Customer Reviews

The New Woodburner's Handbook (Down-to-Earth Energy Book)

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If you are THINKING about a wood stove, and wondering if it is an environmentally correct decision, if there are any real benefits to it, and have a bucket full of money available to you, this is the book to help make your decision. If you are a life long environmentalist who believes in getting off the grid but have a limited income and want practical advice about chosing a stove, used or economical, and installing it in your home, don't bother. I found this book useless.

This book concentrates on how to purchase a wood stove, the differences found among brands. We recently purchased a home that had an existing wood stove. I had never even lived in a home with a fireplace. I was looking for a book to direct me in how to start a fire, how to put out a fire if necessary, what to do if "something goes wrong", and how to maintain the fire once started, etc., this book gave me none of this. It had two pages on the topic of starting a fire. Wood-stoves are very dangerous things and I feel that this, or any book on the subject should address the dangers and these concerns.

I warn against buying this book. Don't waste your money!

Though I've been burning wood in stoves old and new for near 20 years, I'm always open to learn new things and fine-tuine my skills - especially now that it is my sole source of heat. I'm sorry to say that I got nothing new from this book and it left me feeling extremely underwhelmed.

To start with, the author goes down a rabbit trail on the "global warming" topic - which, being junk science that has discredited itself, is a poor way to start a book that *should* be a technical manual, not a political statement. Like most proponents of anthropogenic global warming, he gets it wrong so shows himself to be either ignorant or intentionally promulgating known lies.

After that, he gets heavily into legalities and building codes and other such stuff as you can find in stove tech manuals. Between history of wood burning, the EPA, codes, and other ancillary stuff - he doesn't strike a match to light a fire until page 127 out of 140 (not including appendices) so if that's the kind of book you want on "wood burning" - this book might be for you.

Beyond that, there is precious little on proper cutting, splitting, and curing of cordwood. The chart of BTU values of various woods is handy, but this is something one can get off of any one of a thousand different web sites.

I've yet to find a "great" book on the topic, but so far every other one I've found is better than this one. I bought mine "used" (actually new, but a "remainder" - meaning they couldn't sell it for list price) but it arguably isn't worth the $1.99 + shipping I paid for it.

Unless you're trying to fill out a library, skip this one and keep looking.

This book has a wealth of information for anyone who is truly interested in wood heating.