Yet the return of the log fire can hardly be reduced to a matter of money. Many people feel that a living fire gives a rich experience. We are drawn to the fire, just as we once gathered around the flames in former times. For many there is a qualitative difference in the heat supplied by a radiator and that provided by a woodburning stove. A stove can glow with heat. Your feet won’t get warm when you turn on the inverter, and a radiator has to be on for quite some time before it will drive the chill from a cold house. Electric radiators seldom deliver more than two thousand watts, whereas even a small woodstove is easily able to generate six thousand watts, and many stoves as much as fourteen thousand watts. Scientifically speaking, there is no measurable difference between the heat generated by electricity and that produced by combustion, but the body reacts in a different way to the more intense heat from the stove, not least because modern fireplaces with glass doors radiate heat. An ordinary electric radiator or heat pump warms only the air in the room, but flames and glowing embers release electromagnetic, infrared radiation that has much the same characteristics as sunlight. Warming occurs in the skin and the body as the radiation arrives, with an immediacy and an intensity that bring a feeling of well-being and security. The indoor climate is also slightly changed. The consumption of oxygen encourages a degree of air circulation, and the stove absorbs a quantity of dust. These factors, combined with the smell of wood and a little woodsmoke, and the sight of the ever-changing play of flames, connect us with the primordial magic of the fireplace.
Something else to consider is the way the woodburning stove brings people into a very direct relationship with the weather. You are your own thermostat, you are the connecting link between the subzero temperatures outside and the relative warmth within. When you heat with wood you have to go out to the woodpile, come back in again, and start your fight against the cold. It’s bitter, and it bites, but you can do something about it. In this one small but vital arena you are in touch with the bare necessities of life, and in that moment you know the same deep sense of satisfaction that the cave dweller knew.
…wood is [not merely] a source of energy; it is … an extremely adaptable form of energy. It can be shared with your neighbor, it doesn’t leak, it doesn’t need cable, a match will light it, it can be stored for year after year, and even inferior-quality wood will still do the job for you. There is peculiar security in the fact that this is energy in solid and tactile form. You can carry it into your house and know that the weight of what you are carrying represents exactly the amount of heat you will be getting.