I grew up in eastern Massachusetts, in a big old house with a fireplace in the livingroom and a woodstove in the cellar. During the energy crunch in the 1970s my dad installed a second wood stove in front of the fireplace to help keep the oil bills under control, and it gunked up the chimney something fierce ­ it was a wonder the house didn't burn down.

For years that boxy steel stove hogged the living room, much to Mom's dismay,

until it was dragged off to a corner of the cellar and later carted away by one of my siblings.

The Author Todd A. Woofenden

I went to school in Richmond, and received a degree in philosophy from Virginia Commonwealth University in 1986. I didn't have any career goals, so just don't even ask.

Returning to Massachusetts, I found myself in need of a job, and my Aunt Lois said, Why not clean chimneys? Your cousin does it, and he seems to like it. I replied something along the lines of, Uhm... yeah (thin smile). Uh... I'm thinking about some sort of computer thing.

But the idea was weird enough that it grew on me (a degree in philosophy does that to people) and soon I became a sweep. I worked all around the Boston area, on everything from little single-story ranch houses to monstrous brown-stones in the middle of the city. And I liked it. I liked it so much that in 1988 I joined forces with a business partner (he knew how to do the books and I knew how to walk around on roofs) and we established our own chimney services company. As a Certified Chimney Sweep I worked in the field, cleaning, repairing and troubleshooting chimneys; and was also responsible for hiring and training the road crews (and fixing the trucks, and doing some electrical wiring in the office, and...).

As a Licensed Masonry Construction Supervisor, I performed masonry repairs and rebuilds of chimneys as well.

Now, remember my Dad's old fireplace? By this time it was a mess, the flue caked with creosote, and leaves and debris piled up over the rusted-through damper. Naturally, I had to take on the task.

Before I was done with that chimney, it had a new chimney liner, a fair amount of masonry work, a chimney cap, and a nice set of glass doors. And as for me, I got a cheery fireplace to sit in front of during the holidays and some good experience putting up one of the most difficult roof staging setups of any of the houses I had ever worked on.

The point, though, is that a safe, functioning woodburning appliance is worth the effort. Everybody loves a wood fire.

Later I moved to Maine, where I had always wanted to live, and managed a leading wood stove and hearth products shop for several years. I worked with stoves every day, and gained a lot of experience troubleshooting every conceivable stove-related problem.

One thing I can say with great enthusiasm is that with modern clean-burn technology, the wood stoves of today have come a long, long way from the steel boxes of the 1970s!

These days I'm still in Maine, but now I'm doing computer stuff (told you I would!) which has given me the free time to finish this book.

But I remain a big fan of stoves and fireplaces, and each winter my family stays warm in our 150-year old New England farmhouse with clean-burning, ecologically sound, inexpensive wood heat.

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