Wood Heat Thread ~ post pics

Having the whole thing inside makes a big difference for heat transfer and retention

 

Yep. My house was growing up was built around the chimney, with it as a center point on both floors. Unfortunately, my house that I own now had the chimney added as an afterthought in the 80's, so they built it on the outside wall instead. I don't like how fast it cools off if I let the fire die out.

 

Hmmm, I wonder if that is why our prices went up around here. A guy over in the next valley usually has a mountain of wood waiting for sale, this year he has squat. We got enough for our needs this winter, not as much as I wanted though because I wanted to lay in 2 years worth. But the cost was higher than last year and we had a harder time finding it.

 

That's why my dad got such a huge delivery up there. He's been two years looking and was down to his last year's worth before hitting the emergency softwood reserves. That 12 cord should be a solid 4 years of heat assuming no crazy winter shenanigans happen

 

I split by hand as well and do enjoy the alone time in my wood yard. However, with work related sciatica issues, putting full power blows into a stubborn log can lead to an evening nursing a beer and a few ibuprofen.

 

I always hand split but around here it's mostly softwoods and some madrone which can be a bitch

 

I hand split some red oak last year, including a couple of ~36 inch rounds from the base of a tree the neighbors cut down. That is some nasty stuff; wedges (yep more than one) and sledge the whole way, with an axe to cut the final strands that just would not let go.

 

Have you tried the spiral wedges ? They work pretty good in most wood

 

Have you seen these OZ? Was in a forestry equipment catalog.

http://www.praziusa.com/beamcutter....suMvn54yeFbLr9uvM_Cj4O1QHafgjijIfgaAjVA8P8HAQ

 

Yeah , I've seen those before

 

Wow! Very nice. The initial price seems high but then a few moments of thought at the effort, time and equipment to get that amount of nice wood it seems like a deal. Awesome!!

 

Nope, never heard of them until now in fact. It might have helped with the initial split in those oak pieces but the real challenge was that it was 'stringy' and just did not want to let go.

 

Just saw this tread, brought back memories. When i was a kid we lived in New Hampshire in a house built in the late 1800's. No central heat just three fireplaces. The main was the kitchen that was also a flat top that you cooked in and had oven section. (thing was a monster). That was a main summer job collect fire wood. We all live right near the beach at NC (10 minutes) my pops lives abot 5 minutes from me and is in his lower 70's and still refuses to use his heat. He still cuts and chops wood every year. Big plus is I know some guys that work a tree service and when ever there near his way they drop wood off to him.

 

My dad is a cheap old man to, when he works in his yard and 1/4" bigger brush he has he throws in a pile, he then breaks it into about 12" sections then makes about a 8" diameter handful then wraps it in newspaper then ties it for bailing twine. He uses those to throw on his coals in the morning to get fire up and going

 

Nothing wrong with that. I do the same thing with bundles of twigs from limbing trees. Grab a branch, break/fold/twist it into a bundle about 8 inches long and 3-4 inches across and tie it off with the small end of the branch. I usually have my GF do up about 30 of them while I'm cutting, and we toss them on top of the woodpile to dry. Makes great kindling once they dry out; touch one with a match and up it goes!


Had to do some stove surgery yesterday. The cookstove has a firebox door and an ash door, and the lips on the latch pieces on both of them had worn down from years of use, to the point that neither door was shutting reliably. When we had our first fire of the season in it this past weekend the firebox door kept popping open. And replacement doors are damned expensive. So I tried my hand at welding cast iron, instead.
Pretty good-sized groove.


I used the wire wheel on my bench grinder to clean it up, then clamped it in my bench vise and heated the crap out of it with a propane torch. Then I started tacking weld beads into the cavity to build it up, heating it with the torch between welds.


Once I got it built up enough I took an angle grinder to the beads I'd tacked on and ground it down flush with the factory bevels.


I put some stoveblack on it and reinstalled it on the stove, and it works good as new. I gave the ash door the same treatment and now they both fit securely, close correctly (and stay there) and it cost me a hell of a lot less than buying new doors.


Actually, we're sitting in front of it as I type this. I cooked cinnamon buns in it this morning for breakfast.

 

Blech. Hated splitting that stringy crap by hand.

 

Yeah , the spiral wedges are great but I hear you on stringy wood

 

My softwood and hardwood stacks have finally met in the middle. Time to acquire some more pallets and create a privacy fencing stack on the other side.

 

Strange to me to see so little vegetation.
Nice looking stack, though.
How cold does it get there?

 

That stack isn't very high. Criss-cross some pieces on each end and you can go twice as high. We go up to 6 feet that way, never had one come down in 20 years.