Elaborate Wood Heat System
In Town House Must Go
By John Freitag

The Strafford Selectboard has concluded that the complex system of woodstoves and stove pipes that heats the Strafford Town House needs to be replaced.

While it is only used for Town Meeting and general elections, the system is both antiquated and unsafe.

Currently three woodstoves are used to heat the building. Horizontal stove pipes run most of the length of the building and then are connected together in one pipe that goes into the attic and into a suspended chimney that is most likely unlined and certainly in need of repointing.

According to Strafford Selectboard Chair Steve Willbanks, if a professional chimney sweep took down the pipes to clean them, by law he could not reinstall them. It would only take one accident to lose this architectural gem erected in 1799.

The selectboard, advised by the Town House Committee, which includes Rocky Fuller, Dave Taplin, Jesse Kendall, and Bob Johnston, has concluded that now is the time to consider replacing the woodstoves with a system that reduces the risk of fire and may offer a more reliable means of providing heat.

While the board and the committee realize that this might not be a very popular change, the alternative of doing nothing could be infinitely worse.

The intention is to put in a heating system that would have the least impact on what is recognized as one of the most beautiful buildings in the state.

Once there is a final decision on the type of system and the cost of the project is known, a fundraising effort will begin with the hopes of being able to install the new heating system this year.

According to Strafford historian Gwenda Smith, author of the book "The Town House," wood stoves were not put into the Town House until 1833. The stoves now in the Town House are not the originals and were probably installed in the 1930s, and the current stove pipes were put in even more recently than that.

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