Scrounging Firewood (and other stuff)

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I like your style Cowboy. How much wood do you go through a year and how cold does it get there?

I'm still working that out (the first bit) the last few winters have all been a bit different. We've just completed our third winter in our new house, a 3 storey Lindal designed house that was fully imported from the USA by a local high flying stockmarket trader who then ran into strife sometime around October 1987. Apparently something bad happened to the stockmarket. He went broke just before the place was finished. We bought it from the lady that bought it at the mortgage auction but that lady and her husband didn't want to spend any money on what became their holiday house. Didn't worry about little things like insulation in finishing up the joint. I believe that insulation helps to lower your heating costs. Etcetera.

Anyway. Roughly speaking, we're going through about 15 cubes, or 4 cords plus or minus. Our heater is a Norseman GLX which is meant to heat 35 squares and puts out about 10KW IIRC. It's a big unit for an indoor wood heater over here. We also have gas hydronic heating which I plan to convert to wood soon. Typical winter top temps are about 7 deg C and overnight temps down to -2 deg C on a clear night. Not super cold but cooler than you'd like. The thing that really kills us is the design and insulation of houses here, it really is rubbish. We're in the process of renovating and updating the place which will make a difference.

Our old place which was much smaller, we'd burn about 6-8 cubes per year, about 2 cords.
 
Scrounged up some more stuff yesterday to go with the log loader project , I stopped in at Princess Auto which is kinda like Harbor Freight , I picked up a new 4 port hydraulic control valve for 130$
20161125_192808.jpg


Also got a new 14hp Subaru with electric start for $340.03 , I just bought a new 6hp for 347$ 2 weeks ago .
I wish canto lived closer , I'd go raid his fenceline of auction finds for more hardware lol
Cowboy254 , sucks about the saw , I've heard grumblings about 461/661 but strangely no issues with 241/261/362/441 , leave it to engineers .
 
I'm still working that out (the first bit) the last few winters have all been a bit different. We've just completed our third winter in our new house, a 3 storey Lindal designed house that was fully imported from the USA by a local high flying stockmarket trader who then ran into strife sometime around October 1987. Apparently something bad happened to the stockmarket. He went broke just before the place was finished. We bought it from the lady that bought it at the mortgage auction but that lady and her husband didn't want to spend any money on what became their holiday house. Didn't worry about little things like insulation in finishing up the joint. I believe that insulation helps to lower your heating costs. Etcetera.

Anyway. Roughly speaking, we're going through about 15 cubes, or 4 cords plus or minus. Our heater is a Norseman GLX which is meant to heat 35 squares and puts out about 10KW IIRC. It's a big unit for an indoor wood heater over here. We also have gas hydronic heating which I plan to convert to wood soon. Typical winter top temps are about 7 deg C and overnight temps down to -2 deg C on a clear night. Not super cold but cooler than you'd like. The thing that really kills us is the design and insulation of houses here, it really is rubbish. We're in the process of renovating and updating the place which will make a difference.

Our old place which was much smaller, we'd burn about 6-8 cubes per year, about 2 cords.

Sounds like you have got a nice place there.

Yeah insulation is key. Hopefully you are able to improve on the existing structure without too much hassle or expenditure.

4-5 cords isn't too bad and the more you improve things the less you will burn.

The plus side.....you have awesome wood to scrounge and quite a bit of it. So that really helps.

At least you are not up to your eyeballs is popple, that would be a bummer.
 
Ok guys off topic here but I am just floored at how fast little kids pick things up. My daughter who is 4.5 is always wanting to help me "make bugs" aka tie flies. So two days ago I showed her how to start the thread, wrap it, and finish the fly. Today I let her learn how to do basic dubbing. I let her pick the colors all I said was more or less and basic feedback. I can't believe how well her first bug came out. Granted it's on a #6 3x long streamer hook and that's pretty big but still. But I'm still so impressed.
a9a09aa994fcdfc2733e0b1289d3ab42.jpg


5e401b54dda72830a6bf5f67714cb48d.jpg
 
Scrounged a couple of the trees that I dropped earlier this year and got my new firewood spot setup. Going to build a rack for it but figured a half dead tree will do for now lol. Got a few round split up and noticed my cheapo maul wasn't making solid hits. Looked at all the epoxy and it's already cracking inside the maul. Oh well guess it's time for that fiskars lol.

a98f8c1cbe86b5ab543a172a0a18d0c2.jpg


Not big at all but it's a start.
Sent from my XT1585 using Tapatalk
 
Scrounged up some more stuff yesterday to go with the log loader project , I stopped in at Princess Auto which is kinda like Harbor Freight , I picked up a new 4 port hydraulic control valve for 130$
20161125_192808.jpg


Also got a new 14hp Subaru with electric start for $340.03 , I just bought a new 6hp for 347$ 2 weeks ago .
I wish canto lived closer , I'd go raid his fenceline of auction finds for more hardware lol
Cowboy254 , sucks about the saw , I've heard grumblings about 461/661 but strangely no issues with 241/261/362/441 , leave it to engineers .
That's a great deal on the Subaru motor.
I found a brand new 13hp honda the other day for 300, but considering the exchange rate and the electric start that makes it a heck of a deal :happy:.

What are the complaints with the 461, I haven't heard any, but I haven't been looking to hard for them. I have heard about many problems with the 441c-m though. I loved mine, smooth as silk and cut like a dream, and just slightly less power than a 460 at the same weight. I wouldn't recommend the 441 for production cutting, but for what most of us are doing it's a very nice saw with one of the coolest exhaust notes:innocent::chainsaw:.
Hope there are no problems with the 461 :D.20161101_162933.jpg
 
View attachment 539523 Spent the morning off and on winterizing the chicken coop with plastic and tuck tape. Kept raining or snowing on us but we got it done. Scrounge wood on the fence line in the background.
Looks beautiful there.
I like the repurposed tub :).
 
Ok guys off topic here but I am just floored at how fast little kids pick things up. My daughter who is 4.5 is always wanting to help me "make bugs" aka tie flies. So two days ago I showed her how to start the thread, wrap it, and finish the fly. Today I let her learn how to do basic dubbing. I let her pick the colors all I said was more or less and basic feedback. I can't believe how well her first bug came out. Granted it's on a #6 3x long streamer hook and that's pretty big but still. But I'm still so impressed.
a9a09aa994fcdfc2733e0b1289d3ab42.jpg


5e401b54dda72830a6bf5f67714cb48d.jpg
That will catch a nice one!
 

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