Looking for ways to lower my electric bill

[Martin68]

38. We have a very efficient wood stove with a catalytic converter. Fireplaces heat mainly by heat

radiating directly through the air from burning wood. The vast majority of the heat goes up the chimney, sucking up warm air in the room along with it. A cast iron wood stove burns wood very efficiently because once the fire gets going, you can close the intake vents to just a crack. More importantly, the fire in a cast iron stove (or one made of soapstone or other material) heats the metal to 500 degrees or more, and the metal radiates that heat into the room for hours. We keep a brass dragon filled with water on top of the stove to humidify the room. It's so efficient that we sometimes need to open a window to cool the house down a little. The wood in a fireplace burns at a furious pace because it has so much air available. Logs burn far longer and more efficiently in a wood stove.

When we lose electricity, I'll keep the fire going all night by getting up a couple of times during the night to add some wood. The wood burns down to extremely hot embers, and even when there are just embers covered in ash after a few hours, adding some wood starts the fire right back up again. We've kept it going for days that way.

Our wood stove has large glass windows in the door, so we have a wonderful view of the fire burning. Part of the pleasure of a fireplace is the psychological warmth provided by the sight of that beautiful fire burning, and we have that with our wood stove, too.