Collecting firewood is a hobby at best and good exercise at worst. Don't like running a saw or splitting wood? Collect blocks from a mill on the cheap. A trailer load of 10" x 8" blocks of varying thickness is $25 here (sometimes $40 depending on who's at the desk). The same load of split wood would cost $300 to buy. For $100, they'd drop a dump truck full of blocks in my driveway. Wood doesn't have the energy density of fossil fuels, of course. If you can smell smoke or see smoke leaving your chimney, you are either doing something wrong or simply have an old stove. Franklin and pot belly stoves come to mind as inefficient stoves. No smoke leaves my chimney. Burning 24/7, I clean out a gallon ziplock bag of ash each week. It takes 2 minutes. That ash goes into my quail sandbox. I wish it was a little more ash each week. I'm burning oak, and I don't have experience with how much ash other trees create? Doing nothing is easier than doing something, you're correct. Nobody would burn wood if they could just set the thermostat. We burn wood simply for the niceness of sitting near and watching the fire and the power bill savings. If I choose the wood blocks route, it takes an hour to pile 2 cords into my trailer. It takes another hour to neatly stack it where I keep it. 2 of those loads (4 total hours) and I'm good for the winter. I spend more time and money each year changing the oil in my vehicles and toys than I do dealing with firewood. Sure, I could take them to speed-lube, but I'm a man. My situation isn't the case for everyone, and no offense here, but you're blowing things way out of proportion.