Wood Heat Thread ~ post pics

I had some knotty maple that was tough to get through.. but thats what the gas splitter is for

 

Nice wood pile 5 Maps

My thoughts are starting to turn toward filling my woodshed by the house but I don't want to admit we're getting near the end of summer

 

Yea, its pretty depressing. Im hoping the bugs will be dying off soon though, so I can get back to splitting some more wood.

 

Bah. It's been so wet here that nothing's drying. I dropped a big maple tree nearly a month ago and the leaves are still green on the stupid thing. Granted, it's next year's firewood, but usually in July and August the leaves are brown and falling off after less than 2 weeks.

 

I have excessive amounts of pine out here, and I had a bunch stacked. While I was out of a week and a half ago, one corner fell taking half the row down with it.

How is birch for firewood?

 

Yellow birch seems like it throws more heat than white birch.

Regardless of which birch, though, you've got to get it cut and split or it'll never dry.


But it's a moot point, because in a minute Oz will stop in and tell you to burn Madrone

 

Oz can say what he wants, but unless he delivers a load of madrone to me, I'm not going to burn it. Eastern Washington has pine, pine, and pine with an occasional birch here and there, but that is only where the pine isn't already covering everything.

 

Madrone is best

 

Pellets make plenty of heat

 

I don't believe you. To prove it, bring a cord or 2 of split, seasoned madrone to my house and I can compare it for myself.

If you want to buy me a pellet stove and pallet of pellets, I am willing to try.

 

I'm noticing a trend of skepticism with other people's funds here...



In that case, I hear that pine and birch are the bestest firewoods out there!

Although personally, I only use birch in the wood cookstove, and pine is limited to kindling wood. But they sure do work good for that!

 

Exactly, I should have made my conclusion more explicit. Although I do think an 8lb maul will do everything a fiskars will, just with a lot more work. So, in my opinion, if you want just one hand splitting tool go with a maul unless you can/want to be picky with the wood you take.

 

Haha, I recently ended my two year streak of splitting everything by hand or with the help of a saw and wedges for the really knotty stuff. I took down a large (~30"DBH) hackberry. Hackberry is so damn soft and stringy that the work I would have had to put into it to split the admittedly marginal wood by hand that it was just not worth it so I broke down and used hydraulics.

As an aside, has anyone else burned Hackberry? If so have you had problems with wood boring grubs in your stacked wood? Any reasonable solutions?

 

Kill them with fire.

I've had pine borers in my pine logs that I keep under cover to split up for kindling. Never really bothered me; any of them that I find when I split the logs up just get tossed to the chickens.

 

For me, I run mostly my double bit axe. When that isn't cutting through, I have a 6 lb splitting axe on fiberglass handle. If it still isn't splitting, I will likely pull out wedges after that with 10 lb sledge, and hidden in the garage somewhere is my nice little 8 lb maul. It takes so much more to swing the maul, and the leading edge is rather blunt, that to me, it isn't worth it unless a piece is cracked, but just won't split all the way through.

I have a wedge like this and it works better for me than the flat wedges. I have a flat wedge too.

 

The jury is still out on whether you can post in this thread or not Mr Pellet

 

Hells no , damn stuff is like gold

and also the best firewood in like ever

 

Oz, what material are those pellets made from?

 

I think there are different species of wood used , it's basically just using up wood waste

 

So the material is still wood then? This thread is the Wood Heat thread. He would therefore be allowed in here, even if he is too much of a pussy to be able to get real firewood.