I’ve just lit the wood-burning stove in my kitchen. It’s almost December, and we’ve had frosts on the ground for the past few mornings here in the Tarn, SW France. It’s not as straightforward as flicking on a radiator, and I often have to run to my woodshed in the early morning to grab some kindling at 0°, and then wait for an hour or so for my cast-iron woodburner (aka my best winter friend) to do its exothermic thing.
Is it worth cold feet and the risk of splinters in my hands before the first coffee of the day to heat my home like this?
If you live in the countryside (and are not banned by town and city laws from having fires at home), you might have wondered about the choices for sustainable and affordable ways to heat your home. My view is that heating my home with wood is not only low impact, but as someone who works in the sustainability field, it aligns my personal values and actions with my professional ones.
I’ll run through the more pragmatic and eco-friendly reasonings as we advance through this article but from an ethically-grounded and conscientious point of view, there is something very primal about putting a match to twigs, something more connected to nature in handling the wood, and definitely something more atmospheric to hearing the wood crackle in the background, smell a hint of woodsmoke (fret not, I have both a carbon monoxide and a smoke alarm), and marvelling at the radiant heat created by wood combustion that gradually warms up my whole cottage as the day advances. Find me a radiator that gives off those vibes.
It’s also more sustainable.
And cheaper.
THE COST OF HEATING MY COTTAGE: WOODBURNER V OTHER ENERGY SOURCES
Obviously, I used a favourite AI slave to do a bit of research on heating a small cottage in my part of the world: it needs roughly 15,000 kWh per year (the roof and walls are reasonably insulated).
Here are some rough numbers for 2025 (prices vary according to area/time of year etc.):
- Electricity costs about €0.20-€0.24 / kWh inc tax
- TOTAL (using €0.23 /kWh = €3,450 p.a.
- Natural gas costs about €0.08-€0.15 / kWh
- TOTAL (using mains and assuming good boiler efficiency and €0.10 /kWh) = €1,667 p.a.
- Pellets cost about €0.075 / kWh (but you need a pellet burner for this, obvs)
- TOTAL = €1,175 p.a.
- Firewood costs about €50-90 per m3 (or stère) and depending on the type of wood (seasoned oak is best), provides 1,500-2,500 kWh / m3
- TOTAL (wood calorific value of 2,000 kWh / m3, 75% stove efficiency, 15,000 / 0.75 for 20,000 kWh requirement so 10m3 and €80 / m3) = €800 p.a.
Wood is a clear winner, no? Thanks to the woodburner, I rarely turn on electric radiators, even in winter. This reduces energy consumption, lowers costs, and limits reliance on the grid.
LIVING IN THE FRENCH COUNTRYSIDE: A BACKDROP FOR SUSTAINABLE WOOD HEATING
Being 100% sustainable and environmentally friendly is practically impossible, and there seem to be debates about whether burning wood is good for the planet or not.
In this rural setting, where air quality is not a major concern, I can buy locally-sourced wood from farmer pals so that my firewood travels only a few kilometres before reaching my home. No long-distance transport. No heavy emissions. Just local resources supporting local people.
Until this winter, I have mostly used wood (poplar and a bit of oak) from my own garden. I love this closed-loop system whereby I get a fallen tree chopped up to use as firewood, and do a daily sweep of my garden for kindling which drops from three sides of trees. It’s so beautifully circular and means the carbon cycle stays completely local, and the feel-good factor about heating my cottage (and cooking) using heat generated from my own back yard, is pretty darn satisfying.
I’ll be topping up my wood supplies from my garden in due course: a small dead apple tree and an enormous weeping willow, also dead—almost certainly as a consequence of extreme summer heat in 2022 (the second hottest summer here since records began) and 2023 (the fourth hottest temperatures in France). I’m bracing myself for the wood stacking once they have been chopped down, a job that falls to yours truly. (As a wordy person, it intrigues me that the English language decided that you chop a tree down but chop wood up.)
But if not from my garden, where does the wood come from?
The Tarn (the département or county), and especially in my immediate area, has hectares of mixed forests and small farms and wood is largely harvested as part of necessary land maintenance.
Just two days ago, I found an exciting new source: a vineyard in the next door village selling old vine stakes for firewood. Living, as I do, in the middle of a wine growing region, there are lots of small vignerons producing lovely Gaillac AOC wine. And for reasons of cultural heritage and a better vine microclimate (to get into the depths of oenology), some use a dense hardwood—acacia. And acacia happens to be one of the best woods for a woodburning stove: long-burning, low sap content and minimal smoke. I’ve ordered three stères.
MY GODIN WOODBURNER: UGLY BUT EFFICIENT AND DESIGNED FOR RURAL LIFE
I inherited the Godin woodburner when I bought the house. Although Godin is the Rolls-Royce of French woodburner manufacturers, I think the aesthetic designer must have been on holiday when the idea for mine was conceived. Thankfully, its powers of thermal conductivity outperform its 1970s-style presence, and its sealed design means far fewer emissions, much higher heat efficiency and less wood needed to heat the whole of my house.
I also have an open fireplace in the sitting room, which I light on colder days. It’s well-documented that 80% of the heat from open fires goes up the chimney, but they’re pretty and create a snuggly ambience. Mine also has a hearth or pot crane (see photo), which the old owner used to roast chicken on. The reality is that open fires are low-efficiency and not a sustainable choice for anything more than radiant heat near the fire.
I won’t bullshit. Lighting a woodburner every morning and having to chuck another log in every few hours is more work than flicking on radiators. But I like it. It feels like a seasonal ritual, wood is abundant, tree management is done respectfully and locally, and the self-sufficiency of warming my home and cooking with wood from my garden is a simple pleasure that combines sustainability, tradition and independence.
I would wood. And do wood. Do you?