THE NEW WOOD BURNING

There's been a revolution at your local wood stove store

When most people think of wood stoves, their memory conjures up images of rusting pot-belly stoves or dusty black steel boxes on legs.But step into the showroom of a fireplace shop these days and you'll see instantly that things have changed.

For one thing, almost every unit in the store is either decked out in a glossy enamel finish, or sports glittering gold on the door and trim (yes that's real gold plating).Here's a shapely cast iron model in rich red enamel and over there is one in deep green enamel that also has a gold door.And what's this?a stove painted in traditional matte black, but unlike the old "airtight", this one is a handsome pedestal model that would look right at home in any family room or cottage.

Something all the stoves have in common is a big glass panel in the loading door.Actually, it's not glass at all, but a crystal-clear ceramic material that can take the heat and is almost unbreakable.The revolution in wood burning has yielded a technology called glass air wash that keeps the glass clear for days, and for some models, weeks at a time.

Although the new wood burners are transformed visually, the changes are more than superficial.In fact, the biggest changes are hidden inside where clever technologies cut smoke emissions by up to ninety percent and boost efficiency as much as one-third from a stove built only fifteen years ago.In the real world of day-to-day use these improvements mean no visible smoke from the chimney and the purchase, storage and handling of a lot less wood.And they're safer too because the clear exhaust doesn't deposit the sticky creosote that can lead to a damaging chimney fire.

This one over here looks like a wood stove but it actually burns wood pellets by slowly feeding the tiny compressed sawdust cylinders into a combustion pot where they burn in a steady, controlled way.A control system inside the stove manages the fuel feed rate and flow of combustion air so you can set it to the desired heat output and forget it.Automatic operation, combined with the convenience of bagged pellet fuel, make pellet stoves appealing to people who like the idea of heating with wood, but want a more convenient system.

Another obvious change is that many models on display burn gas or propane, not wood.These gas burners are for people who place a higher value on convenience than on a real wood fire.Still, for those looking for the real thing, not fake logs and engineered flames, there are plenty of wood burners to choose from, but not a pot belly stove or dusty black box stove among them.

Yes, the old wood stove served us well but for serious home heating it is now past its prime.Wood burning is alive and well, and is in fact, a far better option for home heating and enjoyment than ever, thanks to the low maintenance, clean burning, super-efficient, attractive new stoves.With one of these new stoves in your home, you could weather the next energy crisis in style.

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