I have spent a few winters where our furnace was a wood stove.
And they were genuinely moderate winters indeed. However, heating with a wood stove is quite work intensive to be sure. There is a lot to it. This furnace requires yearly flue cleaning and repair. And of course, there is all manner of cutting, chopping and stacking of the wood. It was still a worthwhile venture and a particular experience that I will regularly remember. However, where I am now, I simply don’t suppose I would make it too long without new Heating as well as A/C. This has nothing to do with the heating though. Our Winter time is quite mild and doesn’t require a superb deal of heating. But the four plus weeks of summer time are a completely unusual matter. That heat and humidity is something that I just don’t suppose I could manage without the help of air conditioner. The temps outside hover around triple digits for at least four weeks. And it doesn’t cool off all that dramatically at night. I can’t imagine what people went through prior to the heat pump. There was basically just an evaporative cooler. And I have been around those. Trust me, they are nothing like a heat pump for cooling a home. Plus, they don’t mitigate the humidity levels at all. Nope, I’ll have to stick with the new air conditioner to get through the summer time heat and humidity for sure. Without it, I’d have to head back up north and get back to a locale where the summer time isn’t quite so hot. Even then, I suppose I’d still have to invest in a gas gas furnace to get through those winters now.