Wood stove heat

cory said:
Brutal fire vid. What is that area like now, 3 years on?

Stig, we've all seen a zillion tree cutting vids, you should post a tree planting vid from the boondocks
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Its amazing how quickly things can grow back, they have good rainfall down that way too.
Lots of re fencing required and rebuilding.
What you cant replace quickly is the years and years of blood line breeding on their sheep, generations of work just lost, some were able to get back some of their sold off stock to start again, but its a long process, thats what you dont see when the place looks like its re generating and green again etc.
 
Well since my life is basically a dumpster fire and I'm no where close to organized, i didn't have a bunch of seasoned firewood handy. I've been getting wood from my buddies wood pile, where he's been dumping logs for years, but that pile is pretty picked thru by now. He dropped a dead locust off earlier this year, standing dead but it is still a bit green, and i took down a silver maple a few months ago, the same. So i saw a redneck firewood kiln a guy did on youtube, basically using a salamander heater to blow hot dry air into a tiny shed, thus drying the wood. The guy stacked it well for drying, and only cooked it for about 2 hours and got pretty good results. So i cobbled up a wood box using some scrap wood i had laying around to see how it worked, and grabbed a small 50k btu kerosene/diesel heater, i figured if it didn't work i could definitely use it in the garage. So i cut up a load, threw it in my horribly slopped together box, and ran it for 4 hours since i didn't stack it, i just tossed it in there til it was full.

Well it worked, better than i could have hoped for. I don't have a moisture meter (I've been using a multimeter and nails) and i haven't had a chance to split one and see how well it really did, but from what I've seen out of it the stuff is really dry. The ends are cracked open, even at the end where i left it open to exhaust from. I'll report back how dry when i find time to split one, but the stuff I've burned thus far is really good. I'll probably keep running the cobbled together setup for this year's wood, but I'll be hunting materials to make a deal that I'll lower over the ibc tote so i don't have to touch it to dry it. Hopefully next year I'll be better but if this kills the bugs that alone will be worth it, not to mention the convenience of having perfectly dry wood no matter what. The heater uses 5 gallons of diesel for 14 hours of burn time, so the 4 hours i ran cost about 7 bucks, I'll take it.
 
Yeah i was singing the osha violations song as i did it, but it worked pretty well. I would love to see how it does a full tote, that'll be the golden ticket!
 
cory said:
Good chit!! :rockhard: :popcorn:
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cory said:
Which is generally more difficult overall, mentally and physically- a good hard day of logging, or one of treework, or one of planting?

I understand many factors are in play and can vary day to day but just wondering in general, if indeed there is a generalized answer. Plus it could vary from one individual to another.
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Logging for sure.
Especially bucking big hardwoods, where you lift the saw over shoulder height a lot.
 
Is it saving you a couple bucks on your overall heating bill, not to mention the toasty BTUs you are enjoying? And forgetting about that the whole process is a labor of love, the splitting, stacking, carrying, loading, stirring coals, removing ashes etc etc. If you put a price on every little aspect of it, oil's probably cheaper. But not as fun or satisfying.
 
Surrounded by Pygmy Cypress and Bishop pine.

Though most of the pine matured and blew down years ago.

What's left is cypress. Each year a few old ones fall and it makes for easy fire wood. Never far away.

Views from around the house.
 

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Kaveman said:
Here in Arizona, we have no concept of heating oil. Just saying.

Do you guys mean kerosene, or some heavier oil derivative?
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Heating oil is basically diesel minus the taxes. If you forget to get your tank filled, you can get some cans from the gas station to get you through it(at a higher cost).
 
lxskllr said:
Heating oil is basically diesel minus the taxes. If you forget to get your tank filled, you can get some cans from the gas station to get you through it(at a higher cost).
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When I lived in MA, we had kerosene
/heating oil on an old boiler set up (radiators) that was originally coal. And a oil burning flat top stove. It was way cheaper to heat with wood in our large wood stove. Modern systems, maybe not.
Way cheaper here in CA to heat with wood vs propane, electric or kerosene.
 
cory said:
Is it saving you a couple bucks on your overall heating bill, not to mention the toasty BTUs you are enjoying? And forgetting about that the whole process is a labor of love, the splitting, stacking, carrying, loading, stirring coals, removing ashes etc etc. If you put a price on every little aspect of it, oil's probably cheaper. But not as fun or satisfying.
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All of that.

Last winter our propane and electric heat bills were 500 dollars less for a couple of months.
 
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