The Tricks Of The Trade Behind Wood-Burning And Log Stacking

From his Manhattan apartment, sculptor James Croak used to look longingly east toward the Hamptons. After 25 years, he’d lived in the city too long, he said, and had a “warped view of life.”

In 2009, he put his foot down. He wanted out, and he wanted trees. So he packed up and relocated to a 3,125-square-foot house in Sag Harbor, which he now calls home.

“It was surreal when I first moved here. I was so unused to it,” he recalled at his house last week. “I’d just walk around in the morning, in the woods, and I’d be like, ‘My God, I own trees.’”

But perhaps the biggest shock came during his first winter: heat, and the dollar signs behind it, were a huge unexpected expense.

“We started off using a regular oil system,” Mr. Croak said. “We heated half the house and went through 950 gallons of oil. Half the house. Let me tell you, I was stunned. I was, like, choking. I think a city person is completely unaware of what it costs to heat a house. Completely unaware.”

Fearing that oil prices would only go up, he immediately began shopping around for alternative heating methods. He found one—a Bodart & Gonay Optifire wood-burning stove, which is installed into the living room wall—that cuts his heating bill in half and has turned Mr. Croak into a modern-day Paul Bunyan.

“Now, during my walks, I look for trees that have fallen down,” he said. “It’s still, ‘My God, I own trees,’ but now I burn them,” he laughed. “It also gives you a whole new relationship to junk mail. I get catalogues, three or four in the mail and I think, ‘This is an hour’s heat.’ Never even open them.”

The stove heats Mr. Croak’s entire house, which rarely falls below 70 degrees, he reported, unless it’s an exceptionally cold day or first thing in the morning before he builds a new fire. Even then, the temperature will sit at 60 degrees.

Installers can duct stoves, such as the one Mr. Croak uses to heat his home, through the attic and into other rooms of a house, explained

Beach Stove & Fireplace co-owner Julie Dismore, who said she utilizes that kind of set-up in her own home.

“With today’s oil prices, you can’t afford to keep your house at 70 degrees,” she explained during an interview at the Westhampton Beach store last week. “My house is 70-plus every night. I used to keep it at 63 because I was a fuel miser.”

Recently, the store has seen an increase in requests for wood-burning stove inserts, which convert traditional fireplaces into stoves, Ms. Dismore said. The most basic difference between the two is that the front of a stove is sealed off, making it more energy efficient, while a fireplace is open and zero-percent efficient, or even an energy loss, she said.

Inserts generally cost between $4,000 and $5,000, according to sales associate Marie Covais, as opposed to a free-standing stove, which runs between $5,000 and $6,000; and an enclosed stove—which is built into the wall—usually costs between $5,000 and $8,000. Fireplaces, on average, run $3,000, she said.

“It’s an investment,” Ms. Covais said of the enclosed stove. “But the more you use it, the quicker you’ll see the payback.”

Mr. Croak, whose stove and installation cost him about $10,000, estimates that it will amortize itself in four years. Every season, he orders four cords of white oak—each cord is 4-feet-deep-by-4-feet-high-by-8-feet-long—to burn, and supplements it with the wood from his backyard, he said.

Each cord has about 25 million BTU, or British thermal units, Mr. Croak explained. A gallon of No. 2 heating oil has 140,000 BTU, he said. So, about 175 gallons of oil is equal to a cord of wood. At today’s rate, that’s about $785 in oil, he estimated. One cord of wood costs between $225 and $250, he said.

“It’s quite a difference,” Mr. Croak said. “I save a couple thousand a year doing this. There’s also something very satisfying about cutting a tree up that’s fallen on the ground and heating the house with it for free.”

The best possible time to buy firewood is during the summer when it’s inexpensive and not in high demand, Mr. Croak said. Then, it can completely dry out, or “season,” before fireplace and stove use kicks off in late October. To store the wood, he typically stockpiles some of it in his basement, to keep it dry before burning, and the rest he leaves outside—traditionally stacked between two trees, even though strong winds have knocked his stacks over in the past.

The same gusts haven’t budged fellow Sag Harbor resident Brian Bailey’s firewood, which he keeps stored as a “holz hausen,” which is German for “wood house.” It is a circular method of stacking wood that results in accelerated drying, Mr. Bailey explained at his home last week.

“We had some firewood that was freshly cut. It was still green,” Mr. Bailey explained. “We tried burning it, but couldn’t. The sap and moisture needed to evaporate. So I started Googling if there was a way to season wood faster. It turns out, this is a pretty old-fashioned technique that would supposedly season firewood in as little as three months.”

Frustrated with the pile of unseasoned wood one October night, Mr. Bailey gave the holz hausen a shot. The first step, which in his haste Mr. Bailey said he neglected to do, is to put down a plate of wood chips, gravel or sawdust to keep the wood off the ground and away from moisture. Set aside logs with bark that looks like it would make good shingles for the top.

Next, put the logs in a ring, touching end to end. Lay down more firewood pointing into the circle like spokes, all the way around like a bicycle wheel. Don’t fill the middle, it should just be an open hole.

Automatically, the center-pointing ends will start to overlap, making the wood tilt out, Mr. Bailey explained. To counteract that, add another ring and repeat the process. Once the holz hausen is a couple feet high, fill the open center with vertical logs, like a chimney. Then repeat the whole process until it’s as tall as the builder.

“Theoretically, could you build it much taller? Probably,” Mr. Bailey said. “It seems sturdy and I’m always curious how much taller I could built it, but only build it as tall as you can reach. Even one piece falling on you would hurt, but if a whole tower started to fall, that could be fatal.”

Once at the top, stop putting down rings. Keep leaning the wood in toward the center until a roof shape begins to form. For the last layer, top it off with the logs placed aside at the beginning, bark facing up like shingles.

“This design allows for air flow because of the way the wood is being spaced out,” Mr. Bailey explained. “You know it’s ready when the holz hausen shrinks down. As the water evaporates, the logs get smaller.”

Mr. Bailey walked over to his fireplace.

“We’re obsessed with it. Sometimes we use it night after night,” he said. “I love the smell of it, I love the look of it. And something about watching the fire and also tending to the fire—messing with it, adding wood to it—is very therapeutic for me.”

Building the perfect fire takes only a handful of steps, according to Sag Harbor Fireplace salesman Paul Altomare. First things first, make sure the fireplace grate and damper are working. Then, on the top of the grate, place logs of dry, seasoned wood. On top of that goes the kindling. Place the fire starter on the kindling and then finish with plenty of newspaper, he said. Light the paper with an extra-long fireplace match and wear fireplace gloves. The paper will ignite the fire starter, which will light the kindling, which will light the logs.

Mr. Croak estimates that he adds more firewood to his stove every couple of hours when it’s on a low setting and every 45 minutes when it’s cranking at full blast, he said. And when the ashes cool, he dumps them on his back lawn.

“Everyone has to lime their lawns in this area or the grass won’t grow,” Mr. Croak said. “The pH of the soil in this area is 4.8. That’s very, very acidic soil. You need 6.5 to 7. What’s the best way to get it there? Fire ash. And who first wrote about this? Virgil, in the 5th century B.C. in his ‘Georgics,’ which are his four books on farming.”

All winter long, every day, Mr. Croak can be seen throwing ash on different areas of his yard—regardless of snow or the temperature outside. After all, he asked, what’s a little cold weather temporarily when he knows he’s coming back into a toasty warm home when he’s finished.