The little lamp that glows amber when our woodstove is burning well
I asked the mods before posting this.
A few years ago we bought a house in the woods in Vermont, and it came with two woodstoves. They were our primary heat source in the winter, and I'd never run one. (I'm a city kid)
We'd burn a fire in our woodstoves all day long, and I work from home, so I'd always be worried about the fire. A magnetic thermometer helped, but only if I was standing in front of the woodstove, so I'd find myself walking up and down the stairs and across the house all the time to check the stove. I definitely had some form of "woodstove anxiety disorder."
I'm an engineer, so my first fix was very un-hygge. I stuck a temperature sensor to the stovepipe, wired it to a Raspberry Pi, and had it text me. It worked, but now I was checking my phone instead of the stove.
The first version of the monitor just texted me about the stove. It was ugly, but it worked.
Our son was born shortly after that first winter, and the next winter we had a toddler, our hands were always full, so we wanted something something that we could notice from across the room without picking anything up.
So the monitor became a small walnut lamp. If the lamp glowed amber, it meant the fire is burning well. Yellow meant it's time to add wood. Red means it's running too hot and I should go check it.
The first version of the walnut lamp on a shelf in my office.
I posted it on the r/woodstoving subreddit last winter and people asked to buy one, so I hand-built the first batch at the Generator makerspace in Burlington. This year I redesigned it so it can be made properly, and the first production units ship in November.
We lit our first fire of the season this week. And it looks great.
What makes the first cold evening of the year feel right in your house?
