Home heating: Wood-burning Tulikivi

By the time we were partway through the search for our Oregon home, we had decided on our preferred heating source: wood, burned in a highly efficient masonry, stone, or ceramic heater. Wood is abundant in the Pacific Northwest, and capable of being used sustainably (if trees grow at least as fast as we fell them for wood products). We settled on a Tulikivi heater, which is crafted from soapstone (talc schist to geologists), a rock with marvelous heat-related properties that make it ideal for our plans. [Check out the Wikipedia page on soapstone for more information, or this link
for more information about Tulikivis specifically.] Another attraction for us: The Tulikivi's high-efficiency combustion greatly reduces emissions of all types compared to a typical stove or fireplace.

As we toured houses in our search, we made “fitting in a Tulikivi” a primary consideration. Once we had decided on Terribly Happy, I contacted Uwe Mirsch, who is Tulikivi’s representative in the Pacific Northwest. He could have lived in Seattle. Or Portland. Or Boise. Or a thousand other places. But he and his family live outside…Cottage Grove! ¡Que bueno!

The house at Terribly Happy came with a furnace/duct system powered by fuel oil, a non-renewable fossil fuel that had to be trucked in, with cost and availability completely out of the homeowner's control. After Uwe installed the Tulikivi by the end of August, we could regretlessly(?!) remove the existing furnace and fuel-oil tank (necessary to provide room for the rainwater catchment; see separate post) and duct system (necessary to provide access for the insulation installers….yes, this house had no insulation in the floors!).

Because the Tulikivi weighs so much, Uwe had to cut through the floor and install support piers. Here’s what that looked like before he covered it.

After covering, and before the heat shield on the wall went up:

The final installation, including the heat shield:

I missed the entire process because I had to return to San José, where I was still chair of the Department of Geology. When I came back in the fall, though, I got on very close terms with our Tulikivi heater.

A key step remained: insulation of the floor. Estevan Slaughter and crew installed R-30 (or so) insulation in late winter, and overnight (literally!) the amount of wood required for a given internal temperature was cut by 50%! Shazam! We love our Tulikivi—and Uwe and his family, who have become good friends of ours.

One final note that, though not related to the Tulikivi, fits in here because of physical proximity. Check out the wall to my left as I hug the Tulikivi in the above picture. Nothing there. Now check out our nifty bookcases and "home-theater" setup!

Thanks to Kerns Cabinets of Eugene for this. Staining it is another of our upcoming winter projects.

Fence & deck

Among the many changes in our first year at Terribly Happy were modifications to the deer fence and the back deck. The first was a necessity for successful food-growing; the second improved our mental health!

When we moved in, the northern half of the four-acre property—the orchard—was surrounded by an eight-foot deer fence. It wasn’t electrified, but it did have barbed wire in its upper part.

The main access to the orchard from the house side of the property was a ponderous, old white gate.

As we undertook expansion of Beth’s kitchen garden and establishment of Richard’s forest garden (see separate posts), both of which were outside the existing deer fence, we faced a decision: Do we erect separate fences around each planting that we want to protect from the abundant deer, or do we fence the entire 4-acre property? We settled on the latter choice, and are terribly happy that we did.

The fencing crew started by taking out the east-west fence that separated the orchard from the rest of the property; this included the white gate and another, smaller, pedestrian gate.

Then they enclosed the southern two acres, reusing the fencing and pedestrian gate they had removed and completing the job with new materials.

They put in vehicle gates at each end of our U-shaped drive, plus a pedestrian gate near the mailbox.

Now, though deer patrol the yards of many of our neighbors, we never have deer problems. Even when we forget to close the gate at night (very rare), there’s no damage. They seemed to have learned to direct their attention elsewhere.

Shortly after the fencing job, the same company expanded our back deck so that it would be usable for dining and relaxing. Here’s what the deck area looked like just before we moved in:

We doubled the size by adding a section that sticks out towards the forest garden,

giving us great views of our place as we dine (or wine).

Barn, shed, and shop

Like many rural properties, Terribly Happy includes many structures that serve a variety of purposes. The major structures are the barn, house, and shed.

The house is the subject of other posts; this one focuses on the barn and shed.

The barn is big and (mostly) red.

It was originally a dairy barn, but probably has been used for miscellaneous storage for decades. These photos show how John (top) and we (bottom) have used it; note that we covered most of the openings in the far (northern) wall to keep the rain out.

About 20 or 30 years ago, a fire started inside that scorched many of the timbers, but it was extinguished quickly and structural integrity of the place is sound.

So far, we’ve used it mainly for storage, but we  also constructed a cool-storage space within it, as these before and after shots show.

The shed was (note past tense) a ramshackle affair built from whatever pieces of lumber seemed to be handy at various times in the past. Some of the posts consisted of three or four short pieces of 4” x 4” nailed together, most posts were more than halfway off their concrete piers, and cross braces had been added at random. It was a windowless structure with 6 openings, or “bays,” on one side.

It hadn’t been painted in a long time, so the wet Oregon winters were taking their toll on the wood.

For most of our first year, it housed the Prius, the pickup, and the 1948 Ford tractor and attachments that came with the place, plus other random stuff, lots of it junk, that had accumulated over time.

The enclosed section on the right is a chicken coop that, though structurally part of the shed, was salvaged during the demolition of the shed.

Hazen Parsons and crew agreed to tear down the shed in return for the tractor and attachments. The process is more accurately called “deconstruction,” because we salvaged much of the original timber—two-bys and 4” x 4”s that are significantly thicker than the slimmed-down stuff that’s been in use for the past 50 years. Some of that wood was donated to a wood-working neighbor; some has been re-used on later construction projects on Terribly Happy; some of it has been (or will be) sawn for firewood in our Tulikivi burner (see Tulikivi post).

Exterior removed (plus a view of the tractor)

Prepping for pulldown

Attaching to trailer hitch

Starting to fall...

Down -- with dust! Nice photo, Beth! (She took all of these—Richard was in San José at the time)


Some of the deconstructed lumber.

Once the site had been cleared, the concrete guys used their laser and tapes to map the area of the future replacement shed. Then they excavated holes,

inserted pre-formed rebar cages,

and added wood forms atop the cages.

Then, on a very muddy day, the (very heavy) mixer truck delivered concrete that was poured into the forms.

The steel for the new shed had been delivered earlier,

but we missed the actual construction because we were both out of town when the steel guys did their thing. This is what we saw when we returned

Hazen and the steel guys managed to tear down the old and construct the new without disturbing the original chicken coop, which now sits sheltered under the north end of the shed.

The center of the shed is now the home of a workshop, constructed by Estevan Slaughter and crew. After opening the doorway in the barn wall that you see at far right, they constructed a concrete pad atop the 3/4” gravel,

framed a 16’ x 16’ structure,

and finished the exterior, doors, and windows.

Later, Dave Shoemaker helped Beth insulate the interior with recycled denim (and bits of styrofoam).

Dave put up plywood interior walls, and constructed three worktables (he’s posing with one here).

The shop has been complete for several months, but we keep putting off the final step: consolidating our tools, which have been living in the barn, or the shed, or the house, or wherever we happen to leave them! A good chore for the rainy Oregon winter.