Do you purchase split wood?
Do you purchase bucked wood to split yourself?

Do you chase down downed timber to cut and buck and split?

Are you out their felling?
Or
Do you just
"Call the man"
And it just appears in the drive way?

I am fortunate to have plenty of standing dead and fallen trees on the property close to trails, so they're easy to get to and I cut and split the wood myself. I started off splitting by hand but around 15 years ago I bought a splitter which makes it FAR easier and faster.
Of course there's the cost of the splitter and a SxS, ATV and trailer, or tractor to move it around.....

I have a high efficiency Regency insert and it keeps a good bit of the house warm. I cut and split my own, but I’m about out of green ash borer killed white ash. WVDOT had been doing a lot of interstate cutting in the last year and there is a lot of downed hardwoods for the taking along I-81 which I’ll be taking advantage of in the coming weeks to stock up. After that, I’ll have to start chasing storm damage when I can.

quote:

Do you chase down downed timber to cut and buck and split?

40-50 years ago, yes;
since then, a slow roll towards geezer/wood tender. Given the miles on various major body parts, I gradually had to revise my wood tending.

Bought an electric impulse splitter about 5 years ago. Handles most of the splitting.

Ordering loads in smaller pieces too.

Splitting/stacking is a pleasurable activity still. I'm more limber & trim off a few #s after a few days in a bit of exercise.

This summer I had to rent a larger gas splitter to handle the 5 large locust trees that required management.

People give away fire wood all the time. I'll pick up and store it. I only use it for my fire pit.

quote:

Originally posted by SIG4EVA:
People give away fire wood all the time. I'll pick up and store it. I only use it for my fire pit.

This is what I did. Had probably a quarter of a cord stacked and drying in my garage when we moved. Left it for the new owner to use or dispose of, but it had almost a year on it out of the rain.

We already had more than we needed when the guy down the street had a massive tree felled in his front yard and cut into rounds. He spray-painted "FREE" on one of them, propped it up, and it was all gone in about two days.

If you're the thrifty type, keep an eye on Craigslist, Offerup, Nextdoor, and if you do Facebook, join the local groups. People in wooded areas post up "come and get it" fairly often.

I buy a mixed cord (cherry, apple, apricot) of limbs and rounds cut between 12 and 16 inches long to use in my smoker.

If I need to split a piece I grab my 12 pound maul.

When my mom would buy cord wood for the fireplace, and when I had a wood stove almost 30 years ago I bought rounds and split it myself... warmed me up twice.

I always come across wood so I’ve never had to buy any. Helped a friend clear his land full of alder a couple years ago we’re burning it now. I think I got seven or eight cords out of that deal.
He bought a 28 ton splitter and at the end he gave it to me, I’ve always split with a maul this splitter is pretty great!
We haven’t turned our heat on in 30 years, we use a lopi catalytic.

Fire wood is fairly cheap here so I buy it for my fire pit.

I’ve got 7 acres. Plenty of oak and some cherry. I cut and split myself. I don’t need a lot. Mostly for bbq and occasional fire pit.

We get a wood permit from the forest service.

Like 20.00 for up to 10 cords.
Mostly down trees, also have areas where live trees are marked for thinning.

Cut aprox. 8' lenghts to get it home. Then block and split.
Pinion and cedar.

Sometimes a forest ranger will check your permit but mostly it's honor system.

.

I've been burning wood as our primary heat source since 1970. For many years I cut, hauled, and split my own, but my old knees & back won't take that anymore.

Now I buy it cut & split from a guy back the road who owns a bunch of land. He only cuts for himself, his Mom & Dad, and me and charges me about me half the price of what I see it going for in the classifieds.

Even if I paid double for the wood, with the prices the way they are, it'd still be cheaper than heating with fuel oil, or propane.

We are blessed to have 20 acres, 16 of it which are mostly hardwoods so I cut and split my own firewood. If you live near national forest you can get a permit to cut downed trees from there also.
Union Co. is about 47% national forest so my options are many. We use about 60-70% wood, about 15-20% heat pump and the rest propane.

I have used wood for heat almost all my life, if I owned the house I put in a wood burning add-on or stove. The last home had a 6 plate wood stove in the kitchen and i put a add-on to the oil heat.I used to buy log length hardwood and buck it up my self; but since spent the cold months in a warmer climate I only use my outdoor wood furnace for heating the water and to take a late spring or autumn chill out. I still cut all my windfalls and pick up a lot of scrap wood.

So far, dead trees have been sufficient. We rent a large splitter and do a bunch at once.

Honestly, those heavy duty splitters tend to spoil you.

I think we do have some contrapition which hooks up to the tractor somewhere.

We have a friend that is clearing dead/dying trees to improve his view. He bucks the wood and delivers it. I simply power split and stack it, it's ready to burn for right now.

Although we have a heat pump, we heat the entire house with wood almost all season. Plus we have a southern exposure that keeps the great room toasty warm on sunny days.

As a project I cleared an overgrown cemetery of 90 some odd trees. I cut em and cut it all into 2’ sections and stacked them on the fence line. Put up a sign one day for free wood, and it was gone the next day. All of it.

When I was a teen we followed the linemen trimming power lines and they didn’t care as long as we stayed out of their way. That really sucked. Dad would send us down the hill with a cable and he would drag logs back up and we would cut and split it at home. BTW black locust is great firewood.

Once as a punishment for skipping school, dad gave me a chainsaw and had a load of logs delivered. You know like a whole log truck loaded down. I spent all weekend bucking and splitting wood.

My brother volunteers at a cemetery also.
He has taken out four trees , four years in a row.

He has no place to put it to offer it
It all goes in a ravine.

Three people wanted it but couldn't transport it

And three more wanted it but wanted him to buck, split and stack it for free !

I’m only semi-rural but still get all the free wood I can handle. Back in the day, up North, we would go out at the tail end of logging jobs, cut the leftovers. For the most part, those options are few even up North, unless you know someone.

I’ve developed contacts over the years, some from as simple as an ad in the freebie paper. I’ve done golf courses as they cut dead trees in the Winter, along roadsides, after asking the landowner.

Here’s a ‘pro tip’, the best time is late Winter, Spring, to early Summer, few others are looking. Yes, we all like Oak, maple & Hickory, but I’ll take the peripheral wood. That may include box elder, Aspen, Elm, and even some pine. I’ll mix it in with the good stuff.

The one wood I don’t take is Willow, yeah, the weeping Willow.

Don't have willow around here but curious what's wrong with it as firewood?