Excerpts from Steve's Book:

The Domestic Archaeologist ©

Chapter 6: What is it With Guys and Wood?

If anything gets me a wry smile or gob smacked nod of recognition from women it's when I talk about guys and the need to stockpile wood. So what is it with guys and wood?

Guys are notorious custodians of wood. In every home garage, basement, shed or loft piles and piles of rickety, dust ridden, bug infested, mold tickled wood sits like patience on a monument waiting - just in case. Each piece somehow satisfies and is essential. Perhaps wood offers a guy the promise of the manly art of sawing and thwacking about with a hammer. It's satisfying. It could be why the most popular male sports involve thwacking things with sticks and bats. And guys are all about energy release.

When it comes to encouraging a guy to get rid of wood one tip toes on delicate, primal territory. "No not that one" I hear in nervous tones when I pick up an especially irregular loose bit of wooden detritus, "I may need it" or "No, not that one it's…well I don't know I just need it that's all. Don't touch my wood. Can we leave the wood alone?" I don't press too hard. I am after all in a privileged space. But perspective must be offered.

The tug of war is on behalf of all concerned because in reality when a move or reclamation of space is in progress one honestly has to look at everything for use and purpose and hard decisions made. With wood, I know each relic may hold the potential for being the perfect piece of the project puzzle - should that project ever come about. And having to drive some place to get another one is a definite hassle - especially if one has the perfect piece right there waiting.

So the end result is wood of every fractured variety gets tucked away; little book sized chunks in buckets, long splintered rods of grizzled quarter round propping up cob webs, lengths of dowel in barrels (honestly have you ever needed a dowel?), precariously perched wood with bent nails protruding, nestled in makeshift garage overhangs capable of swooping down like scimitars with a single misplaced nudge and putting your eye out or delivering a full frontal lobotomy without so much as a "watch out" gurgled. There are two inch thick slabs of ancient doors heavier than heck complete with razor sharp peels of green paint kept only because they make great portable work benches when propped up on saw horses or cans of paint. Why not buy a portable saw horse I wonder? They make them in light weight plastic now. Super stuff, hangs on hooks easily, out from under foot.

There are pieces of wood with all manner of hardware too; hinges, knobs or sliding sections of mystery metal still screwed on because those two or three last cheap screws from the dollar store stripped and you just can't get them out. There are fire hazard ant hills of sawdust mixed with oil way underneath and fat and sassy generations of spiders or house centipedes who have known peace and tranquility for as long back as their family can remember because no one has ever, ever disturbed their lairs.

Do I kid guys? Sure I do - for a reason. I verbalize what has been eating away at their safety for years, eroding their relationship with their spouses and robbing them of clean healthy living. For what - to say they have wood ready, just in case?

Really fellas, what does it serve you if you are a weekend bird house warrior at best? If you really need wood chances are you live near a big box hardware. They all have wood cut to measure and most of them have bins of scraps - free wood for the asking. Seriously, plan what you need when you need it and just ask. They want to get rid of it. So do you.

And climb up there into the rafters along side those old frayed candy striped aluminum lawn chairs that went out of fashion when Mary Tyler Moore was still tossing her hat in the air and slide out those loose hidden gems. Let them clatter to the floor. Snap them up into manageable bits and GET RID OF THEM! Then shop vac up what has accumulated around and under all this time.

For the real guy's guy holdouts the definitive old chestnut has to be, "I can always burn it". Burning is an added plus bonus. Perhaps more stirring echoes from a simpler time. Often I hear this from guys who don't even have a fireplace or stove. Some enthusiasts may have installed one of the newest heating methods around (I kid) - wood burning stoves or fireplaces. They are once more all the rage and hold the promise of independent living free from the grid. If you are one of those pioneers who does have a stove or fireplace I'd like to add my two cents worth to stir up the pot of controversy and all those guy hackles rife for stirring you may have. Call me devil advocate number one. And don't jump to the conclusion that I am taking something away from you. Many do. I'm not. What I offer is improved health. And I want you to think about it from that perspective for a moment.

I grew up in a house with a grand old fireplace - in the mountains north of Montreal. In winter there was nothing grander. It was old style and Norman Rockwell bucolic. Before we knew it, it was, "Let's burn the Christmas tree dad!" time again. (Incidentally people who have never burned a Christmas tree in a fireplace have no concept what a flaringly dumb and dangerous thing this is to do. The stuff goes up like rocket fuel. Think instead "maybe we should have done a small piece first," before you laughingly do this with your kids.)

But I digress. It had a place and a time. We didn't care that every other room got colder than an Eskimo's bum, we'd feed logs on that fire until we all fell over sideways from fatigue. But we live in an advanced world now with many alternatives. And we depend on each other to survive more than we'd like to admit. We owe it to each other to diminish what hurts us all. If the sun delivers a technological knockout to our civilization we honestly have an excuse for returning to heating a home (or cave) with fire.

A study in 2007 in Montreal placed the blame of deteriorating air quality largely on the shoulders of household wood burning for heat, a large part. I kid you not. Like bread making machines people buy and for the most part never use - the rustic charms touted of self sufficient wood burning and cost savings from heating by electricity or gas had resulted in massively poor air quality from fine particulate emissions. Drastic measures have already had to be enforced to ban the use of wood burning stoves in populated areas.

Given the serious levels of outdoor pollution wood burning delivers as well as fire hazard and risk of indoor fungi buildup keeping wood for this purpose is not an especially sensible answer to getting rid of it from your home, especially wood that has in some way been chemically treated for household carpentry and renovation use. The proper wood for stoves must be dry seasoned hardwood and not moisture laden pieces as are many of those left sitting about in garages or sheds. Think build up in chimneys. Pine and Cedar - the most common building types cause more sparks. You don't want sparks. And don't burn artificial logs in stoves.

So do the right thing. Get rid of the loose wood you'll never really honestly use. If in the unlikely event you need a piece of wood for a project go and get it. In the mean time live safer, cleaner and without falling, breathing or eye gouging hazards in your home.

If you must buy a wood burning stove cleaner ones which burn pellets and such are available and offer heating opportunities. But we're talking about what's accumulated in your homes now. Will a guy buy a clean burning stove to accommodate the piles of wood sitting around? In a word - no. After all where's the snap, crackle and pop satisfaction of pellets?

Yes of course you can always burn the wood. The question is when and should you?

Sum Quote: "How much wood would a wood chucker chuck if a wood chucker could chuck wood?"

(Next up: Styrofoam and cardboard boxes.)