Wood Heat Thread ~ post pics

Cross hatch, yes. Good idea. Stable enough to climb on, well mine was. It was also 3 rows of wood deep, so 4-5 ft and 20 or more feet long too.

 

Well how about that!

 

Scaffold

 

I drive a couple T posts into the ground at the ends of my stacks. A lot of the wood I get is too twisted and/or knotted to be able to make a clean cross hatch stack at the ends.

 

Maticuno The fatal error in your "Real DCSB"



J/K

 

I second Peter's recommendation for the Alderlea. I have a T6 (biggest firebox PE makes), un-enameled, good old cast iron look. 9pm to 9am fires all the time, good coal bed in the morning. Simple to operate, simple to clean.

Ralph

 

Did some tree rigging this weekend. I'm doing some clearing out behind the garage because we've got a bunch of 40-50 year old Poplars that are all leaning in the wrong direction (towards the garage). And since I don't trust tall, old Poplars at all it's time for them to go, lol.

Started out by setting up my rigging rope and snatch block at the base of a Maple I wanted the Poplars to fall towards and looping a 3/8" chain around the trees I wanted to drop, then a 20,000lb strap to that, and finally lashing the rope to that. I secured the rope to a clevis hitch on the back of the truck and took up the tension on the tree until it was closer to vertical, then cut a notch on the side I wanted it to fall on.




From here I don't have any pictures until the trees are on the ground, because I wasn't about to stop mid-process and take photos, haha!

After I notched the trees how I wanted them I increased the tension on the rope and then started a steeply angled cut on the back side (opposite the notch) until the tree started to shift, then increased tension on the rope some more, then increased the cut another inch or so. On the first tree, once I got the tree past vertical all I had to do was complete the cut and let the tree drop. The second tree kept trying to lean off to the side, even with the angle I put onto the notch to help roll it in the right direction, so I ended up cutting most of the way through the back side and then hauling the tree down manually with the truck rather than cutting it and letting it drop.


Note the tree on top (the second tree) rotated roughly 90 degrees due to the angle I cut the notch at rolling it over in the direction I wanted it to fall in.


Even though it's just Poplar I didn't want to let it go to waste, so it's getting sectioned up and I'll burn it in the cook stove. Poplar's good for fast, hot fires, so it'll work fine for cooking breakfast on the weekends

 

I had 4 hybrid poplars that I took down 2 years ago. One was leaning toward house. I cut as many branches off that side to remove the extra weight. Made my notch cut than my straight cut. I had to pound in wedges as I was cutting straight cut. It feel where I wanted. I did lose a 6 foot apple tree. It was either that or the dog pen.

 

I've used this technique of dropping trees many times. I have 3 chains, 2 with open hooks and 1 with binding hook, all with 3/8 shackles on the other end from hook, 2- 30 ft 20k straps each with shackles, and a buttload of 1/2 in braided steel, with a pulley that is probably rated for about 80k (No joke, the thing probably weighs 85#). Wrap the tree with a strap using the shackle to make it a choker, pulley on the other end, braided steel hooked from truck through pulley to chain wrapped around another tree and tug a bit. A lot of times, I'll get the notch on the front end put in, start the back cut until I hear the tree crack or see it move, then tug the rest over with the truck.

 

I opted for the rope over the wedges because I'm working in traffic; There's a bunch of trees around where I'm working that the branches could have tangled in, so I wanted to be able to direct the fall even if that happened. Plus, with the angle of the lean...I'd have needed to do a LOT of wedging. At a guess it was probably 20 degrees of lean off of vertical to the South, and I wanted to drop it exactly opposite, to the North. The first picture is after I had already dragged it back quite a bit with the bull rope.

Braided steel would be nice from a strength perspective, but the rope is a lot easier to work with, handle, and store. It's rated for something like 20,000lbs working load but the full 100 foot length of it only weighs something like 40lbs.

 

For me, it was the price for my equipment. The chains, 3/8 shackles, hooks on chains, braided steel cable, 3/4 shackle, and giant pulley I managed to get free. Sometimes work has its benefits. The braided steel is a bit of a PITA to roll up and store sometimes, but with the abuse i put it through, still worth it to me.

 

Cost was another factor. I think I spent $70 on my rope. For 100 feet of steel cable? Forget it...
As seldom as I have to rig trees, I don't want too much $$ tied up in it.

 

Dropped a few more diseased/damaged trees this weekend. They're all ice-storm damaged from a couple of years ago. One of them had been collecting so much water that when I cut my felling notch I had to wait for a couple of minutes before I could complete the cut because it was just like a garden hose.
Managed to drop them through the gap I'd made last weekend when I cut those leaners so that they fell right on top of each other, though. Even spared my apple tree.

This was the worst of a bad lot, the hose tree.


This one had a couple of knots about halfway down it that were letting the water out, so it wasn't quite as saturated.






Apple tree spared a horrible death

 

I've always dropped trees close to structures by rigging myself into the tree and sectioning them from the top down.

 

Not an option for me; I have a fear of heights. I don't even like going up in tall buildings.

 

So we went with a Jotul F500 CF. The enamel finish and fancy handles are extra; ours will be plain black iron.

 

Are you getting the blower kit to go with it?

 

Nope. Our space is very open and we have cueing fans.

 

I would still get blower kit. I have a blower fan on mine and a ceiling fan. Gives you more options, plus the more you move that warm air....the better

 

I blow the cold air from the back rooms into the room that the fireplace is in with a simple box fan, seems to work well for me. But I agree you got a move the air around or you'll just sit there and roast.