Anyone cut firewood for health/exercise?

[turnkey4099]

Not heating with wood, but have split plenty w/ a maul for camp fires and giving wood to friends who heat w/ wood, but wanted to highlight a tool we got last year that has made splitting wood a much easier chore for small amounts, the Logosol hand splitter. A friend, who does heat w/ wood, his wife complained their only problem was an ongoing lack of kindling to start fires, so I ordered one for them. So easy to split dry wood to smallish sticks that are easy to start. I even will dump wood strips in my chimney charcoal starter and get them burning with nothing but newspaper tied in knots.


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I split kindling with the splitter, Split slabs off rounds then stack and run back through producing kindling. 15 minutes will usually result in 2 5gal buckets full.

 

[Larry Caldwell]

Yep. Sometimes I will split that way just for old times sake. Ejoyable, slow but steady stacks up pile.

I have to watch what I am doing, splitting bhy hand yeilds bigger splits, sometimes too big while with the splitter I tend to split too small.

I am fortunate to have an old Fisher that will take a 10" x 20" log, then hold a fire for hours as it burns. I don't bother to split anything smaller than a 6" round, and most branch crotches feed into the stove without splitting. Splitter wood is a nuisance because you have to feed the stove every couple of hours.

 

[turnkey4099]

My maul is 6 lb. I need to post a picture. It is a non-stick maul that never gets stuck in a split. I have shopped hard for another like it, and have never been able to find one. I can't even find a picture of one on the web. I bought it 25 years ago, the same year I bought my chainsaw, a Husky 51 that is a real workhorse.

For the last 20 years I have run nothing but Red Line 2-cycle oil in my chainsaw. It's designed to lubricate hot running air cooled 2-cycle racing bikes, and not much runs hotter than a wide open chainsaw chewing through big logs.

Red Line also burns clean and never fouls plugs. I had a cheapo leaf blower that used head bolts to attach the handle. When the handle broke I pulled the head while I was fixing it. The cylinder was shiny bright and almost white glove clean. NAPA stocks the stuff.

Fiskars has a 10lb maul 'dead blow' IIRCC. Will not ever stick from what little I used it. Same as their "splitting ax". When I first tried that I could NOT believe what I was seeing. Split stuff with it that I used to use the 10lb maul.

 

[oosik]

Around here it would certainly have to be for your health. Firewood just does not sell.

Neighbor tried to make some money on firewood.

- first problem ........ does he deliver - NO
- second problem .......... he cut, split, stacked into one full cord piles. Several complain that they could not get it all in one trip with their pickup.

He quit.

 

[Fuddy1952]

That's like this great big red oak I cut here. I tried giving it away free. A fellow told me if I cut it in 18" lengths, split it, delivered and stacked it he'd take it.
I hauled it off to edge of woods to rot.

 

[AchingBack]

I'm 78, been cutting and burning wood for 40 years, but not because I need any exercise. It's a matter of economics. I'm not thrilled with the task.

 

[deezler]

I'm 78, been cutting and burning wood for 40 years, but not because I need any exercise. It's a matter of economics. I'm not thrilled with the task.

User name checks out. Can you still save money over a gas furnace, if you buy pre-split/dried firewood for say, $100 a face cord?

 

[MossRoad]

User name checks out. Can you still save money over a gas furnace, if you buy pre-split/dried firewood for say, $100 a face cord?

$100 a face cord would be $300 a cord. My gas bill is only $135 in winter.

As I've mentioned in the past, burning firewood to save money is a losing proposition if you put a monetary value on your time.

If you do not put a monetary value on your time, need the exercise, enjoy the activity, and get the wood for free, (as I do all of the above), then it's a worthwhile activity. Buy I could make enough money working the same hours spent harvesting firewood at McDonalds and come out ahead VS what it saves us in gas bills.

 

[AchingBack]

User name checks out. Can you still save money over a gas furnace, if you buy pre-split/dried firewood for say, $100 a face cord?

Gas isn't available where I live. My alternate source is a 49 year old forced air electric furnace. The only options are installing a HVAC system, or propane. The western states are beginning to ban natural gas.

 

[oosik]

Around here a "face" cord means NOTHING. Wood is sold by the cord or half cord. Face cord is not a legal unit of measure.

I have electric heat - S165/month for four months. $45 to $55 for the remaining eight months.

I spent ten years horsing around my gigantic Ponderosa pines. That was enough. I can still remember the sore back and legs.

However - I DO miss a nice fire in the wood stove. I don't miss the stink bugs/volcanic ash/dirt that came in with the wood.

 

[Larry Caldwell]

$100 a face cord would be $300 a cord. My gas bill is only $135 in winter.

As I've mentioned in the past, burning firewood to save money is a losing proposition if you put a monetary value on your time.

If you do not put a monetary value on your time, need the exercise, enjoy the activity, and get the wood for free, (as I do all of the above), then it's a worthwhile activity. Buy I could make enough money working the same hours spent harvesting firewood at McDonalds and come out ahead VS what it saves us in gas bills.

I prefer to cut my own firewood because I do not like the commercial cut. They cut 14" bolts, then stack it loosely enough that it measures a full cord. Any larger and they start getting complaints from people with small fireboxes. I like a 20" log. They over-split for the same reason. I may use a 4" split to get a fire started, but then I like a 6" round or 12" half split so I don't have to feed the fire so often. There is always a nice bed of coals in the morning to keep the chill off the house and start the next day's fire.

Then of course there is the exercise. I'm a "use it or lose it" believer. I look 20 years younger than my calendar age. No beer gut. I will probably live longer than a couch potato and enjoy my retirement a lot more. Yeah, I'm a little creaky. If I'm heading out for a solid day's work, I fortify with caffeine, Aleve and kratom, which work great together to keep the aches and pains at bay. If you let the aches and pains stop you, you're done.

 

[Larry Caldwell]

Around here a "face" cord means NOTHING. Wood is sold by the cord or half cord. Face cord is not a legal unit of measure.

[...]

However - I DO miss a nice fire in the wood stove. I don't miss the stink bugs/volcanic ash/dirt that came in with the wood.

I have never seen a face cord advertised around here. They would call it 1/3 cord, but I have never seen that either. If you want a little bit of firewood, they sell it by the pickup load, you haul. They have piles of it in front of stores.

My stove is in the family room, and we floored that with ceramic tile years ago. It takes 2 minutes to sweep the floor, and toss the dustpan load into the firebox. The family room opens into the garage, so I bring a wheelbarrow load at a time into the garage and bring it into the house a few pieces at a time.

The snow storm brought down a lot of barky wood, which will be messy to burn. I'm making up for it by cutting nothing but madrone. The deciduous bark makes it ultra clean to handle.

 

[dodge man]

Around here firewood sells by “what ever fits in the back of a pickup”.

 

[Larry Caldwell]

The fireplace insert I use deserves an eventual honorable death. It's a Fisher from the early '70s, and is a fine appliance. The house is 50 years old this year, and the insert came not long after. It was built long before EPA certification, and was one of the best of the air tight models. I don't know if their market penetrated the East, but here in Oregon it was one of the top brands. Fisher and Frontier pretty much owned the market.

My Fisher has heavy cast double doors with 5x7 flint glass windows. The firebox is 3/8" welded steel 22" by 16" by 2' deep. The bottom and 6" of the sides are lined with fire brick. Across the front is a slot draft parallel to the windows. Side draft draws in air, anything near the front gets plenty of oxygen, and circulates to the top of the stove, which gets plenty hot to cook on. The flame in front of the windows projects a lot of radiant heat. I can have a gallon of water boiling in 30 minutes in the morning, starting from the previous night's bed of coals.

We are supposed to get a 5 day cold snap starting tonight. I am working on cleaning my wood shed out for once. I'm down to wood that was sitting in that woodshed for 20 years. I just built a fire starting with a 3" ash round on a hot bed of coals, with a 4" and 6" ash split on either side, and a 6" ash round on top of the two side pieces. That would heat the whole house for 6 hours, but I'll break it down into a 4" bed of coals, load a couple 10" rounds, and let it heat the house all night. Right now I'm hanging as far from the stove as I can get. I'm still dressed for cold weather. Cold, clear, and sunny is the forecast. Great firewood weather.

I have to admit that I cut firewood because I don't want to give up my wood stove. It does what it was designed to do, and has done it for almost 50 years. State law says all wood stoves have to be EPA certified or removed and destroyed when the house is sold. I fully expect the stove to outlive me, so I may replace it. If I do, I'll salvage the doors, hardware, and fire brick.

 

[Larry Caldwell]

With energy costs going through the roof, the thumb is on the wood heat side of the scales. If you have your own wood and cut it yourself you can't heat a house cheaper.

 

[Fuddy1952]

With energy costs going through the roof, the thumb is on the wood heat side of the scales. If you have your own wood and cut it yourself you can't heat a house cheaper.

You're correct, however, it can be unhealthy air to breathe. My parents put in a Fisher stove in 70s. "Airtight" Momma Bear. Even slowly opening door, smoke puffs out. Smoke out dampers by a wind downdraft sometimes. It's not healthy breathing smoke, and Dad (rip) had respiratory problems, never used tobacco.

 

[grsthegreat]

anybody wanting healty exercise cutting firewood.....come on down.

i have chainsaws and lots of wood needing cutting.

 

[MossRoad]

With energy costs going through the roof, the thumb is on the wood heat side of the scales. If you have your own wood and cut it yourself you can't heat a house cheaper.

That's only true if you don't have to put a value on your time.

I've run the numbers a few times. If I add up the time spent traveling, hauling, wear and tear on vehicles/tractor/saws, etc., and the time spent processing each year to get my 6 cords of wood, I could work fewer hours at my day job and pay the natural gas bill for the entire winter.

With that said, I really enjoy the activity, have plenty of free wood, and I like the feel of wood heat over force air heat, so I don't see myself not heating with wood in the foreseeable future.

 

[CalG]

I enjoy the work out. Keeps me sane at times

The log load came a few weeks back. I can hear the but ends drying even if I know the mid length is wet as fresh cut.

The saws are waiting , splitter is too. cooler weather to come with the shorter days ahead.

Money in fuel oil and propane ? Seems like a one way trip.

I'm looking at two years of warm hearth ahead.

The movie "dancing with Wolves" had a good scene. "there are few things better than a warm fire".

 

[Hay Dude]

With energy costs going through the roof, the thumb is on the wood heat side of the scales. If you have your own wood and cut it yourself you can't heat a house cheaper.

I hear burning wood releases hydrocarbons into the atmosphere, contributing to global warming.

Just ask her.