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I lived in a rural area for 3 years, not because I was trying to LARP a lifestyle but because I was working in the outdoor industry at the time and that's where I needed to be. I guess I was semi "off the grid" but not in any meaningful sense. I had electricity, but well water and a septic system. No TV or internet and really bad cell service (I left the property if I really needed to make a call, but if I sent a text it would send eventually). My house had an oil stove but it also had a wood burner and I decided to use that thinking it would save money. Well, maybe, a little. First, I had to get a log splitter, and even buying a used one split with two of my buddies was enough money to pay for half a winter's worth of oil. Add in the chainsaw and it became a whole winter. Then, every time someone cuts down a tree you have to be ready to go to their house that Saturday to cut it up and load it, and spend Sunday splitting and stacking it. I also didn't have much to start with so I had to buy a cord to get through the first winter, which was a brutal one. Then, when you go to use it, you have to load the stove up to capacity before bed lest you wake up in the morning freezing, making the house so hot you have to open the windows. You freeze in the morning anyway, and you have to get a fire going again from coals. Trust me, the last thing you want to have to do in the winter at 6 am is build a fire. Repeat the process when you get home from work. In the spring and fall you have to use aux heating anyway because any fire is entirely too hot when you're only trying to warm up from 50 degrees. The amount of time I spent dealing with the thing, had I spent it working, would have more than paid for me to run oil full time, and that's not including the cost of the splitter, chainsaw, blade sharpening, gas to haul all that wood, etc. That being said, nothing beats the feel of a stove going in the dead of winter, and it added a rustic charm, but I could have gotten that with a lot less work if I would have just bought wood and burned occasionally rather than committing to it as a heat source. And this is just one, relatively minor inconvenience that comes with living "off grid". But, I still have access to a log splitter I may decide to use again someday.
Yeah, I've lived in villages that use wood only heating in the winter, and if you want to go to sleep warm, everyone has to move into the main room in the winter.
One of the things that wasn't mentioned much in the discussion about traditional housewife work but is huge in some climates is keeping the fire burning in the winter, and waking it up again from coals before dawn, as the father gets ready for work. In villages without was heat, that's very important, and a fair amount of work. One household I lived in had only daughters at home (I think there was a son, but he was working elsewhere and couldn't return to help), who spent several weeks splitting wood by hand.
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This description of heating with wood is giving me flashbacks to a winter I spent in a yurt near the California/Oregon border.
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