Very particular about my firewood

[spike60]

I'm pretty good at hitting 16" consistantly by eyeballing. I do like a neat stack though, so I've got some of that anal thing going on. I have a crate on either side of the woodshed for all of the chunks and odd sized pieces. (The crates hold .43 cord. What'd I say about anal?)

A buddy of mine measures and has a simple method. He has an 18" stick and marks off the log with playground chalk. We're talking cutting off a log pile here, not while limbing out a tree, so it's quick and easy.

 

[fatjoe]

LOL! If I pack my stove, and I get a 500-600* stove top temp, with full secondary burn and ghost flames in my firebox, I don't think I can do much better than that. I really don't believe for a second it makes a difference, especially seeing how stove manufactures are allowed to use whatever type of wood, at whatever moisture content to achieve their numbers. I'll never replicate their lab type environments for wood, or optimal burn conditions in my house anyway.

BTW, one of my favorite places to hunt is right pretty close to your location. I hunt deer hunt a few times a year in Chesterfield.

Nice area, where are you from?

 

[fatjoe]

I'm pretty good at hitting 16" consistantly by eyeballing. I do like a neat stack though, so I've got some of that anal thing going on. I have a crate on either side of the woodshed for all of the chunks and odd sized pieces. (The crates hold .43 cord. What'd I say about anal?)

A buddy of mine measures and has a simple method. He has an 18" stick and marks off the log with playground chalk. We're talking cutting off a log pile here, not while limbing out a tree, so it's quick and easy.

Honestly, I`m not knocking anyone who measures.It`s all in fun.It is a little comical how anal some guys get.(I won`t let my wife stack).It just seems a little peculiar to make it all perfect, only to destroy it.Maybe someone should start a post of wood piles. and who`s got the most perfect.I know I wouldn`t be in the running.:monkey:

 

[mikefunaro]

I have some experience using one of the mingo markers from baileys that does the shot of paint at specified intervals

I had mixed feelings, at least for logs that are in the woods. It would be completely perfect for a log pile of relatively straight logs.

For use on somewhat curvy, knotty logs, it's a mixed blessing. You begin to want to cut certain sections out, and say, leave 4" or so on the floor of the woods, but once you do that, all the markings are off. I have had decent luck just using the bar as a guide (depending on what it is) by turning the saw on its side, seeing how far it goes, and then just cutting there.

Mike

 

[kingOFgEEEks]

Count me among the measurers here. I dont get too fancy, though. I just start on one end with the tape measure, and spray a paint dot every 16". Since I have an unlimited supply of marking paint at work (I'm an engineer for a road/bridge contractor), this is pretty much trivial for me.

Oh, and I am an engineer (Penn State '05), so I'm sure that comes into play.

 

[wvlogger]

Hmmm... Even the stove manufacturers recommend that you try to cut all your logs about the same length to fiit the stove. Something about optimal heat efficiency and obtaining the stove's rated heat output.

Your father-in-law sounds like he knows what he is doing. I generally use the saw's bar length as a guide as I buck logs--crude but effective.

but i do see were his FIL is coming from why waste wood i have a guy who comes and buys my scraps for $25 a truck load

 

[fatjoe]

Count me among the measurers here. I dont get too fancy, though. I just start on one end with the tape measure, and spray a paint dot every 16". Since I have an unlimited supply of marking paint at work (I'm an engineer for a road/bridge contractor), this is pretty much trivial for me.

Oh, and I am an engineer (Penn State '05), so I'm sure that comes into play.

It comes into play alright!! You guys are a different breed.LOL

 

[DSS]

All my "splitter trash" ends up in rubbermaid bins, in the basement, and is used for starting fires, and getting a slight coal bed back up for larger splits of wood.

I don't have an issue with burning pieces of any shape or small lengths. My stove is pretty small, and I welcome the diversity of lengths and split sizes to pack it up tight for the overnight. Also, as a wood scrounge, you just have to take what you can get... Free is free!

Exactly....hell of a good post IMO.

 

[TXTreeSurgeon]

So you measure each cut with your thumb and pinkie?That means if there is a 1000 pieces of wood in a cord, your doing that 1000 times?Just for 1 cord.So, for 10 cord, your measuring 10,000 times? And your still only within 2 inches.Now that just seems like waaay to much extra work. Maybe I`m missing something, but I did work in the firewood business for quite a few years,and for several different guys.Nobody every measured their cuts.When the skidder came in with a hitch, everbody dropped threir mauls and fired up their saws.The boss would tell us what size we were cutting that day, and we knew we had to stay under that size.The thing that brought back customers was quantity and variety.(mostly red oak, everybody wanted red oak).I`m not saying if never happened, I was a driver also, and did have to go back and pick up two cords that were overcut, but only once.And I think that guy was an Engineer.(enough said).LOL I`m not putting anybody down who measures and stacks their wood down to the closest centimeter, it just seems silly, cause your burning it all in the winter anyway.It`s just a pile of wood....

I measure each round that I cut, not each piece of wood. 1,000 rounds is WAY more than 1 cord...

 

[Adam_MA]

Nice area, where are you from?

I'm in the eastern part of the state, town called Billerica.

 

[Adam_MA]

Exactly....hell of a good post IMO.

Thank you!

 

[fatjoe]

I measure each round that I cut, not each piece of wood. 1,000 rounds is WAY more than 1 cord...

Good point. So it `s probably only a couple hundred per cord depending on the size of the wood.I personaly try to burn the whole tree if I can.Down to 2 inches anyway.To me, wood is a chore, I do like to do it, but like to do it as efficiently as possible.That means firing up the saw and going to town.I don`t need a stick or spray paint or a crayon.Just the saw and a maul.LOL And now a splitter too.

 

[fatjoe]

I'm in the eastern part of the state, town called Billerica.

I heard of it, kind of near Lowell and Fitchburg. I think??

 

[LAH]

but i do see were his FIL is coming from why waste wood i have a guy who comes and buys my scraps for $25 a truck load

I need someone to buy my scraps. I have a bunch.

Are you getting to work? Seems the Mt. Hope mill is closed?

Creeker in Beckley.

 

[Adam_MA]

I heard of it, kind of near Lowell and Fitchburg. I think??

Yeah, pretty close to Lowell, a couple towns over.

 

[CTYank]

"... the chips cleaned up ..."

May I ask what you do with all of them? I have about 100 bushels of wood chips and wood shrapnel lying around the splitter and all of them would like to know their future. My back hurts just thinking about how to get them into a wheelbarrow.

I just pile them up in a shallow pile (<1' deep) and let them compost below. Then, once a season or so, before various garden areas sprout in spring, load up wheelbarrow with manure fork, and spread on those beds. Repeat a/r. Soil up on ridge here is thin and rocky, and makes good use of organic material.

 

[BigE]

Do you measure each piece that you cut? My father in law does that. Drives me nuts.6"-22", it all burns the same..If it fits in the stove, stack it!!!

Mingo marker for me. I've tried all sorts of things. If just a few pieces, I have a scrap of wood (with orange paint on it) that is 16" long that I'll use. Or, if I'm using my MS200T, I'll just use the bar.

My stove prefers 16" wood, will take up to 18" long. I went cutting with a "professional arborist" a few years back. He was taking down the trees and I was bucking them up, but then he would come down and "help" me buck up the pieces. Every piece that he cut I had to recut back and home. What a pain.

I've found that the wood stacks much better if it is all the same length. Every few years I get three cords of oak delivered (hard to find around these parts). I pay $80 a cord for the "misfits" or pieces that are not uniform in length. I pay $200 a cord for the uniform length pieces.

Where I live, you must stack and cover the wood, or you won't be burning it in the winter. Way too wet. It get water logged and will rot out in a couple of years without ever drying.

What I've found is that the people who eye ball the wood aren't nearly as good as they think they are. The bigger in diameter the piece, it seems, the longer the bucked lengths. Eyeballs are good at relative dimensions, but not at absolutes. A 2" diameter piece is pretty easy to eyeball to length. A 30" diameter piece, people always add a few inches. 19" and I have to drag out the chainsaw to burn it....

It was funny - I was helping the neighbor cut wood. These were big rounds, and he wanted 16" lengths. He is one of those "eye baller" types. He came over and said they were way too short, and he needed them longer. That is, until I pulled out the tape and measured it off for him. LOL. Once again, he was cutting the thin pieces short and the thick pieces long.

-Steve

 

[fatjoe]

.

My stove prefers 16" wood, will take up to 18" long.

I've found that the wood stacks much better if it is all the same length.

-Steve

Your stove Doesn`t like 10, 11, 12, 13, 14 15" wood?Mine could care less.That size wood stacks the same too.It all looks the same under my shed too.I just collected all the deadfall around my house.I just cut it up.(I didn`t have to measure, I know what my stove will take, and I cut it smaller.No measuring, not paint, no chalk.See, I don`t need my wood to be between 16-18". Neither do you.Your wood could be 15. or 13 .Your stove don`t care.I`ll bet you could cut a whole truck load of wood under 18" without measuring.You just don`t want to.For some reason, you need your wood to be uniform.It doesn`t have to be.it just has to fit in your stove.It just seems silly to me to think of you guys out there with a paint can or chalk, marking your firewood like your bucking logs for the mill.I`ve never had to do it, and never will.I`ll always just cut it way small if I have to.

 

[sawkiller]

I am an eyeballer, I compensate the opposite though it seems the bigger the diameter the shorter i cut them. My wood furnace likes anything up to 28" and 30 will work if you put it in just right. But the splitter will only take about 25" or 23" with the four way on. I usually try to cut around 20" and find that I am usually within 2" and rarely have to recut. I cut and split two truckloads today and had to recut one that wouldn't go under the splitter.

My father in law on the other hand has the same wood furnace as i do and we share the splitter. He will try to eyeball to the half inch and he is damn good at it. Problem is he eyeballs everything for 25" and I get tired of fighting his under the splitter.

As far as optimum thermal efficiency of the burn I find that this is usually regulated with the damper and draft controls and the length of the wood has little to do with it other than a slightly longer burn time. Although I never have to crank mine up to full output either I intentionally bought an oversized unit knowing that controling the heat would be much easier. My 100k BTU wood furnace will run you out of any part of the 2600 SF it heats if I turn it up even when it is below zero outside.

 

[mickeyd]

Me too

some of best training I ever received:

If it moves: salute it
If it does not move: police it up
If it is too heavy: paint it


The road ways and walkways thru my woods to the firewood cutting areas are all outlined with rocks painted white

hmmm trying to remember the Navy version of this ....
if its metal, polish it
if you cant polish it , Paint it
if you cant paint it , throw it over board !!!
or something like that !

I also have a very orginized wood pile
MD