Foreword · How to Use This Book & Video Page Finder
pp. 5–9Maps all 23 short videos to the exact page, table, or cold-stove check.
For anyone who heats a home with wood
FIFTY WINTERS OF WOOD HEAT. EVERYTHING I KNOW, IN ONE GUIDE.
Warm nights without getting up at 3 a.m. A chimney you don't have to worry about. Firewood you don't overpay for. Thirty-eight years sweeping chimneys taught me what the stove dealer and the firewood guy won't tell you.
✓ ONE PAYMENT · ✓ INSTANT ACCESS · ✓ 7-DAY MONEY-BACK GUARANTEE
Over 390,000 views on my short videos since October.
01 / Sound familiar?
01
The stove is stone cold by three in the morning, and the house is 58 degrees when you get up.
02
You paid for a full cord, and the pile in your yard looks a lot smaller than that.
03
The glass turns black in two days, and the room fills with smoke every time you light it.
04
The stove room is eighty degrees, and the back bedroom is cold enough to see your breath.
05
Nobody has looked inside your chimney in years, and you don't really know what's up there.
None of that is bad luck. Every one of those has a reason, and most of them cost nothing to fix once you know where to look.
02 / What it costs to keep guessing
The expensive way to learn wood heat
| Paying full-cord prices for unmeasured "face cords" or wet wood | $300–$600+ lost/winter |
| Buying a new stove for 3:00 a.m. burnouts instead of new gaskets | $2,000–$4,500+ |
| Letting creosote pass 1/8 in. until a 2,000 °F flue fire hits | $2,500–$5,000+ stainless liner; $5,000–$12,000+ masonry rebuild |
| Burning all winter with crumbled/missing firebrick exposing steel | $1,500–$3,500 |
| Wrapping a tarp all the way down stack sides to bare dirt | $300–$900 |
| Setting yesterday's ashes in a box/bin/bucket on a porch or garage | $15,000–$250,000+ |
The guide costs $27, once.
03 / Coming from one of my videos?
Every short video I post has a longer answer in the guide. Here's where to find it.
Pull a tape measure across the stack because most pickup loads are half a cord
p. 11
Rap your knuckles on the cold stovepipe before lighting tonight's fire
p. 71
Stop shoveling down to bare iron — leave a one-inch ash bed on the floor
p. 53
Stop pulling firebricks with hairline cracks — replace only crumbling bricks
p. 87
Set a box fan on the cold room's floor and point it toward your wood stove
p. 58
"Never burn pine" is feed-store myth — wet smoke makes creosote, not pine sap
p. 19
04 / What's inside The Complete Wood Heat Guide
146 pages in big, clear print. Read it on a tablet, or print the pages you need.
Part 1 · Buying Firewood Without Getting Cheated
pp. 10–27Tape-measure cord math, five driveway moisture checks, 18 species heat values, and seven seller questions.
Part 2 · Seasoning and Stacking That Actually Dries Wood
pp. 28–38Single-row yard placement, split drying times, top-only covers, off-dirt rails, and the 30-foot house setback.
Part 3 · Lighting and Running Your Stove Clean All Night
pp. 39–56One-match draft tests, top-down fires, pipe thermometer zones, one-inch ash beds, and overnight coal loads.
Part 4 · Moving Heat Through the House
pp. 57–66Hallway floor box fans, clockwise ceiling blades, stovetop fans versus blowers, kettles, and duct rules.
Part 5 · Chimney Health, Creosote & Chimney-Fire Readiness
pp. 67–80Three creosote stages, the 1/8-inch sweep rule, 15-minute smoke checks, sweep costs, and chimney-fire steps.
Part 6 · Hands-On Stove Maintenance
pp. 81–92Dollar-bill gasket checks, wood-ash glass cleaning, firebrick thumb tests, baffle seating, and stovepipe joint screws.
Part 7 · Safety That Actually Matters
pp. 93–105Rear UL tags, 36-inch unlisted clearances, ventilated wall shields, lidded steel ash cans, and insurance.
Part 8 · Symptom-by-Symptom Stove & Chimney Troubleshooting
pp. 106–118Thirty-four stove and chimney symptoms matched to causes, what to do today, and eight cards.
Part 9 · The Money Side of Heating With Wood
pp. 119–130Cost per million BTU against oil, propane, gas, and electric, annual cords, and 15 mistakes.
Part 10 · Twelve-Month Calendar, Printable Logs & Credits
pp. 131–146Month-by-month woodyard and chimney tasks from January through December, plus three printable log sheets.
Real pages from the guide.
05 / Two bonus guides, free today
The Chimney Sweep's Fall Checklist
57 pages
A 30-minute inspection you can do yourself without climbing on the roof, what a fair sweep costs, and the quotes that deserve a second opinion.
$19 FREE
When the Power Goes Out
51 pages
How to keep the house, the pipes and the people warm with your wood stove when the lines come down, for three days or for a week.
$19 FREE
23
HRS
59
MIN
59
SEC
The bonuses are included until the timer runs out.
06 / Is this for you?
For you
- ✓You heat with wood, all winter or just on the coldest nights.
- ✓You just bought a house with a stove and nobody showed you how to run it.
- ✓You've burned wood for years and want the parts nobody ever explained.
- ✓You'd rather fix it yourself than pay for a new stove.
Not for you
- ×You only light a fire on Christmas Eve.
- ×You heat with a pellet stove or gas logs only.
- ×You want someone to promise you'll never need a chimney sweep again. I won't.
07 / Questions people ask me
I've burned wood for thirty years. What could I learn? +
Probably less than most. But almost everybody I swept for had burned for decades, and almost all of them were doing one or two things that cost them wood or put creosote in the flue. The troubleshooting table alone is worth a look.
I'm not good with computers. +
You get an email with your guides right after you pay. Open them on a tablet, a phone or a computer, or print them. The print is big on purpose.
Does it work for my stove? +
It's written for wood stoves and fireplace inserts of any brand, old or new, catalytic or not. Where a model matters, I tell you to check your manual and show you what to look for.
Is this going to try to sell me something? +
No. I don't sell stoves, chemicals or sweeping logs. Where a $20 tool helps, I say so and you buy it wherever you like.
What if I don't like it? +
Write to us within seven days and you get your money back. One email.
Do I pay every month? +
No. One payment of $27. The guide is yours.
Everything you get today
- ✓ The Complete Wood Heat Guide (146 pages)
- ✓ Bonus: The Chimney Sweep's Fall Checklist
- ✓ Bonus: When the Power Goes Out
- ✓ Printable logs and checklists
- ✓ 7-day money-back guarantee
23
HRS
59
MIN
59
SEC
$27
one payment
Elden Ward
Northeast Kingdom, Vermont
I swept chimneys for thirty-eight years. I've been up on more than a thousand roofs and I've seen what creosote looks like from the inside, and what's left of a house when it lets go. I've heated my own farmhouse with wood for over fifty winters. This guide is everything I used to tell people standing in their living rooms, written down so you can keep it next to the stove.
7 DAYS
Read it for seven days. Light a fire the way I show you. If it isn't worth $27 to you, send one email and you get every cent back. No questions, no hard feelings.
Two kinds of people heat with wood
The ones who keep feeding the stove, buying short cords, scraping black glass and hoping the chimney holds another winter.
The ones who know what's going on inside that stove, and sleep through the night.
Which one are you this winter?
YES, SEND ME THE GUIDE — $27