Kendra- thanks for the information.

Scott,

Nice to meet you! Okay, so yes, you can replace your wood stove with a wood cook stove. I don’t know the comparison as far as heating efficiency between the two goes, but my husband heats his work building with our South Bend wood cook stove. I’m not familiar with all the different brands of stoves, so I really can’t say which is best. I’d read tons of reviews online before making a purchase! I’ve never seen a moisture meter for wood. I guess my husband just goes by how long the wood has been sitting, and if it has been protected from recent rains. Good luck with everything though!

I am in my first year on my dream farm. I am 40 miles from the city and loving it!!! The house came with a wood burning stove (not the cooking kind) and I am thinking about replacing with one that you can cook with and use to heat the house with at the same time. Is this possible? If so, could you be so kind as to point me in the right direction?? Another thing I would like to know about is drying wood. I know that wet wood burns poorly and is a chimney fire hazard. When I was buying wood, I saw another customer testing the wood with a moisture meter like the one I found here: http://www.moisturemeter.com Is this something that I should invest in? @Quakerdan: Can you use corn cobs for kindling?

Cobs burn quick and hot. However, where you going to get the cobs? Few people still shell corn. We used to feed earcorn to the hogs years ago before we got smarter and started grinding feed and mixing hog feed. In those days we weren’t in any hurry to fatten a hog because “What’s time to a hog?”
That was a kid’s job after school to go out to the hog lot and pick up the cos after the hogs had eaten the corn off. The cobs from the hog lot burn much better than the clean cobs from when we shelled corn. They didn’t smell so nice, but the manure made them burn better. I still get cobs from a neighbor who still picks and shells his corn instead of combining.

A word of caution my wife learned when we were first married. NEVER PUT COBS ON A BURNING FIRE COMPLETELY COVERING THE FIRE. If you put cobs over hot coals, they smolder until they ignite with and explosion!!!! Mrs. blew the stove pipes off the stove doing this many years ago; nothing like learning the hard way.

Here’s my tip on boosting the draft: http://amysoddities.blogspot.com/2010/09/boosting-your-woodstoves-draft-part.html

When we lived in Colorado I had the fun of cooking on a wood stove. You can make the very best tortillas on the surface of the woodstove. They come out just perfect, even better than on a cast iron griddle.
I’m envious…
We’re looking for a woodstove for the summer kitchen to do our canning. It would be much more economical. This past year I cooked the beets on a wood fire outside to save some $

Mrs. D