The inside-outside woodbox for the tinyhouse is competed and now awaits filling! Now we can simply add firewood via the little, purpose-built external door, and open it from the inside, right next to the woodstove. Yay for easy heat and cooking energy delivery.
I suppose if our spanky new (ok so it’s salvaged, but it’s new to us) Rayburn woodstove wasn’t the main engine of winter water heating, house heating and cooking goodness, we wouldn’t have put so much effort into this woodbox.
But given that the tinyhouse is primarily wood fire powered (in addition to solar hot water and passive solar design), sorting out the wood delivery system is, to us, as important as installing a the gas line, or getting electricity to our house.
Plus fire wood is something that we’ll use every day for at least 6 months a year. Its use will be habitual and essential.
When you look at it in that light, getting the wood delivery system right is worth it. We could just schlep the wood in from outside of course, but since our tinyhouse design provided the opportunity to combine under-stair storage with inside-outside woodbox technology, we went with it!
Wood box cavity in the making, with door to the outside for easy wood loading
Outside wood loading door
Ashar being a stunt double in place of future firewood
And… delivered!
Now all we have to do is learn to use a wood stove. I get the whole basic heating thing (don’t over-fire the stove, use good wood, etc), but the intricacies of maintaining stable wood-fired heat to bake something at a vaguely consistent temperature? It promises to be a small but significant domestic learning curve…
The inside outside woodbox was devised by Nick with various conversations + tips from knowledgeable builder types, architects and of course the amazing Shane Mills, who had the task of actually building it and did a superb job, as always.
Thanks everyone for your input, we owe you all a wood fired scone – maybe wait a little to redeem our thanks however, until we learn how not to burn baked goods…
Great idea! Something I’ll definitely be asking my Mr to make for our Eco-barnhouse when the time comes to build it, thanks for the inspiration!
keep an eye on the termites….my wood box is metal 🙂
this is just about my fav thing in the tiny house so far! (yes I’ve obviously been schlepping wood a long way for a long time….. I’m coveting a drawer delivery door!)
I love it! And my goodness, Ashar is all grown up!
I had a wood cookstove in my cabin in the Colorado Rockies. At just over 3 kilometers altitude, it got LOTS of use. My trick for the learning curve was for baking was several ruined batches of biscuits. Once I had enough control of the heat for a perfect batch of biscuits, I knew I could cook anything else.
Your chooks or piggies or even the compost pile can handle the failures.
Brilliant idea – yet again!
I love this idea!
No handle?
Yes, just not installed when i took these photos – top right on 45º angle 🙂
Handy draw, handsome little fella!
We live in Tasmania and our own personal wood burning stove “Brunhilda” has been burning solid since May this year and we have never had to light it since May! Cooking on the stove was a lesson in managing the temperature. After a while you get used to just how much wood to put on and how long you need to put it on for to cook whatever you want to cook. Its not hard but at first you will probably burn things like we did. Steve stoked it like a steam train last year when we installed it but… Read more »
I love cooking on our woodstove, we have an old Stanley Traditional, that we got given for free but in pieces. I love baking in ours, I have more trouble keeping my oven hot for the whole bread baking process rather than burning things. (I’m a bit tight with the wood!!!).
i trained my dog to fetch wood for the wood basket (when i was a kid), went well until mum noticed the dog was getting the wood in not me. Telling her i was giving the dog a sense of purpose did not calm her down either, it was my job not the dogs. since when was delegation bad?