Tractors and wood! Show your pics

[hutchman]

My co-worker with OWB said he used about 12 cords a year. In the place we are going to build, I plan to use a gasification biomass furnace and think 6 cords will do.

 

[aeblank]

With heat storage tank, I hope. I have an HS Tarm, Excel 2000. Love it.

 

[hutchman]

With heat storage tank, I hope. I have an HS Tarm, Excel 2000. Love it.

I'm on the lookout for one or two 500 gal. propane tanks (that can't be used for propane anymore) and plan to use those for thermal storage. How many cords does your Tarm use MI? Colder there than here (I'm originally from MI).

Posting a picture of tractor to keep thread legit ... so the post is a pic of tractor & "talking" about wood. Bringing tractor & backhoe home from farm to fabricate subframe mount for it. Poor F-150 was overloaded

 

[aeblank]

I always forget. For a crude value, probably the equivalent of 20'x12'x7'. That's most of the fall and most of the spring, as well. Also, sometimes my helpers' stacking ability isn't so great, so there's various gaps between the rows as they drift to and fro.

 

[cartod]

Nice place! Does the 4500 sq ft include the garage?

No, although the garage and basement have radiant heated floors it is not included. The house is a 3200 sq ft ranch with a 1200 sq ft bonus suite above the garage. The bonus area has separate heat (also connected to boiler) but we keep it cool in the winter if no one is visiting. The exterior walls are all 6" and there is a foot of insulation in most roof areas. The entire house with basement and garage is about 9500 sq ft.

 

[cartod]

cartod, what temperature do you try to maintain in that beautiful home? I have been seriously contemplating a outdoor wood furnace for my humble abode.

We keep the thermostat set on 68 and I would highly recommend an outdoor wood furnace. Last year was my learning year with it and I heated the entire house including all the radiant floors in the basement and garage. Once I cut off the radiant heat my wood consumption went way way down. I anticipate 8-12 cords this year. I have a lot of trees to get rid of since I saved them all when we cleared the land for the house. When I run out of wood I may try coal, my boiler is set up for both. I would recommend you get a wood burner that is set up to also burn coal.

 

[Gordon Gould]

No, although the garage and basement have radiant heated floors it is not included. The house is a 3200 sq ft ranch with a 1200 sq ft bonus suite above the garage. The bonus area has separate heat (also connected to boiler) but we keep it cool in the winter if no one is visiting. The exterior walls are all 6" and there is a foot of insulation in most roof areas. The entire house with basement and garage is about 9500 sq ft.

Wow - now that you have explained how much area you are actually heating it is easier to see how you burn so much wood.

gg

 

[skyhook]

Well, I can tell you our chalet is about 700 square feet with an addition of about 144 feet.
And we use " at least 12 ' cords of wood, this is as of now our only source of heat, I can also say, we like it "hot" up in the 80%, sometimes we open the windows in the minus 25C....but this year, I'm going with a back-up, propane furnace. Hope it will cut my wood (that I have to buy ) down to about 3 or 4 cords.
As it is now, I'm paying $100 for a "face' cord.

 

[cartod]

Wow - now that you have explained how much area you are actually heating it is easier to see how you burn so much wood.

gg

Not to mention everything is 10' ceilings with 20' in the living room. WTH was I ever thinking? Its just the two of us now.

 

[John_Mc]

Back on to the tractors and wood theme:

Has anyone used a T-Rex or Woodland Trailer to haul firewood or longer logs?

Normally, I process my firewood right in the woods. I use a logging winch to pull the logs to the trailside, then buck them up, split, and throw in my trailer to haul back home. It would be nice to have a trailer that dumps for that. I'm also looking at getting in to helping out some friends who are not able to do as much of the firewood thing on their own. For some of them, I'd haul 8'+ logs to a landing, and let them cut and split. For others, I might buck it to stove length, and let them to the splitting.

There are a lot of sub $1000 trailers out there, but they are just too light duty - more suited to tow behind a lawn mower or small ATV. When you get into real forestry/logging trailers designed to be pulled by a tractor, you can get north of $10,000 very quickly. The ones I linked above seem like a nice middle ground. I'd rather find something rated for 3 or 4,000# to pull behind my compact tractor, but I could get by with one of these (I might replace the hand winch with an electric one). I'm leaning towards the "Woodland Trailer" since it can dump the full 2000#, and since I doubt I'd ever use the winch on the T-Rex to load logs with - more likely, I'd load them with my tractor.

I'd be interested in what people's experience with one of these might be, or if you have recommendations on another brand that I should look at (especially if it has a little larger payload than what I've mentioned above). I'd consider paying a bit more than what the Woodland Trailer goes for ($1699, but I'm not sure if that's US or Canadian $), however, "She Who Must Be Obeyed" would hit the roof if I spent thousands.

EDIT: The $1699 was in Canadian $. I was just quoted US$1599 for the Woodland Trailer from their warehouse in Buffalo, NY. (I emailed back to ask how that is if the CAN$ is currently US$0.76. I asked if I can just buy it for CAN$1699 instead.)