No such thing as too much firewood

[esshup]

Yep. More next year split/stacked and COVERED. Same here, thought uncovered would be O.K. Nope!!!

 

[Greg Perryman]

I have more than enough for this season, and a good start for next year. I'm currently working on finishing up for net years supply.

 

[pennsywoodburnr]

I'll keep on doing what I do, so far it's been working fine. I've got friends that have property that don't burn, but need the blowover wood removed. I've got a couple tree jobs lined up too when spring finally gets here. Plus the occasional roadside scrounge. Plus the oddball tree removed off of my own property that's growing weird/dying/or too close to the house.

 

[Poindexter]

I am planning to go all-out full-retard this year. I don't think I have enough space to season and shed enough wood to be burning two year old wood out of a shed indefinitely. By the time I build that much shed I won't have enough lawn left to season on... burning 4-5 cords annually in suburbia.

OTOH wood is a no brainer for me. I am paying about 25 cents per kilowatt hour for electricity. At $3.86/ gallon for #2 heating oil, I am paying about 10 cents per kilowatt hour for oil. At $200 per cord at 20 million BTUs wood is costing me about 4 cents per kilowatt hour. My wife and I looked at it as BTUs, but buying electricity as BTUs didn't make any sense since we don't heat with electricity. Our numbers are very clean as kilowatt hours.

If I buy standing timber from the state ($10 per cord) and drive the twenty two miles one way to get it, and fell it and buck it and so on I am paying somewhere between $50-$75 per cord to get rounds on my lot, by the time I pay fuel and saw maintenance and donate my time for free.

I am likely to have "five cords" delivered as green logs here pretty quick before mud season starts. It'll cost me $875, or $175 per cord; but I should be able to get it bucked, split and stacked before seasoning season starts on May 15. Everything I have c/s/s and covered before May 15 should be ready to burn on July 4. Starts raining here on August first.

By Sept 2014 I would like to have one cold hard winter worth of seasoned wood in sheds, one cold hard winter worth of wood split and stacked on my seasoning racks, and enough wood for a third winter as rounds on the property over in the shady part of the yard near the wood splitter.

One of these years I'll have dry enough wood on the seasoning racks to burn that and let my wood shed age another year...

 

[mainewoods]

For $10 a cord, off state land, I would rent a trailer and haul just as much wood as possible on each trip. Trailers are probably cheap to rent, even in Alaska. The more you can haul each trip, the less trips you need to make.

 

[Ash_403]

I'll do nothing different, and just refill my empty wood racks like the years before. I do scrounge though, and also get a tree service to dump nearby removals. But not in any large quantities. (I only keep about 8 to 9 cords of firewood at a time.)

 

[cheeves]

With all the snow that has fallen, I foresee a nasty mud season in the making. I am cutting and hauling logs out now, while the ground is frozen. At least to a spot where mud will be less of a problem. Good chance a lot of valuable time will be lost once all of this snow starts to melt. Now is a good time to plan for that possibility.

Yah there will definately be a mud problem this year!! Not bad here cuz of the sandy soil, some places though. Went thru it every spring and fall though out in the hills of SE Ohio. Some years was Bad!!

 

[mainewoods]

Having more wood than you THINK you will need, is a pretty good guarantee you won't run out. After a winter like this, which few saw coming, I wager there are a lot of guy's that are going to do things differently. Whether it is being more aggressive looking for scrounged wood or just building up your supply by cutting more than you normally would. There is almost no worse feeling than seeing below zero weather, deep snow and knowing you aren't going to have enough wood to make it, and it's only January!

 

[tbow388]

I am running low. I had too many projects going on this year and got behind. Didn't even cut enough to sell. It has also been a lot colder winter and I have burned a lot more than last year.

I just plan on cutting more this year. I have access to more this year so more I will get so I don't have to worry.

 

[740jsmayle]

Yah there will definately be a mud problem this year!! Not bad here cuz of the sandy soil, some places though. Went thru it every spring and fall though out in the hills of SE Ohio. Some years was Bad!!

Where in these hills were you ?

 

[Fred Wright]

Not much. We typically stay 2 to 3 years ahead, processing more than we'll need anyway.

One thing that is gonna change - aquiring logs or rounds. This is the last year of cutting in the woodlot. There are still plenty of trees out there but we don't want to cut them all. The original idea was to thin out... take leaners, maples infested with carpenter ants and junk trees. That's all gone now.

Will be looking to see if local tree companies will drop off stuff they don't want. If that doesn't pan out we'll have to purchase loads of logs.

 

[mainewoods]

One thing I did different was to get something to haul wood out with that was more efficient. My $600 Dodge Ram "skiddah" sure speeds up the process. I haul out logs or tree length, depending on size, right to my landing, which is close to the house. I can buck, split and stack all in one place, at my leisure. No need to make mid winter trips into the woods. Logs on the landing at all times, means never running out of firewood. Even if we have a snowy winter, I can get to the logs easily at any time. I keep the landing plowed and accessible all winter. To me it makes it easier to process firewood when the logs are all in one place, and can be cut and split, either when you get the time or when you feel like working on the woodpile. The yard plow cost me $800, and is also good for moving logs around on the landing. I can roll them on top of each other with just the plow blade, 2 or 3 high. Surprising how much that plow blade will move if you don't get overly aggressive.

 

[Chris-PA]

I'll be cutting up the old empty oil tank that sits by the lower porch where I stack wood. That will free up a small sorta level area near the stove, and I hope to put a small roof over it, which will increase the covered wood storage area. Other than that I will try once again to get the wood out of my fields and the edges of the woods that came down in the last couple of year's storms. It is a huge challenge for me with the spring mud, and of course it is all overgrown with stiltgrass from last year. It all depends on if things dry out enough to burn off the stiltgrass and move and process the wood. I have plenty of other stuff to process in other parts of the woods too, and will be trying to get ahead.

 

[mainewoods]

There just seems to be a little less "panic" when you have as much wood as possible as close to the house as you can get it. Knowing you only need to go out the door, and go a relatively short distance to reach that wood pile, gives you a pretty secure feeling, rather than one of urgency. Getting your wood supply when the weather is nice and having it as easily accessible as possible, sure beats a mad scramble in the dead of winter. At least to me it does. But I am not 30 anymore either, and the thrill of a challenge ain't what it used to be.

 

[Chris-PA]

There just seems to be a little less "panic" when you have as much wood as possible as close to the house as you can get it. Knowing you only need to go out the door, and go a relatively short distance to reach that wood pile, gives you a pretty secure feeling, rather than one of urgency. Getting your wood supply when the weather is nice and having it as easily accessible as possible, sure beats a mad scramble in the dead of winter. At least to me it does. But I am not 30 anymore either, and the thrill of a challenge ain't what it used to be.

Yeah, it's still work. Still, having to transport it would add significantly to the work, time and cost, including having to obtain, fuel and maintain more equipment.

 

[muddstopper]

I grew up with wood heat. When I moved into my current home, there was a flue in the basment, but no stove. For several years we just relied on the old heat pump. One day while i was at work, my wife called and said,"Guess what I just bought". Yep a wood stove. This was in Oct so of course i didnt have any wood on hand. I scrounged enough to get by that winter. Saved about $200 a month on the old elect bill and swore i would be ready for the next winter. I scrounged all year and had a pretty good stack of wood, but barely made it thru the winter. The next year, I bought a log truck load of logs, sawed them up, rented a splitter and that winter I actually had a little wood left over. Fast forward to now. With having a little wood left over each year, I started this winter with a full wood shed, going to be close as to whether I actually have enough to finish thru the winter. I have a hugh pile of rounds, close to enough to refill the wood shed, waiting to be split, this wood has been ready to split since last spring. I just ordered another truck load of logs. I am looking at getting a wood furnace, not a OWB, to replace the old wood stove. The new furnace should be much more efficient that what I am using now so maybe i will need less wood each winter. I am building a processor to make working up the wood a little less work and a little faster. As to how much wood on hand is enough, havent a clue, but I will continue to take every stick I can find and store it until needed.

 

[palbin]

I have more than 50 cords stored and 10 or so more incoming
within short - does give a certain feeling of security in this unsafe
world ... . If nothing else I will be able to keep warm ... .

 

[Ronaldo]

I have more than 50 cords stored and 10 or so more incoming
within short - does give a certain feeling of security in this unsafe
world ... . If nothing else I will be able to keep warm ... .

50 cords? That is a lot of wood and a good feeling. I agree that it gives a feeling of security.

 

[mainewoods]

From the sounds of all the difficulties many seem to have had getting to their wood, making at least some of the stacks more easily accessible would be something a lot of you might do differently this year.

 

[sam-tip]

First year I had my OWB I ran low during a mild winter. Scared me. Since then I have been going crazy on the wood stacks. At 15 cord a year I am now 5 years ahead. I have the OWB burning better and a my wood splitting simplified. Now my worry is finding good free wood on Craigslist will be more difficult. More competition. I must be doing something right because I now get phone calls to come pickup wood.

I didn't sell firewood until two weeks ago. Seems most people are running low and getting worried. I went by a large local tree company yesterday and their mountains of split wood are now just small piles. Its been a long winter!