Y'all better be sweeping the chimney very often if you're burning bark...
I used to buy slabs from lumber mills Seems like a pretty sweet deal... they come in a big, banded bundle you can chop right down through with a chainsaw - you peel off stove lengths in minutes, right on the trailer...
And *DIRT* cheap.
Only problem is that they are mostly bark. Ash through the roof... and sweep the chimney twice a month (and that's not enough).
Didn't take me long to figure out it wasn't worth it... Went back to bucking up buckskin Tamarack, for all the trouble they are to go knock down up some logging road somewhere, buck and bust up and throw in the truck..
Yeah, we do that creosote stuff every few weeks (dries out/prevents the slags on the walls of chimney). Only clean our chimney once a year (and it really isn't bad at all) as most the chunks break off and fall down. Since only burn hardwood we miss out on a lot of the buildup problems. Still we probable have a two gallons of dirt come down when we do clean. Can't vacuum it cause the fine dust blows right through my shop vac (Yeah, wife taught me a lesson of manners after doing that one year).
We burn firewood with bark, but often if falls off and I do use the larger pieces to extend the fire when it doesn't need a bad hot burn to keep house warm. Not great BTU, but sometimes that is all you need.
Problem we have today is the wind, the old house is drafty, so even though we don't have -18 degrees the house can get cool... I pulled in the kerosene heater to add a little auxiliary heat.
The advantage of a drafty house, is very unlikely to die of CO (or is it CO2) poisoning. Same with Radon, a drafty house tends not to have any concentration of Radon giving problems. Heck, had a house full of boys at one time, so some ventilation helps after some oatmeal cookies.