4 inch, depending on the specie.
2. Repair and seal these openings after dusk, when bats have left their roost. The best time for repairs is mid-August through mid-May, before the young are born and after they are weaned and able to fly.
3. Repellant and toxicants, according to the Center, have limited effects for various reasons.

Now that we have a child living in Washington D.C., we enjoy regular visits to what is probably our nation’s most fascinating city. We’ve hit the monuments, the museums and, oh, the restaurants! Thankfully, D.C. is a walking town and we’re able to work off what usually is some majorly excessive, good eating. (Note-to-self: function rather than fashionable form is a necessity in the clothing and shoe department.)

So, while we’re doing all this walking, my favorite thing to see is the architecture. As a lover of old houses, I find the rowhouse especially intriguing, partly because of its historical representation and partly because its not a common style here in the Midwest.

When I accompanied my daughter on her housing hunt a few years ago, I had the opportunity to see the interiors of several rowhouses. Like most old houses, they had architectural elements you just don’t find in newly built homes and apartments—parquet floors, beautiful woodwork and bow-front windows. And like many old houses, these particular buildings needed lots of work and money!

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Today the mushroom factor, the phenomenon that one small factor will inevitably lead to much more, struck in full force. And I wasn’t even working on my house! Well, not entirely.

Over the years, as we’ve renovated various rooms in our 1917 American Foursquare, John Bhend has popped up here and there. Better said, he’s popped up almost everywhere—under the stairs, behind the woodwork, in the attic. Wherever there’s a backside of lumber, there’s John Bhend.

His name, anyway.

Many pieces of wood in our house bear the scrawled signature of “John Bhend, Watertown, Wi.” We’ve always thought it was rather cool and assumed he built our house. We’ve heard somewhere that loads of wood are commonly labeled with the builder’s name before being shipped to the building site.

So today, I had a few minutes to spare and stopped at the Dodge/Jefferson Counties Genealogical Society. My intention was to learn a bit about John Bhend, but instead the mushroom factor kicked in. Obviously, you don’t spend just a few minutes in a genealogical society, not if you have an inkling of investigative curiosity for anything historical. Within minutes of my arrival, several helpful people brought me Plat books, old city directories and obituaries. Not only did I get information on our guy, but I now have a list of previous property owners back to the 1860’s and a fixation to learn more.

But back to John Bhend.

According to a 1930 city directory, John was indeed a general contractor and home builder. His ad details 18 years of experience in building or remodeling and guarantees good construction, blue prints and specifications to the customer’s order. His obituary, dated March 2, 1944, describes him as a “widely known contractor” who was also a member of the Watertown Builder’s Club.

Reading John Bhend’s obituary brings him to life as more than the builder of our house. He becomes a person, as well. According to the paper, he was born in Aschi, Canton of Bern, Switzerland on Sept. 28, 1881, to Mr. and Mrs. Christian Bhend. In 1906, at the age of 25, he came to the U.S. and for a time lived with his brother Christ Bhend.

On October 4, 1913, John married Saraphine Krueger (Saraphine—what a beautiful name!) Together they had two children; a daughter, Irene, and a son, Marcel, who at the time of his father’s death was serving in the Pacific in World War II. Saraphine preceded John in death in 1935.

The obituary goes on to list John as a member of the Congregational Church, Watertown Lodge No. 49, F& AM and Watertown’s Plattdeutscher Verein (Low German Club). He also was a director of the Wisconsin National Bank and active in local affairs.

So that’s John Bhend, the guy beneath our stairs and behind our woodwork. If our house is a testament to his work, he was indeed a very fine builder. Ninety-one years later, it stands sound and true.

But now I want to know more. How many other homes in our area bear his name? And which ones? What do those homes look like today? The mushroom factor has definitely kicked in.