Wood Heat Thread ~ post pics

Neat!
Hopefully those damn beetles don't get it.

 

I gave it to my builder who's gonna put it to use in an outdoor area on a patio or something like that...

 

WTF OZ...
I just refreshed the TW homepage and saw shots of your goddamn tree in 4 different threads!
No wonder you've got so many posts; you don't just make a post, you carpet bomb!

 

It's a fir , the beetles kill pines

 

http://www.fs.usda.gov/Internet/FSE_DOCUMENTS/stelprdb5299322.pdf

 

Sure , let me rephrase my answer , pine beetle kill is rampant in BC , not so much Fir beetle which doesn't really seem to exist outside of the interior of BC

http://www.for.gov.bc.ca/hfp/mountain_pine_beetle/Pine Beetle Response Brief History May 23 2012.pdf

 

^^^Dayum! Big-ass tree!

 

That's a huge tree.

Well I know how everyone loves madrone, this nice big dead one fell across my dads driveway. Helped him to cut it up and free himself lol! It's been our woodpecker home for 20+ years now but it turned into 3 real nice truck loads of fire wood

 

Ran out of this years supply of wood digging into next years that is not exactly the most dry. Record colds this year is not helping.

 

I brought in the last arm load of this year's wood yesterday

Luckily we're getting warmer here on the coast , nights are above freezing now

 

yeah, I started mixing the wood I split in the fall with the dry stuff a couple weeks ago. I'm down to probably 1/2 a rick now of seasoned stuff, and I'm only using it to get the fire up to temp in the mornings (along with a dose of creosote destroyer!), and the semi-seasoned stuff gets loaded as long as there's a healthy coal bed to dry it out the rest of the way.
We're still 50/50 on days above or below freezing, and every night lately has been in the single digits. Ridiculous for March-nearly-April.
Usually by now the woodstove's gone cold, because we're in the 20's at night, the 40's during the day, and the solar gain through the South windows is enough to keep the house comfortable. I'll occasionally fire the cookstove up in the AM's just to take the chill off; this year I'm feeding the cellar stove just like in January.

 

Using store bought compressed logs to start it, then regular wood to keep it going. My house is a summer cottage turned house and it is not very insulated. luckily with the large windows in front during the afternoon the sun warms it up.

 

I used up all of this years wood weeks ago, finally went and bought some compressed wood. In my area at least anybody advertising "seasoned wood" for sale is lying so I didn't see any point in buying wood that wasn't any drier than what I still have. I bought a pallet (240 logs) of Northern Idaho Energy Logs (NEILS) and I was skeptical but I love them. Each is 8lbs and just 2 in my stove will give me usable heat for about 6 hours. They're round so stacking them was a PITA and they need to be inside, if they get wet at all they are useless. It's a good alternative if you are looking for more heat and have already run out of seasoned wood.

 

I used some of those the first year in our house, for the same reasons. I came home from work to find out that the 4 cord of "seasoned" wood we'd bought turned out to be not-so-seasoned. I called the guy and complained about being charged seasoned price for wood that clearly hadn't been split more than a couple of weeks ago (weighed a ton, no checking on the ends, still smelled like sap). I ended up having to threaten to take it to the state police if he didn't opt to either refund me the difference or pick up the wood and give me my money back. He ended up refunding me the difference, and I dropped it into a ton of these.
http://canawick.com/en/produits.php?cat=Blocks&c=38

They burned ok and threw decent heat, but seemed like they produced a lot of ash. Plus they needed a hot coal bed in order to keep burning. I've still got a few left that I toss into the cookstove when I need to maintain temp for a long period of time (cooking a roast, etc.)

 

I just got a new half-cord of almond wood delivered.

Not planning on a lot of heating fires thru the summer - but I'll be firing up the smoker.

 

What are you putting in the smoker Steve ?

 

What wood? or what meat?

Our local orchard hardwood is almond since there are lots of almond orchards in central valley, and the farmers regularly pull out the old trees when they get to a certain age and plant new ones, since geriatric trees don't produce as good a crop yield.

I have easiest success with a pork shoulder that makes a lovely pulled pork. It's very forgiving.

I did a turkey last christmas.

Next thing I do will probably be a rack of ribs. I wanted to smoke a salmon last weekend, but I was out of wood so I just grilled it over charcoal briquets.

 

I meant what meat , sounds good

 

My dad's got a smoker. He did a rack of ribs for us a couple weekends ago using Black Cherry and it was amazing. Never had anything Almond-smoked before though...sounds interesting.

 

A bit more on that big Fir

http://globalnews.ca/video/1238401/giant-tree-nicknamed-big-loney-doug-stands-alone-in-clear-cut