Moving Firewood

[dubba]

What makes you say outdoor wood boilers are extremely inefficient?

While I'm not going to argue the "extremely" adjective, there is an inefficiency in changing heat energy. There is are changes that are similar to both appliances but one change stands out.

The outdoor wood boiler must convert the heat to hot water, the hot water must be transmitted to the heated space. As there are no perpetual motion machines in existence, i can suppose a heat loss in this process. Just the fact that there is insulation on the pipes into the house tells me there is heat loss & the manufacturers are trying to mitigate the problem.

Another loss of efficiency for both appliances is sizing them too big. Efficiency ratings are for a steady state full burn condition. As soon as the woodstove or outside boiler is "turned down" efficiency goes through the floor.

The best setup that I have seen is just up the road from me. One man owns 2 houses close together. (~500ft) He put one 130k/btu outdoor wood boiler in between the 2 houses. It has been rocking & rolling for 5 years now. His wood usage? 12-13 cords per year. BOL

 

[scott_vt]

First, I would not let the wood just set in a "dumped" pile. My experience with this method of non-stacking is the bottm of the pile never dries out and the middle of the pile gets wet with rain but never dries out only the sides where wind and sun are get dry. Wood will dry better stacked and the top of the pile covered.

Since you are dumping your wood down into the basement now how about using a dump trailer. You would still have to throw the wood intoo the trailer by hand but then you could back up to the openning to the basement and dump the contents of the trailer.

Plus you could use the trailer for other projects.

Randy

Mornin Randy,
Very good post ! I have a 4x8' trailer and it will dump ! Totally forgot about that You could easily build sides for that type of trailer and load quite a bit of wood on that and then dump down the stairs, you still need to stack it but that could be a real big timesaver idea IMO !

 

[Runner]

Don't think I've seen it mentioned yet, but TSC sells a dumping carryall that would probably work. Also, it doesn't look like it would be too hard to make a dump body for a regular carryall.

 

[3RRL]

Thinking about a little more, if you got the dump trailer, you could possibly load it with grapples on your bucket. I don't think you'd need to stack into the dump trailer, right? ... if you're gonna dump it. You'd save so much time loading it that way and dumping into your basement, you could afford to make several trip if you wanted.
Not only that, but you'd have two more valuable implements/attachments at your disposal for anything else around the farm.

 

[daTeacha]

I'm a little late to this party, but I burn wood that I cut and stack during the summer. I have a 5' bucket and grapple and have moved a lot of wood and other things with it. In my opinion, the most time efficient method would be as follows:

First of all, unless the stairs under your Bilco are concrete, cover them with a sheet of OSB or something. Your firewood will damage wooden steps and will leave a bunch of semi-rotted and possibly pest infested trash there that will soon rot wooden steps.

If your wood is dumped from a dump truck into a pile, make sure it gets onto pallets or something to allow air to circulate under it. Cover the pile unless you are actively taking wood out of it or you know the weather will be dry.

A grapple will allow you to pick up wood quickly, but the load you get won't be as big as if you stack it into the bucket and use the grapple to help hold it in. I can stack about a bucket and 3/4, then close the grapple to kind of snug it down while I move it. If you just pick it up from a pile with the grapple, you won't carry as much per trip, but you will be able to do more trips in a given time. What's more fun, driving the tractor or stacking wood?

I would seriously consider a carry-all with a pallet on it. If you mess with the design details, you could get a cheap regular carry-all and make a pallet based box with two ends that open. Use the bucket/grapple to load your box, then slide the carry-all under it. Fill the bucket/grapple again and head for the Bilco. Dump the bucket load into the stairwell. Turn around and set the box full of wood off next to the stairwell. Open each end of the box, one facing into the stairwell and one opposite it. Push the wood from the far end into the stairwell with the bucket and you're good to go.

Like I said, you need to mess with the details some so everything fits your tractor and stairwell, but you can move a fairly large amount of wood in a short time this way. I would cover the bottom and sides of the woodbox with OSB to keep things from hanging up, and be sure to make the box wide enough to let the bucket fit inside it.

Depending on your time, talents, and enthusiasm, you can also make up a simple extended toothbar for the bucket to enlarge your bucket capacity.

 

[skent]

Bucket extension like this ??

I have one small area in my driveway where the snow can drift to 4 or 5 feet if the wind is just right (even with a small snowfall). A snow plow just wouldn't work in that area.

So I made an 18" extension for my loader bucket. Really increases the capacity.

Works well for firewood (if you stack it)

Works VERY good for mulch!

Four bolts and it's off.

 

[jejeosborne]

For the past couple of years I too have been thinking about transporting firewood. First I made wood racks out of landscaping timbers that were 8 feet wide and 4 feet tall. They work well with the forks on my tractor. My problem was that I like to split the wood at the tree in the woods and this setup made it difficult to get the racks out of the woods. Last week I purchased 20 heavy duty wire racks from a surplus center for $10 each. They are the perfect size for my B7000 being 46"x36"x30" high. They allow airflow to dry, have a dropdown gate, and are stackable. Here is a link to what I purchased.

 

[scott_vt]

Afternoon Guys,
Steve real nice job on that bucket extension ! And jejeosborne vbmenu_register("postmenu_1263496", true); , terrific idea on those wire baskets ! This thread is turning up some great ideas for both moving and storage ! Its always fun to see how others handle common problems ! Keep em commin guys !

 

[srossman]

Bucket extension like this ??

I have one small area in my driveway where the snow can drift to 4 or 5 feet if the wind is just right (even with a small snowfall). A snow plow just wouldn't work in that area.

So I made an 18" extension for my loader bucket. Really increases the capacity.

Works well for firewood (if you stack it)

Works VERY good for mulch!

Four bolts and it's off.

That was pretty much what I've been thinking about. The only difference was I would like to make the sides higher than the bucket so I could stack the wood higher than the bucket. How thick is the metal that you used? Thanks for the pics.

 

[Iplayfarmer]

For the past couple of years I too have been thinking about transporting firewood. First I made wood racks out of landscaping timbers that were 8 feet wide and 4 feet tall. They work well with the forks on my tractor. My problem was that I like to split the wood at the tree in the woods and this setup made it difficult to get the racks out of the woods. Last week I purchased 20 heavy duty wire racks from a surplus center for $10 each. They are the perfect size for my B7000 being 46"x36"x30" high. They allow airflow to dry, have a dropdown gate, and are stackable. Here is a link to what I purchased.

You're close to what I was thinking...

You've got to stack the wood at some point. You might as well only stack it once. Figure out how much wood a set of forks on your tractor will hold. Then, build racks on wood pallets that will hold that much wood. This shouldn't be too hard. Maybe a few uprights on the sides of the pallet and some ties accross the top to add strength and make it easier to stack the racks on top of each other.

Have your racks all filled and pre-stacked in the fall and then just pick them up one at a time and dump into your stairwell according to some of the other advice in this thread.

You should be able to pick up #2 pallets pretty cheap if not free.

 

[crossfire190]

Thank you everyone for your great ideas and suggestions.

Please keep sharing!!

 

[3RRL]

There have been some great suggestions so far.
So how do you guys get your wood UP to the level where the stove is?
For example, where there are stairs or steps to a deck or porch?
Mine is like 8' up to the first floor. Any suggestions?

 

[SkunkWerX]

With a larger tractor you could palletize the wood and then use q/a pallet forks. That might still work on the BX but you would need to use clamp on pallet forks Untitled Document .

Another option might be some sort of trailer but you would still need to hand load and unload it.

Norm

Palletizing is similar to what I would suggest, and have done.

I palletize the split wood. On my old tractor I used the Rear-mounted Carry-all and could palce the pallet by the back porch.


later on, I built a little vinyl sided "pallet carport" , so i could slide the pallet into it, and kept the wood dry and still near the door. After woodburning season, the "pallet carport" got forklifted away from the house, back behind the shed.

i don't know if the BX has the lift power out there beyond the bucket to lift a full pallet of firewood? Well, at least not the stacks I made. I tried to make the pallet-full equal to one weeks worth of wood.
Best thing I ever did was get a very efficient stove, Jotul. Cut my total wood burned by 25% to 33% less = less cuting, splitting, hauling.

 

[leslie428]

Here is how I do it! I use a home made trailer with a generic ATV 250CC ST model that I bought from China at the same time I purchased the Jinma 284LE, this was in 2005. I installed a permanent plywood insert so the trailer would not be dented and the paint chipped. I can throw any log or block into it and not worry. Yes I hand load and unload, but it is a good pass time for me. I also use it to get wood on my 110 acre farm. (no animals, other then my children, this is really just a country home.)

 

[SPYDERLK]

Bucket extension like this ??

I have one small area in my driveway where the snow can drift to 4 or 5 feet if the wind is just right (even with a small snowfall). A snow plow just wouldn't work in that area.

So I made an 18" extension for my loader bucket. Really increases the capacity.

Works well for firewood (if you stack it)

Works VERY good for mulch!

Four bolts and it's off.

Nice extension. This is what I was thinking.
Crossfire, if the bucket is big enuf just treat the wood like dirt so you never have to stack. I think extending the bottom lip only and having the wood dumped on a hard surface could eliminate hand work. If you can come up with a hard well drained surface, like a grating set on sand, it would let you scoop effectively at the bottom of the pile. A few more trips than hand loading - but more like entertainment than work.

larry​

 

[Rara Avis]

There have been some great suggestions so far.
So how do you guys get your wood UP to the level where the stove is?
For example, where there are stairs or steps to a deck or porch?
Mine is like 8' up to the first floor. Any suggestions?

Timberwolf Wood Processing Equipment

 

[Rara Avis]

Scott VT - That is correct. I have a Bilco Door and with my small bucket a load will drop in nicely.

Any thoughts on how well the grapple would do to pick up the wood from a pile? At this point, I have my wood delivered and it is dumped into a pile. Previously, I would stack the wood and then move it as needed. But if I can skip the stacking step, that would save a lot of time.

If your steps are metal, be careful about dropping wood on them routinely...

 

[SpringHollow]

For a few years, I used pallet stacks of wood. One pallet on the bottom and one pallet vertically on each side. Cross bracing was on the back side and top to keep the side pallets in place. Go into the woods with the rack on the 3 pt pallet forks. Cut wood and stack on pallet then take to where I want to dry it. Later on, I take them and stack them tight near the boiler. Sometimes, I would bind the stack of wood with a small strap when transporting the pallet from one place to another. The pallets would last about 4 years.

I have some plastic pallets now and they would work nice with this setup. However, I stiopped using this arrangement when I started to heat exclusively with wood. I would have needed to build too many of them. Besides, I actually enjoy doing firewood (sick, I know). Right now, I stack in the woods on plastic pallets then grab with the trailer and restack next to the boiler.

As far as wood boilers go, if you have one with good forced combustion that burns cleanly (secondary combustion chambers, etc.), it is nice to be able to clean up the property by burning some wood that you would never think of burning inside. Burning at over 2000 degrees prevents smoke and creosote issues. If your boiler belches out black smoke like some I have seen, it is either designed poorly or being operated poorly.

Ken

 

[dmccarty]

I palletized my firewood for two seasons. We have a perfect spot on the back porch that has a 6-8 foot roof overhang. We would have to throw a tarp over the wood if it was blowing rain but it worked pretty well....

The problem?

M I C E!

My wood piles have loads of mice in them. I have found three mice nest so far this year. And we have not burned much wood since its been so warm. We stopped bringing the pallets to the back porch because of the mess and the mice. We had 4-5 mice in the house a year or so ago and they got in because of the palletized wood. What a ^&*() mess they made. No more palletized wood.

The wood piles are on the pallets covered by tarps. I just fill up our big wheel barrow every 3-4 days. It keeps the mess down and no mice. Thankfully the wood is stored uphill from the house. A few years ago it was downhill from the house and I would push the wheelbarrow UPHILL if I did not want to start the tractor. Its good excercise!

I like the idea of the shrink wrapped palletized wood and I think it would be somewhat easy to workout a system to slide it into the basement. But what to do about the danged mice?

Later,
Dan

 

[jimmer2880]

I keep my wood inside of a brick & window foyer (it's more of a rear porch, but whatever...). Anyway, because I can only store about 1 cord of wood there, and it's hand-stacked each time, I haven't had a mouse problem from the wood.

I can't imagine using a wheelbaro to transport it. We would go through at least 1 load a day.

I used to have a small 4x4 trailer, that I put 4' sides and a tilt-up roof on. I would load it up with wood and drive it right up to the back porch steps. It worked very well. If I ever loose my foyer storage, I'll have to build something like that again. Easy to stack, easy to transport & stayed nice & dry.