Some General Information about Wood Cookstoves in Response to a Reader Request

When I created this blog, I wanted it to be a clearinghouse of information about woodburning cookstoves, so I get particularly excited when a reader leaves a comment with questions.  That is what happened a couple of days ago when reader Momma Panda ran across my blog and asked several questions about wood cookstoves.  She is new to the woodburning cookstove world, so her questions may seem basic to those of us who are more seasoned wood cookstove cooks.  However, she asks questions that are reflective of what most of today's population might wonder, and my mission here is to educate, so I am more than happy to answer.

As a side note, I am continually chagrined at how ignorant the entertainment industry is about wood cookstoves.  I like to watch movies that are set in the past, and what I see regarding cookstoves is often quite ridiculous.  When I was growing up, we had a steady diet of wood cookstoves on television with shows like Little House on the Prairie, etc., but we weren't yet so far removed from the days when wood cookstoves were in regular use that people had forgotten their general principles. These days, it is not uncommon to see actors put their hands down on cooktops, lay potholders just anywhere, and leave stove lids open indefinitely.  The worst thing I've seen recently, though, was in a movie where the stove was very obviously a Home Comfort brand range, and they had built their fire in the warming oven beneath the baking oven.  For me, that completely ruined the believability of the whole movie.

All that is to say that I really appreciate it when people ask questions, and--as always--I welcome other readers to use the comments section to add their two-cents worth whether they be in agreement or otherwise.  Keep in mind that what I write below is general information, and individual cookstove models can vary quite a bit.

So here goes.  First, the basics.

Most old-style woodburning cookstoves have their firebox on the left side, and they are usually smaller fireboxes than heating stoves have.  This allows for better control of the fire.  When the oven damper is closed, the smoke and heat from the fire travel to the right, just under the cooktop. This makes it so that the hottest part of the cooktop is directly above the fire, and the heat gets lower as you travel to the right.

In the picture below, the pressure canner and the open kettle of apples would be over what might be considered high heat, the green waterbath canner and the open kettle of applesauce apples would be roughly over medium heat, and the kettle of ketchup and pan of canning lids on the right would be over low heat.

When the smoke and heat get to the top right side of the oven (the big white door with the round thermometer on it), they then travel down the right side, beneath the oven, and then out of the stove to the chimney. Below are some illustrations of the smoke paths in wood cookstoves from John Vivian's book Wood Heat.

The heat of the fire (and consequently the heat of the cooktop and oven) is regulated in a number of ways:

1. What type of wood you are burning.
2. How large the pieces of wood are.
3. How much air is allowed to come into the fire.
4. How quickly the combustion gases are allowed to leave through the chimney.

Now to answer your more specific questions:

How Much of the Stove Is Hot:

The stove gets hot on the outside, but just as I explained with the cooktop, some parts of the stove's exterior are hotter than others.  This also can vary quite a bit with different brands/styles of stove.  For example, our Margin Gem (shown in the picture above) is so constructed that you can put your hand on the left side of the stove without getting burned.  The left side of the green and cream Riverside Bakewell that you see at the top of this blog would be WAY TOO HOT to touch.  Lightly brushing the outside of the oven door on either of these stoves would not hurt you unless you left your hand there for too long.

As far as whether this would be a problem with small children about, my opinion is that children should have a healthy respect for all stoves no matter what they use for fuel.  I'm not sure that there is any greater risk for them around a woodburning cookstove than any other range, but that would be something you would have to decide.  With our nieces and nephews, a warning or two when they were very young has always been sufficient, and we've never had a problem.

It is also important to understand that the entire cooktop gets hot, not just the round lids.  Thus, we usually lay spoons and spatulas on top of the warming oven (the long horizontal box at the top of the stove), which is also where we keep the stack of hot pads.  The tradeoff here is that you can have a lot more than four or five pots and pans cooking on the stovetop at once.  Last Saturday, I had seven vessels on the stovetop simultaneously in order to cook our dinner.

Summer Cooking:

Because the whole stove radiates heat, it can be uncomfortable to cook on a woodburning cookstove in the summer, though I have had fires in the Margin Gem during every month of the year.  We do have a gas stove in the kitchen that we use in the summer, but the green and cream cookstove at the top of the blog is actually in our summer kitchen, which is an outbuilding.  Our plan is to move that much closer to the house in order to make it even more practical to use a wood cookstove during the summer.

Truthfully, I'm quite alarmed at the amount of heat that our gas stove allows to escape unused around the edges of cooking utensils, and I'm not sure that the cookstove top lets as much heat go wasted.  One of the biggest differences, though, is that the wood cookstove radiates heat while it is getting hot enough to cook on as well as long after the cooking is completed--certainly a major difference from the instant on and off of a gas or electric stove.

We mitigate the before-cooking and after-cooking heat in the summer by using different size and types of fuel.  You can read more about that in my post about Summer Cookstove Fuel.


As you can tell from my blog, I'm very enthusiastic about cooking on a woodburning cookstove, but I'll be the first to admit that it isn't for everyone.  It really is kind of a lifestyle choice.  However, most of the people who choose to do it find it both satisfying and rewarding.

The biggest thing I would suggest you consider before getting your own wood cookstove is where and how you will get your fuel.  If cutting your own firewood (or at least purchasing firewood at a reasonable price) is not realistic, I wouldn't recommend going to all of the expense of buying a stove and renovating your kitchen to accommodate it.

If you have any more questions, please feel free to ask.  And, readers, use the comments to chime in here, too.