My farm paper had an article about heating and costs.
https://www.lancasterfarming.com/fa...cle_70d6de74-baaa-510d-995f-11024a8411c6.html
Scrounging Firewood (and other stuff)
- Thread starter mainewoods
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I cut when I have to… year round. Around the houses it has been dead ash and storm damage—not much standing ash left and what is is rotten beyond use. On the rail trail it used to be mostly dead ash but now live trees are falling due to shallow soil and wind. It’s particularly bad when the soil is saturated. The trees lack the protection from the wind they had with the ash.
My city knows exactly who heats with wood and is pressuring them to switch to electric heat pumps. At the same time a tourist train spews enough particulate matter in one day to probably equal a year’s worth from all the wood heated homes. Politically the city and county don’t have the will to kill off the railroad…
I guess I'm good, maybe even extra good!
The house is Natural Gas, and the Cabin is real wood ... except I don't pay anything a cord other than the fuel in the saws and splitter (when I don't use the Fiskars)!
And only one of those fuel sources can be harvested by a homeowner (at least without extraordinary means). Most of us don't buy firewood by the cord, so even if the equipment and other sourcing costs are 80% of that, wood is the winner.
My uncle used to participate in the "train robbery" on the tourist train in Margarettville NY.
That’s a nice operation and in a beautiful area!
Good read there Steve. Wonder how they came up with the cord wood cost?
just think though, you're not buying new equipment every year. So your overall equipment cost can get spread out over many years making it even cheaper.And only one of those fuel sources can be harvested by a homeowner (at least without extraordinary means). Most of us don't buy firewood by the cord, so even if the equipment and other sourcing costs are 80% of that, wood is the winner.
Until I bought my property in Hancock in 1985, we used to hunt out of Margaretville.
My Uncle used to live up there and a co-worker owned a cabin (off the grid). In addition, my Uncle knew many of the farmers. But, little by little folks died or sold and I found my property (50 acres for $300/ acre) just in time to keep the family hunting tradition in the Catskills going. At the time, most of NYS was still shotgun only for deer, and we wanted to be rifle hunters (as we collected and reloaded).
We could not drive to the co-worker's cabin, so we backpacked food and water up the mountain every year. In addition, I did not have a chainsaw back then, so we went up several times in the off season to shoot and cut wood with bow saws. The cabin had an old (original) wood burning cooking stove/oven. You had to have a lot of small wood to feed it, and the "heating" wood stove was not airtight!
Good thing I was younger then, it was a lot of work!
Not sure on that Sean. Might be a statewide average. I thought it was a bit on the low side.
Uphill, both ways?
In the snow
The city and county won't say anything since it's a revenue stream. On a similar subject the Minnesota Commercial (MNNR) that operates largely in the heart of the Twin Cities was "encouraged" by the powers that be to get rid of all of its remaining Alco diesel locomotives (the same builder as the ones in the original post) to help with air quality, nevermind the ever increasing vehicle traffic (and airline traffic) that they think mass transit and bike lanes will solve (a long story for another day). MN Commercial had the last 2 remaining RS-27 locomotives in existence, and Alco's are well known for their ability to make lots of smoke.
Just brought the tote back up with another weeks worth of wood (At the current rate anyway). 9° when I left here this morning.
I thought it was a bit low too. but the prices seem to fluctuate from area to area and time of year. I'd bet everyone jacked their prices for this cold snap.
LOL, I think I've carried everything in the pic with my wheelbarrow, but a fancy rack like that is for them rich folk. My efforts look more like a firewood/chainsaw accessory game of Jenga.
So been fiddling with a new joystick for the kubota. Needed to add some buttons for the third function. Came up with this set up so far. 3rd time I've printed it. Not my design, just been tweaking it to suit my needs. Think I need to resize the stick one more time before I cut the rod down to size. Sad part is, I'll have less money in printing all the prototypes and the final stick then what the switches cost. 
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One of my neighbors came over to ask if he could fill up some water bottles. His water line froze coming into his house he said it’s done it before . I had two 15 gallon water barrels I had been using when my water was out I filled them and brought them over on the Kubota . They are coming over later to take showers . Suppose to warm up over the weekend hopefully it thaws out for them .
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