Friday, October 26, 2012

Warm and Toasty

Gil is the master researcher. You can give him a topic and he will look into from every angle possible. This skill came in handy when we needed to find a cheaper alternative to heating our house. Filling our oil tank multiple times over the course of a winter gets super expensive, so we knew wanted to go another route.

Through his research, we learned about pellet stoves. For those that don't know about them, like us... pellet stoves are similar to wood stoves in that they burn wood, make a room so cozy and comfortable, and are hard to decorate around. But the difference comes in what they burn. Little pellets...that look similar to the food you get at petting zoos to feed the giraffes...are poured into the hopper, then auger fed into a flame. The fire is super hot. The pellets are cheaper than oil and made from recycled wood, making it a "green" source of heat.

So when you combine buying an old house with installing a pellet stove in your living room, the math adds up to needed some new fire and smoke detectors. Did you know that October is fire prevention month? I didn't either. How convenient!

Coincidentally (or not), someone from First Alert mailed me a First Alert Fire Alarm to try out and said they would send one of my blog readers one for free too! Anyone need a updated smoke alarm?

My new friend, Shannon, will happily mail one of my readers a new First Alert Fire Alarm too. All you need to do is leave a comment below.... tell me about your favorite time around a fire. Was it a camp fire? Did you spend a night without electricity, but bundled warm by the wood stove as a kid (I did!)? Do you have a gas fireplace you switch on?

After you share your stories, I'll put your names in a hat and let my researching husband pick out a reader to win the smoke alarm! Contest is open to anyone and you can enter multiple times -with different stories- until Sunday (10/28/12) at midnight.


3 comments:

Tracypeach said...

I've had lots of fun memories around a fire, some contained within a woodstove, some with small groups, some with large groups. One of my favorite memories however was when I was a Girl Scout. We were on a camping trip and made peach cobbler in a dutch oven... in a campfire. To this day, that has been the best peach cobbler I've ever had.

Annie said...

Several years ago, I was visiting my parents. My father was very ill and was resting on the sofa. I was stretched out in front of the crackling fire place. He had been confused for a few weeks but all of a sudden, he began to tell me about his entire life. He was brilliant and coherent and I wanted to record what he was saying but I was crying too hard to get up to get paper and pen. I didn't want him to see me crying. I realized that he was giving me his 'swan song.' A few weeks later, he passed away, but I treasure that hour I spent with him in front of the crackling fire place that I had always loved as a child. I treasure that I found out more about him in that one hour that I had for an entire lifetime. It was a gift from God.

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