Wood Heat Thread ~ post pics

Carpenter's woodshed

Douglas Fir timber end firewood and clear cedar tongue and groove kindling haha

 

30 degrees at the house yesterday morning. Fired up the cook stove with some scraps & end cuts from this year's cutting & splitting to get the house back up to 'comfortable' and decided it was time to replace the door gasket for the downstairs stove that I bought back in May but hadn't installed yet.

This morning it was 61 when I woke up, and we're not supposed to drop below 40 again for the rest of the week.

 

We're finally getting down to normal seasonal temps around here. Been in the upper 90s last week. Stinking firewood has skyrocketed in price this year. Didn't have to buy any last year but prices were $45-75 delivered and stacked for a rick. Everything available this year has been $85-100 plus delivery. Finally found a guy cheaper and bought a cord. I really don't have the time to process my own wood but I'm definitely looking into it now. I've got a couple acquaintances that have tree cutting companies so I think getting logs will be the easy part lol.

Anyone have suggestions on a good but cheaper log splitter? And yes, I'm too lazy to use an ax

I'm honestly not sure how much wood I normally go thru in a season. Last winter was pretty mild but a couple years ago it stayed cold for awhile.

 

I paid $1000 for my 25 ton unit from Tractor Supply this summer. We'll see how well it holds up long-term but it works great so far. But, it has a Kohler engine and hydraulics are pretty simple, so I don't foresee much for problems.

 

I saw that one at my tractor supply. Think it was $1200-1500 here. I definitely need to research them some. Thought about renting one from Home Depot, but they want almost $200 per day so I would much rather put that money towards a new one and own it and be able to take my time learning to use it.

 

Yeah, it's normally $1100 here but I bought it on a Labor Day sale

But honestly, if you're only burning a cord a year, a good splitting maul is a much better investment.

 

Well, that's my issue. I don't know how much I'll normally use. This is only my 4th season heating with wood. The first year we bought tons of wood and had wood left over, last year we didn't have to buy any but it was an unseasonably warm winter. One year I bought a dump truck load of blocks (4x6x18) from a pallet company, man those things were amazing, a couple in the stove would last all night, but we can't find them anymore.

I'm also hoping to be able to install a second smaller stove in the near future and be able to get off any electric heat so my wood consumption will go up then.

 

Gotcha. Well, I always err on the side of caution; worst that'll happen is that I've got wood left over for the next season. So I put up 6 cord a year, but the last couple of years I've burned all of it. So it's nice to leave yourself a cushion, so to speak.

 

I grabbed a bunch of scraps from the garage construction we had going on here this year to use as kindling. Pine not cedar. I just need to slice it up a bit.

 

Well, I just started my first fire in my central boiler classic for the year.

I've cut about 30 cord so far this year, splitting on a countyline 30ton. I could never split this hickory by hand.

 

Looks exactly like the dirty hand tools splitter I picked up this year. Well worth that price, simple machine what could go wrong, especially with that engine?

 

Living in my truck this winter, forced air is AWFUL. Nights have been down to 25 degrees where I am, just trying to figure out how to put cord wood in this thing

 

That sucks.
We have a place here that rents for 40 per day.

 

Wow! There’s hardly any places I know of that rent tools around here and if they do you have to sell a kidney for a days rental.

 

Finally got the stone work finished up and the chimney run up through the roof. I’m going to really enjoy having a woodstove.

 

Is that a single solid piece under the stove? What is it? Looks great! Well done!

 

Especially soapstone. They take a while to warm up, but once they do they pump out a really nice even heat.

 

^^^This

 

There it is again!!!!

Lol

 

I burn my junk off during this time of year since I don't need as much in the way of raw BTU.

This load should last about 24 hours of heat and residential hot water.