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Myth of the modern stove
The Franklin, along with a few odd objects from his machine shop and a tie clip, are the only remaining physical evidence I have left of Ted Paulsen, who died in 1971. The stove, retired, rests in the bottom of our Quonset barn. It's been years since it held a fire in its belly.
While the old model gathers cobwebs, a new, modern wood burner heats that Quonset barn (my wife's painting studio). It's a pellet stove, the generational equivalent to my grandfather's Franklin, and sits, as his did, near a pool table.
The pellet burner has features never available on its pot-bellied ancestor. There's an electronic thermostat, for one. Select a temperature and the stove will maintain, more or less, constant warmth.
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The pellet stove also has an electronically controlled blower, a fan to force the heat into the rest of the room. That has helped my pool game. As a result of living my childhood with a Franklin stove, I found that for years I could only shoot well from one end of the table (the end near the imaginary stove).
Now, I play badly from either end, blindly missing easy shots I made in my sleep as a teenager.
The pellet stove has many safety features, each designed to keep the stove from over-filling, burning at too high a temperature and feed rate. Even the most negligent of owners will never have to call the fire department.
More or less.
The other morning we were reminded that no matter how technologically advanced wood stoves become, they're essentially the same as the Franklin in the basement of the grandparents' tiny house. They're fancy, but still just iron fireboxes.
I awoke last week to the sight of smoke pouring from the Quonset barn exhaust as never before. The modern controlled stove, left on its supposedly super safe electronically monitored low setting all night, had malfunctioned. It filled the firebox completely with pellets. As the sun rose, the stove was creating enough heat to power a steam locomotive.
More or less.
The pellet stove dealer has never seen anything like it - they're designed to shut off before that happens - must be faulty electronics.
It took me back to a day when my grandfather and I, both covered in soot, were cleaning the Franklin stove. He told me something that day that somehow, through the years, I'd forgotten.
"This stove?" he told me. "It's a fire. Just like a campfire you build out in the woods. You can't walk away from it for too long. Even though it looks like it's safe, it's not. It's a fire. You have to keep your eye on it."
Funny.
I forgot about the most important thing he left me.
Common sense.
To hear Scott Paulsen's column, visit www.observer-reporter.com. He can be heard each weekday afternoon from 3-7 p.m. on 1250 ESPN Radio.
