I was toying with the idea that Fridays should be ‘foodie Fridays’, where we share a recipe or stories about the sumptuous meals we’re consuming here in Braidwood. But after a knackering day involving a dash into Canberra and back, we’re not up for the effort. So what’s afoot? Well, it’s getting chilly here in Braidwood, and given yesterday’s tirade about the recent wildfires, today we take a look at fire’s friendlier, domestic application – warming our home. 

They say the discovery of how to control fire was a major evolutionary step that propelled humankind to its position of dominion above the beasts (along with opposable thumbs and the use of tools). If so, there’s a kind of irony that our various forms of controlled combustion are now warming the whole planet such that it may become unliveable for humans.

But anyway, there’s no doubt that in a domestic setting, a hearth is the heart of the home – at least until relatively recently, when the TV became the heart of the home. And with modern efficient forms of heating, those in colder climes tore out or boarded up their fireplaces and built new homes without them. All the more space for the TV.

Corner Cottage has two fireplaces – one in the main bedroom and one in the living area-cum-kitchen, which could be accessed from two sides. Both had suffered the removal of their Victorian cast-iron inserts and tiled surrounds, being blocked up with Gyprock and painted over. When we moved in, we lost no time in opening up the one in the living room, which is now single-sided (the other side has been converted into a nifty little cupboard).

The Victorian cast iron and tile fireplace is long gone; now we have a gaping hole which we’ve modified with loose bricks into a workable fireplace. Thankfully, the art deco mantlepieces surrounding both fireplaces remain, and the flues are clear and drawing very nicely.

This enables us to create a decent blaze which helps warm the room (admittedly aided on occasion by a new reverse-cycle air conditioner). With no grate, we make the fire wigwam-style like boy scouts and that excellent Victorian flue does the rest. I’m grateful that in my youth my mates and I went on enough camping trips that the basics of building a fire on the ground are ingrained – it would be but a short leap to sharpen a likely stick, impale a sausage on it, and set to charring it to carcinogenic perfection over the leaping flames.

I do suspect that a lot of the heat is going up the flue though, so to be more sustainable in both energy and dollars, we’re looking to install a woodburning stove. It may be an indication of how far we’ve come, but I find this idea very exciting – somehow the thought of our home’s hearth/heart being a modern development of an ancient technology is very satisfying.

Of course, this vision may need a bit of refining – some consideration of real-world factors, not to mention compatibility with the period features of the place, etc. etc. And cost is that ever-present bugaboo — some of the ones we saw today ran to the tens of thousands.

One thing is clear – it needs to be big enough to take logs of the larger variety. I can’t be chopping them down to size all the time – on current form, those opposable thumbs (and other extremities) are just too much at risk.