It's called a pellet stove. It burns biomass pellets. Shaped like rabbit food, they can be made of wood or corn.
I will be burning wood pellets. They are made of highly compressed hardwood shavings and sawdust. The pellet stoves are very efficient and burn about 95% clean, if I'm correct.
It's electronically controlled and runs from a wall thermostat. It uses electricity to run the blower, the pellet feed auger, and the control circuitry. It's really quite advanced. And it's a beautifully designed piece of...furniture almost. I have it installed in the living room. Big glass front, fake logs in it. Big, bright flame; it's like having a high-efficiency, low-maintenance fireplace running all the time.
I burned oil last year. I went through about 750 gallons of oil to heat this house last season. This year, I suppose it would cost about two thousand dollars to heat the house. So I bought a pellet stove. And a season's worth of pellets, about two tons. They come stacked on a pallet, in 40-pound bags. The stove and all the pellets will pay for themselves in 1.5 seasons. It's a no-brainer.
I'm Mister Y2K, so I know how to rig up car batteries and run the stove in the event of a power outage. And I still have the old wood stove in the cellar with a few cords of wood outside. So I can always burn that.
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I have perfected my "21st Century, Space-Bound Hunting Lodge" look for my house. I have repainted the kitchen, the halls, the living room, and the dining room. I have a mounted, eight-point buck head above the fireplace. I bought it at a thrift store around here for $75. It would have cost $750 in New York, so New York has nothing on...Cootersville...
These are the colors of paint I have used whose names I like:
1. Gravel. A modern, lightly mossy green for the living room. It goes well with the shellacked pine paneling around the fireplace.
2. Sturdy Table. A resplendently delicious mid-brown, as the color of fine Swiss chocolate. In the hallways.
3. Lava, a demonstrative yet paradoxically subdued blue for the kitchen. Coupled with my $30 black-and-white-squares sticky tiles for the floor, it's quite an installation of whimsy and gravitas. You don't know what to think when you walk into this room.
4. Dansbury Down in the dining room. A brownish gray, with a defiant whisper of violet. Can't hear it? Come closer...you'll get punched in the face!
