I kinda miss'em.
Is no one doing that any more?
Who's cutting and burning what these days ?

Too old for that playing around anymore. I am putting the lot up for sale and moving on.

I had lots of fun out there for 42 years but never built a house due to the HOA. I could write a book with all the things that happened like poaching, trespassing, fires, stealing, etc. God took care of some of them.

It took me two years to find the place and it is unique in that it is a mountain environment with Mountain Laurel, Quaking Aspen, Beech, and many kinds of oaks.

I fletched over 2000 bluebirds during that time and in the early days there were whip-poor-wills and two coveys of quail.

Tagged for related interest.

No current pics or info related to the fuel side to share at this time, but I'm really interested in the scary looking pto driven woodmanglers that chop smaller diameter trees into short pieces.

Here is a site with some pictures of masonry heaters that I find interesting.

https://www.mha-net.org/ht

ETA: what am I burning?

Everything.

Oak, ash, cherry, maple, hickory hardwoods, and softwood.

Once I make a gasification burner pine and biomass go on the menu too.
Currently wondering if an old hay baler could pack small tree trimmings from trail maintenance into bales to burn.

Here’s my saw family.
MS390, MS250, MS192TC



My last 2 outings this month

is lacroix sugar free



The beast that is fed

I just bought one of these: Manual Wood Splitter

I've been thinking of building a Rocket Mass Heater. It looks like something good to prototype as a shop heater to prove the design works as expected. Using 80% less firewood would mean a lot less labor.

"Rocket mass heaters are developed from rocket stoves, a type of wood-burning stove, and masonry heaters. A primary design of a rocket mass heater consists of an insulated combustion chamber where fuel is burned with high efficiency at high temperature, and a large thermal mass in contact with the exhaust gases which absorbs most of the generated heat before the gases are released to the atmosphere.[2] According to anecdotes a rocket mass heater might reduce fuel consumption by 80–90% compared to "conventional" stoves."

We broke down & bought a new stove this year & retired the old Dutch West we bought about 30 years ago. This one's a Hearthstone & is lined with soapstone. We had a warm spell a couple weeks ago, and I left the stove go out. Even after I cleaned out the ashes, the thing held heat for almost a whole day. It heats just as well as the old one, but is a bit more efficient as far as amount of wood it uses.



We've been heating with wood since 1970. We live in the mountains, so wood's never been a problem. There always seems to be one of our friends logging off a portion of their land, and there's always plenty of good wood laying around after they haul the big stuff off to the sawmill.

[shudders remembering wood splitting of my youth]

quote:

Originally posted by Pyker:
I just bought one of these: Manual Wood Splitter

That is nice but I want efficiency so extra handling is out. I cut the tree in the correct lengths for splitting and do it using one of the blocks as a base. I use a Fiskars 36-inch X27 splitting axe that has a wedge.

https://www.homedepot.com/p/Fi...1754-_-202681680-_-N

We're in our 47th year of using condensed sun shine to heat the house.

4 seasons ago I bought a new Fiskars hand splitter described above. While it worked better than all previous such devices, my orthopedist advised shoulders were too far along to expect to escape the consequences without exceptional misery. She was right.


3 seasons ago I wised up and bought an electric inertial splitter. Great for our use.

2 seasons ago I bought a new Sig Stihl 180-SC chain saw with a easy-start pull set up.

Last month I processed my first cord for next season. It went very well.

Ironbutt,
Is yours the truhybrid model? I know after 2020 hearthstone put catalytics in All of their stoves due to epa mandates. Just wondering what your experience is with it?

Years ago, it was easy to head out in the woods and find good dry standing buckskin larch. They were all over the place. Nowadays, it's getting harder and harder to find decent wood, even fir, that doesn't need to sit and dry for a year or so.

The past few years I've gone to burning mostly Presto logs (not Presto brand, but an outfit out of north ID that makes them). ~$300/ton, which is a full cubic pallet. I'll normally use two per year. They are fantastic. They burn hot and they burn long. I can throw three of them in my soapstone stove and still have coals enough to get more going 16-18 hours later while keeping the house in the 70s or above all winter long, day and night.

I do miss heading out for a day in the woods, working hard, and smelling that mixture of saw exhaust and sawdust, but it's not really worth the effort and aggravation anymore. My back prefers the new method as well.

Yes we will be cutting wood off our property this spring for next winter.

Silent

quote:

Originally posted by bendable:
I kinda miss'em.
Is no one doing that any more?
Who's cutting and burning what these days ?

I've been cutting and splitting some recently but I typically do most of mine in April and Fall. I usually heat with my wood stove when daytime temps are below 40. I haven't needed it for the last week but it's going tonight.

quote:

Originally posted by signewt:
We're in our 47th year of using condensed sun shine to heat the house.

This is awesome and I am using this from now on.

Been doing a little bit of splitting on and off lately. The dogs appreciate it.

quote:

Originally posted by MikeinNC:[shudders remembering wood splitting of my youth]

I was splitting some of last years larger pieces the other day and had half of it boomerang out against my shin. It's happened before but THIS time it bounced off the wound from a compound fracture 20 years ago. Next day I was stacking rocks and one rolled downhill, striking just under that and bruising. My wife commented it was time to get the woodsplitter a new motor - she was never against it before but I had dragged my feet over spending the money. Last I looked it seemed to be $250-300.

Nope, Honda GCV160 with N5 option to exactly replace the one was $160 and 20 shippping. A HF Predator motor if one can be found is cheaper but not set up for the lovejoy coupling for the hydraulic pump. This is a Troy Bilt 27t with vertical shaft - if a woodsplitter is something you want try to get consider a horizontal shaft as the works mounted on the frame are laid out better.

It's installed, fired up quickly, and works just as well as ever. One thing I had done awhile back was install tubes in the splitter tires with Slime and while both had gone down neither were physically flat. They aired right up and I moved it from behind the house to the wood pile on the hitch to get some wood thru it. It was very satisfying to work with some of the larger rounds from the 5 trees I'd cut down - impervious to any 3 pound splitter I could swing. I found out that it was a much more fibrous and difficult texture than old walnut or red oak. Turns out it was hickory. I seem to be burning gunstocks and tool handles more than anything lately. I do hand split the square chunks of walnut with a Fiskars splitting hatchet using a deadblow striking it. Works well. It's a bit tedious but it's plentiful.

I was working up some of the oddball pieces that get ignored thru the winter - we tend to bring in the "show" cordwood and leave the gnarly stuff. I had gotten a few years of that burned first up this last fall, but there was still a piece or two larger than the stove would allow to stuff in. It's all a bit easier now. Firewood burners tip: Burn Your Ugly Wood First.

Much of the four rick I'd bought this last year was coming off large trunks and split down to what was a relatively smaller size - but we finally got tired of it and I started splitting about half of that to get it to fit better. And that brings us back around to splitting by hand and having them bounce off your shins.

Now, I just worry about bending over splitting 50-60 pieces . . . It's always something.

I am over my covid issues now and am back at it. Responded to a free firewood post last weekend from a lady one town over. Turned out to be beech - excellent firewood. Here's a few photos. Some of those were sons of beech! I'll let myself out now....





The hound loves sleeping in front of a nice fire.

A day at the beach

Haven’t split wood by hand since I moved out of my parents house. Once I moved out my dad bought a splitter. He joked that he needed to replace the old one. Grrrrrr