Wood Heat Thread ~ post pics

Not sure what forest you’re cutting in but you definitely need a permit. They’re really cheap and on some forests can be purchased online. I think it’s less than $10/cord here in the central Sierras. Cheaper than a ticket from the Feds IMO.

 

will do Gramps

 

$5 per cord, minimum 4 cords per permit. That's $20 per bed-load, because we don't have a trailer. No thanks. I've never seen a tree cop on the roads we gather from. They stick to the regularly-graded county roads with their Ford Rangers. I think the only times I've seen them in the area at all is when folks are killing young, live trees to celebrate santa. $5-$20 permits for that nonsense, depending on the location. We lost 90% of our forests' trees to beetle kill just a few years ago, and they're still selling those permits (for the cost of a coffee).

Interesting: there's an exception to the permit requirement for wood "gathered casually while visiting the forests...." I'm straddling a line, it seems.

 

Jeez $5/cord is cheap. FS typically give out 1/4 cord tags so not sure your math works out.

Regardless I want other people reading this thread to know cutting wood on Forest Service land requires permits. And usually when you get the permits the FS will also let you know what you can and cannot cut down/cut up/take home.

 

fun fact ~ logging companies still cut beetle kill trees

 

Got that rack (right end of pic) full now. With what I have here and some more behind my Dads garage next door, I am set for garage heat this coming Winter.

I am in Indiana, and I usually burn wood about 4 days a week in my 40 x 50 garage. My garage has moderate insulation and I try to keep the floor temp at or above 45F. If I can manage that, air temp usually stays above 32F. Keeps anything water based (like my CNC plasma table water tray) from freezing.

 

Im getting closer… should be done tomorrow’ish.. hopefully. Wanna still try’n sneak in one “Glamping” trip before the WX changes for good.

 

Finally…There’s a little chill in the air

 

Well I think the investment in new attic insulation is paying for itself. It’s currently in the low 50’s here and raining. A little kindling and two chunks of cedar put in a couple of hours ago has brought the house up to 70 and holding. Perfect timing as a thunderstorm is now rolling through.

 

Lighting that first fire of the heating season is always fun and looked torward to. Fast forward to April -maybe May and one (me) is really ready to stop kindling the fires. I actually have gotten somewhat lazy in the spring months , and this resulted in me having a higher Nat. gas bill in April vs Jan or Feb. Reason: I have a nat gas furnace in my home besides the wood heat.

 

We used to live near Yosemite in an A frame on 5 acres. Wood heat was our only heat source. We burned 5 cords a year minimum. Winter was brutal and always a drudgery to get up out from under the 15 comforters to stoke the fire. We also have an alternative heat source. It’s nice to know that I don’t have to work 24/7 in order to maintain a livable/baseline temperature. But also nice to know that I can get a return on our investment by utilizing our wood stove and lowering the power bill.

 

I have oil heat and had a mildish winter last year and was at about $1,200 of use over 4 1/2 months. I supplement that with my stove and burn almost 2 chords a season. I have a log home and those costs and burning would be less if it weren't for the 80 year old single pane windows. lol

 

I feel you guys in the western states are at a bit of a disadvantage. Reason being is that alot of the wood burned for heat out west seems to be the on the lighter side - coniferous wood. I may be wrong here but here in the midwest and also in the eastern states we have mostly hardwoods availabe to us. Oak, hickory, walnut, locust, ash, elm and others. Years ago I visited my nephew who lived in Truckee, in a rental heated only with wood. The wood they were using felt like "balsa" wood. Those fires dd not last very long and we were always putting more wood in to keep warm. Only place I ever stayed where there was ice in the kitchen sink when waking up in the morning. The great thing was the Skiig in the Tahoe area - we can't do that in Missouri!

 

A lot of oak in the Sierra foothills and the coastal hills. I also got a load of almond last year which was the first time I ever paid for wood but it certainly burns nice. Hardly any ash compared to the oak I’m used to burning.

Probably a lot of other hard woods but oak (live, blue, black, valley, etc) grows well at the elevation I live at.

 

I suspect that the renter gave you the wood?
Fresno foothills, northeast, are loaded with oak trees. I saw them in April

 

Mike Drop . i mean ChainSaw Drop. Jus now done.

 

When living near Yosemite we always had a combination of hard and soft woods. 2/3 of what we burned was oak. The rest was divided up between Tamarack (Larch), Douglas Fir, Cedar, or Alder. Coastal California we had a mix of Cedar, Alder, and Madrona for our hardwood. Here in Seattle we have Maple for our hardwood mixed with Cedar, Fir (both Douglas and Hem Fir), and Alder. These are readily available. We can get Madrona occasionally. If I wanted to drive over the pass I can get Apple and Cherry by the cord but it’s expensive. Some folks burn cottonwood. Though I’m not sure why as there is very little heat value in it.

 

I've been eyeing up the woodstove the past few days, I can't bring myself to kick it to life quiet yet but the heat pump has been running more then I care to hear it, so it won't be long. This week looks to be on an upswing of temps, then it will get cold. I need to weld a crack on the flue connector where the damper is. Thankfully this old Russo is a sheet metal stove, the MIG can make quick work of the repair. I got 4 cords on hand and hopefully one more on the way. I couldn't find any ash wood this year, I like the heat that comes out of it more so then the red oak.

 

Beatle Kill spruce here & needs to go up road 60ish miles away. Took a lil load up country to friend last night.

 

Northern Colorado here, so, yeah, conifers is about it. Sometimes get some aspen. Very jealous of the hardwoods available out east. We also have to have our flue cleaned twice per season. Not many adventurous souls willing to book that job in the middle of winter....

Speaking of which, has anyone noticed that chimney sweeps tend to be "interesting" characters? Little bit left of the dial.... Also, the weirder the sweep, the better they are at their job. Great metric, imo. If you start catching hints of conspiracy theories in their conversation, that's your man right there.