Gathering fallen timber for firewood

[Smokeydog]

Heated with wood for decades. Seasoned wood primarily oak, for three years. Bone dry. No kindling required just a sheet of newspaper to start. Coals after 24 hours. Buck 91 (Installed 1991). Installed mini split heat pump 10 years ago. $40/mo for the coldest two months and use 1/12 the firewood per year. Firewood still solid after 12 years. Pays to select good quality wood for fuel.

 

[tmcj]

Haha, yeah age and health was another consideration with getting into using firewood for heat. I'm 46, but also a heart patient with an artificial aortic valve since 21. I can work hard all day long as long as I pace myself. 20 years from now if I'm still ticking it may be more of an issue. But in the meantime it is great exercise and will keep a fella in good shape as long as you don't push too hard.

 

[shooterdon]

It is common for people to justify what they do, and think it may apply to you.

I KNOW my way is the best for me, but hardly anyone here will use it.

What is best for you will be a compromise. How much work you want to do, how much wood you want a year, how much you can spend, how important is a back up heat source, is it to save money, ambiance or a mix of both?

You will learn by doing, and learn from watching YouTube and thinking through the advantages and disadvantages of how others do the job.

I suggest a splitter that will handle 98% of what you will encounter. You will pay for a large splitter with money wasted or slow cycle times or both. Just scrap the large gnarly rounds or noodle them. There are folks here with splitters that cost over $4000...just silly for most people heating with wood. Borrow one or rent one to figure out what you need. A 12-20 ton unit should be all you need.

Good luck

 

[Wis Bang]

Had a boss with a colonial home in the 'burbs. In his basement, next to the hot air oil burner and under an hood feeding into the home's ductwork with a blower, a Jotul stove. It was 99% of his home's heat.The stove was the one that looked like a barrel wrapped with alternating curved pipes. His garage was in the basement level so access was easy. He used to get a dump trailer load of the slabs of oak from a sawmill.

That's the smoothest way I ever saw to heat with wood...

Having a Franklin stove at the cabin, I supplemented my home's heat pump with a pellet stove. 3 tons of good hardwood pellets makes less ash than one night burning oak at camp.

 

[MossRoad]

When we added our wood burner, the only practical place to put it was on an outside wall in the basement. Not the best place for it as far as distributing heat. It heats the laundry room and craft room directly. The other half of the basement is just storage, furnace and water heater, so no additional heat needed there. On the first floor directly above the wood burner room in the basement are two of the three bedrooms. It warms their floors nicely. I ran a duct with a booster fan from above the wood burner over to a heat register in the living room which is on the 1st floor opposite corner of the house from the wood burner room. I then installed a greenhouse thermostat on the ceiling of the wood burner room and set it to 78. It controls the duct fan. So once the temp in the wood burner room hits 78, the fan comes on and pumps warm air into the living room. When it drops below 76, it shuts off. Works very nicely.

 

[fishheadbob]

I heated with wood for 40 years burning mostly hickory, beech, and a little maple; nothing that would ever make decent saw logs, but good culls. The overall savings were substantial even after factoring equipment costs and chiropractic; at one time heating oil was pushing $4 per gallon.. Sure I would have been money ahead working a little overtime, but there is great satisfaction for me being in the woods doing timber stand improvement and getting free heat as a bonus. One time I caught a deer in the middle of delivering twins, nothing I would ever see clicking the remote on a gas fireplace.
My preferred method was to cut logs and tops to lengths my tractor could skid to a landing where I could cut to length, split, and throw onto a hay wagon for transport to the storage area. My equipment costs weren't much of a factor as I had all that stuff anyway, the wood was just a way to maximize equipment I already had. so when I have upgraded equipment, other than saws, I could always turn a little profit after using something for 15 years. I did pay $300 for a 3pt splitter, sold it worn out and leaking for $400 after 25 years, bought another for $400.

I thought in deference to my advanced age I should get away from so much wood so we went geothermal. I still find myself churning out a few cords for the fireplace and the central wood furnace; old habits die hard.

If you like it, do it. It's not for everyone. I get a sense of satisfaction when my daughter, an executive with an M.B.A., is at someone's suburban house critiquing their purchased fireplace wood.

 

[Oaktree]

My brother tries to convert me to a gas fireplace like he has. Point the remote and you have fire. He tells me we have moved beyond the gatherer stage of evolution whenever I am cutting firewood. But as long as I can do it physically, I will enjoy a real wood fire.

As for permits and inspections, insurance can deny claims if you burn down your house and they find out the wood stove was not permitted and inspected.

I for one appreciate the benefits of permits and inspections. Don't like paying for them, but understand their purpose. The original owner of my house did not believe in them, and we have had to re-do a ton of wiring, plumbing and other things that I wish had been done the right way the first time. I was putting in a stone walkway from my house to our chicken coop, digging 3" down and I hit the electric line going from the house to the garage.

If all you want is the ambience of a fire, yeah that's a lot easier and cleaner (assuming you have city gas), but I agree having your own fuel supply on site for heating is a much better way to go.

Yeah, I don't like the bureaucracy of inspections, permits, etc. (and we fortunately have very few in my town) but agree they're a semi-necessary evil. Neighbor of mine built his house halfway up the mountain with a winding, narrow driveway. Great for privacy but not so great for anything else. You need a good 4WD to get up there, and in the winter not even that...they park at the end of their road and use a snowmobile or ATV to get back & forth. No way a fire truck is gonna make it up there, can only imagine what their homeowner's insurance bill is!

 

[ultrarunner]

Lots of great oak now just left to rot...

 

[MossRoad]

Any lumber salvage potential?

 

[ultrarunner]

No... just makes super firewood.

Took the picture this afternoon walking the property.

For years each Christmas all the neighbors had yule logs courtesy of Dad...

No chance now with all the burn restrictions /prohibitions.

The sad thing is the storm fall oak is easy drive up cutting and hauling...

My friends visiting from Austria always comment that America is truly the land of plenty because in Austria the land owner with Oak can make a nice living in Firewood.