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.