Home despot trip

[zogger]

Had to go to home depot today for a few things. First, absolutely completely floored by screw prices! I stocked up on hardware like ten years ago when I was flush, bought five lbs of this or that nails, screws, etc. I remember what I paid. ONE lb drywall screws today, six bucks! This is three times what I remember paying...when did this happen? It is like I am rip van winkle with this! Then I looked at like lumber prices and other stuff I haven't been paying attention to and WHAT HAPPENED?? Sort of freaky to me...

Anyway, got some mix oil (going back to echo synblend after trying the husky stuff again...) and some bagged dirt for the old lady (why she insists on me buying bagged dirt when we LIVE ON A FARM with dirt all over....oh ya, peace in the family, she wants designer dirt for her greenhouse potting projects. I'll just shut up, she is harvesting like melons and tomatoes and broccoli and whatnot along with her flowers. Cheap grocery store for me....we'll still be getting good summer veggies until almost Christmas no doubt...

OK, getting to the *firewood related*. see,,it fits now.. Home depot is now selling firewood! Not sure how much they will sell at 300 a cord! They have wood wrapped in wire mesh on a pallet, 1/4 cord for like 80 bucks, or half a cord for 150. Well, I guessed on that but sure looked like it, a square pallet with an equal sized cube of wood on top, 4x4x4. They had bagged bundles (didn't check price, just went ..meh..) and fatwood like I was talking about in another thread, 4 lbs for six bucks in a plastic bag, all official commercial pretty wrapped and uniform looking. I mean dang, takes me around 30 seconds to kick a stump and pull out a big chunk of fatwood..I guess the money they want is for slicing/splitting it thin and putting into the fancy bag. I hit mine a few times with the axe and toss it in or near the kindling area....

The firewood itself on the pallets looked decent though, looked to be red oak and didn't appear to be green, it was a good job packing it on the pallets. Just seemed mighty high in price......

Anyone else seeing this? I wonder if it is nationwide or just a local option.

 

[wdchuck]

The benefits to weed free or nearly so bagged soil while growing plantings in a greenhouse are great so you do reap the benefits.

If HD is selling wood that way in your area it's likely to be a chain-wide situation but with falling LP and gas prices, it will become a niche market issue.
$300/cord is high in some areas and low in others, it balances out for them.

The great prices we've seen in scrap steel are coming back to you in the form of finished goods. yingyang

 

[Chris-PA]

OK, I'm not too proud to admit my ignorance - what exactly is fatwood, and what stumps to you kick to get it?

BTW, the one I like is those bundles of kiln dried firewood they sell. How much energy do you think goes into drying that stuff? What a waste of fuel.

 

[wdchuck]

Fatwood is usually the inner wood of a stump or even below grade material from pnw pines/firs. It will light with a wooden match or lighter most of the time and then burns smoky but hot for a quite a long time relative to its size and makes for a great natural firestarter.

Pnw because of the large diameter of their connifers.

 

[rwoods]

OK, I'm not too proud to admit my ignorance - what exactly is fatwood, and what stumps to you kick to get it?

BTW, the one I like is those bundles of kiln dried firewood they sell. How much energy do you think goes into drying that stuff? What a waste of fuel.

Fatwood (or "lightern" where I was raised - Florida) is a pitchy old growth pine. Hard as a rock and doesn't rot quickly. You can light it with a match and it'll burn hot and fast while pouring out black smoke. Handy to have but very pricey. I still have a small 16" log my dad cut. It is now only about 6" in diameter from an original 9" or 10" but I have been using it for years. A pickup truck load would buy a chainsaw or two. Here's what Orvis gets for it: Fatwood Fire Starter / Orvis Fatwood -- Orvis Ron

 

[Wife'nHubby]

ONE lb drywall screws today, six bucks! This is three times what I remember paying...when did this happen? It is like I am rip van winkle with this!

Head on over to a farm supply business - we built a project this summer and needed lots of hardware - lots cheaper at the farm store vs the box stores.

Shari

 

[zogger]

Pine

OK, I'm not too proud to admit my ignorance - what exactly is fatwood, and what stumps to you kick to get it?

BTW, the one I like is those bundles of kiln dried firewood they sell. How much energy do you think goes into drying that stuff? What a waste of fuel.

Fatwood (or fatlighter, I always knew it as fatlighter but I guess fatwood is a more common name) is the resin rich dense heartwood down at the stump level or below ground in the main root of a pine tree (or from a wound area on the tree, see link). Where that wonderful smell comes from. Petrified pine sap with some wood fibers mixed in.

The stuff I get is from around 40 year old stumps, last time this place was logged. The heartwood part just lasts and lasts and lasts. The outside wood eventually rots. You kick an old stump to knock off the remaining normal wood, what is left and is hard and shiny is fatwood. Burns like you soaked a dry piece of something in diesel. Fresh cut just split around and around some nice juicy pine until you get to that really dense heartwood, then split it fine as you can. It'll work pretty good. Light up your life, heh. You don't need much at all, and it is an outdoorsman trick for getting fires started even if you got wet wood like out camping or whatever.

I had some comments and a few pics of it, what it looks like and burning , someplace around here..meh..here is a wiki link for you

Fatwood - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[Chris-PA]

My wife bought a bag of it one year - it worked well but I never knew what it was. Not a lot of pines of any kind around here, but I'll have to look.

 

[zogger]

That is why I don't like to sell scrap

The benefits to weed free or nearly so bagged soil while growing plantings in a greenhouse are great so you do reap the benefits.

If HD is selling wood that way in your area it's likely to be a chain-wide situation but with falling LP and gas prices, it will become a niche market issue.
$300/cord is high in some areas and low in others, it balances out for them.

The great prices we've seen in scrap steel are coming back to you in the form of finished goods. yingyang

I took one load of mangled aluminum roofing, then another smaller load of tornado mangled steel roofing and a handful of old batteries I had to the scrapper..but no more. I know once china stops accepting fednotes for their manufactured stuff at near giveaway prices that domestic manufacturing will pick back up again..I'll sell my scrap then. I can wait. We are doing just as bad as the fat wall street goons shipping jobs off as we are as joe blow little guys selling our scrap cheap to china, there ain't no difference in my mind now since I thought about it a lot. I can't be a hypocrite about it. Not much difference at all. I felt so bad after that second load, that I just went "I don't need this money that bad and I won't be part of it"

Buying manufactured goods, dang, near impossible to avoid imports now, so I had to give up on that, but I do my best to not encourage it more than what it is. No more new saws, anything good is imported, so I am switching to old US made saws, and that's it.

Got no choice on computer gear or cellphones or electronics in general. Buy imports or do without, and I got to have the internets....got one old import truck and one domestic. If the domestic guys would make an affordable four cylinder small basic diesel truck..well..they DON'T, they are all infested with bigger is better mindset with a million do dads included you don't need in a ride so stuck there as well, had to buy an older japanese truck to have an affordable ride, got one chevy bigger truck I am working on now. So that's a compromise.

Plus, scrapping is turning the nation into targets of opportunity and mass thievery. Every house business building you name it is now a big fat juicy target for the scrapping hordes. I get them come by weekly, sometimes twice a week , they pull up "hey, got any old scrap ya want to get rid of"? as they case the place. It is freeking creepy! There's hundreds/thousands/millions of them! Not saying every scrapper is a thief, but dang, stuff is walking off left and right all over the nation that is still good, and it is all going on ships going overseas and just making us poorer and them boys over there richer. Eating the seed corn we are.

My boss has lost serious five figures of stuff in the past two years from opportunistic scrappers. I mean, *good stuff*, not scrap, still functional good stuff taken as scrap, they literally yank outdoor AC units and heat pumps out of the ground with chains. Take long heavy still good I beams. Pulled expensive forklift forks off. Still functional large electric motors, for the copper value, which is bupkis from what they really cost.

And it is all over the nation! Beyond an epidemic. You can read about it everyday, from stealing manhole covers to gutters off of houses to stripping wiring out just about anyplace you care to name, just anything at all made from metal. It is disappearing in front of our collective faces. We are literally stripping what is left of our accumulated manufactured wealth, from past generations, and shipping it overseas for a penny on the yuan, chump change, and we are the chumps.


We won ww2 with nationwide scrap drives and by actually manufacturing what we needed..not possible today, we slap couldn't do it, it is mostly gone and pretty soon all that will be left to scrap is still functional stuff, and that will disappear as well. Just watch, it will happen.

And the scrapyards quick hide the identifiable stuff, the stolen stuff, it gets gone, shredded, and fast. Everyone knows it, and it still goes on.

So, I ain't scrapping anymore since my two small forays. I am stashing my scrap, that's it. I'll sit on it as long as it takes.

Now that is just me, I am not passing judgment on anyone, just how I look at it and why.. Just *me*, to be clear. I tend to take the real long view on things and want to do what I can for the next generations, as little as that might be. Something. Civic duty, practicality, protecting my tribe, call it whatever, but I ain't selling out, as much as is possible. Some I am forced into, others I can opt out. Won't work for some globalist don't care about human beings corp. or *any* government, they are all corrupt, pretty obvious, corrupt and killing the economy bad by wasting money left and right and engaging in wars for profit, won't buy their stupid "bonds" to put my neighbor in debt to make interest payments, or the still unborn little babies who are inheriting this so called debt they had nothing to do with, let alone young folks just hitting the jobs market and seeing about nothing, and stuff like that.

And I ain't scrapping anymore. I did a little here, and a lot in the past (all legit, I ain't a thief) but I never really sat down and *thought* about the long term ramifications of it until this summer. Got whizzed off about it.

my apologies in advance, rambled again.... oh ya, screws, manufactured items coming back after we scrap our steel over yonder. I'll check tomorrow see where they come from. I didn't look, I should have.

Dirt in the bag, ya, well composted that works, no weeds. I still think she should use our dirt and manure and woodchip stuff and make her own composted dirt, but I ain't arguing over that with her.

 

[wdchuck]

Zogger,

The only way to compare the bagged dirt to your homestead dirt is to have them both soil tested. BUT. Your wife is probably basing her requests on the plants and if they grow better in the bagged stuff, then you need to amend your home soil to catch up. Hey, I have two vegetable gardens that take 2/3 of an acre and weeding sucks big time man. I've talked to greenhouse owners and they all buy 50# bags of no-weed-seed soil material for their seedlings. You might be able to catch a price break if you buy some from a local seedling wholesaler. Just a thought.

Old saws were the upgrade from previous models, so going backwards will only give you more nerve troubles in the future. The new models with improved vibration dampening to the operator are a wonderful advancement, just ask an old sawyer which way he would go, more arthritis or less?. The new saws use less gas/oil so its less expensive to operate, therefore less expensive to own over time. It's a good thing. Sure, parts may cost more at the counter, but it's the increased efficiency you gain over 10 or 20 years that saves you a bunch of dollars. It's a hard thing, change, but we have to roll with the punches sometimes and pick our battles to win the war or at least have a hand in where it goes.

It's noble for sure, but there are other ways to steer the future.

 

[Steve2910]

Just saw some today @ my local HD... Says it's Yellow Birch. $8.96 for .75 CU. FT. Comes from Estonia. If I did the math right, it works out to $1638.40/ cord.

 

[wdchuck]

Just saw some today @ my local HD... Says it's Yellow Birch. $8.96 for .75 CU. FT. Comes from Estonia. If I did the math right, it works out to $1638.40/ cord.

Imagine what gasoline would cost you if you bought 10,000 gallons at a time.


Perspective.

 

[hamish]

Buying manufactured goods, dang, near impossible to avoid imports now, so I had to give up on that, but I do my best to not encourage it more than what it is. No more new saws, anything good is imported, so I am switching to old US made saws, and that's it.

and it is all going on ships going overseas and just making us poorer and them boys over there richer. Eating the seed corn we are.

We are literally stripping what is left of our accumulated manufactured wealth, from past generations, and shipping it overseas for a penny on the yuan, chump change, and we are the chumps.


We won ww2 with nationwide scrap drives and by actually manufacturing what we needed..not possible today, we slap couldn't do it, it is mostly gone and pretty soon all that will be left to scrap is still functional stuff, and that will disappear as well. Just watch, it will happen.

Yeah great idea.who in the US makes saws still? sorry Stihl has an assembly plant, nothing is manufactured in the US.

Times are a changing, its now time for other countries to become the economic powers of the globe, the north american quest for lower priced goods has created this, we have sold ourselves out and there ain't no comming back in my generation.

You didn't win WW2 with nationwide scrap drives and such, you showed up late to the party and until you decided which side to go for, sold products to both sides and greatly increased the US industrial capacity, yet as history has always shown, times they do change.

It is all our fault, but IHO, its China, India what ever countries turn..........it will help us get back on track with reality.

The only crap/garbage goods made in China are those requested by western companies, China has an industrial complex and high tech sector beyond belief, the stuff we see is the junk for the most part our suppliers/manufacturers! and dealers are asking for.

my .17 cents for the day.

 

[Steve2910]

Imagine what gasoline would cost you if you bought 10,000 gallons at a time.


Perspective.

Based on what I've heard from gas station owners (if you can believe them), it's pennies per gallon.

 

[Chris-PA]

Salvage

Zogger - Scrap and salvage is the way of the future, not to ship to China but for use here. As the cost of fossil fuel goes up and the availability goes down, global trade and outsourcing will go away. That's because the costs of both the goods and the transportation will go up, and the number of people who can afford to buy will go down. Also international conflicts will heat up. Not that it will be replaced by manufacturing here, it just won't be replaced at all. Those who can maintain, repair, re-purpose, re-manufacture will be a step ahead. Aluminum and iron are plentiful materials, it's just the cost of energy to make them that is high, and it's never going to be cheap again - but it takes a lot less energy to recycle it than it does to make it from ore. This is one reason why I can't stand to see people throw things away that can be fixed. Once upon a time people would burn down an old shed just to recover the nails - they understood the energy required (and therefore the cost) to make them. I often straighten bent nails now. In an age of fossil fuel energy that seems pretty silly, but at some point in the future it won't.

 

[mtfallsmikey]

Welcome to 2012, zogger!

In all seriousness tho, I've been a Hardware Hoarder for many years, save all nuts/bolts/screws that I can, but when you need a few lbs. of deck screws it's kinda hard to avoid going to The Box. You should go to some auctions, everyone else is overbuidding for OPE, and other tools, sometimes hardware goes cheep.