What part of firewood do you like the least?

[BlueRidgeMark]

My least favorite part of heating with wood is starting tha damn fire itself, I just hate it! I takes for ever to get a good bed of coals to produce good heat. I just got in the habit of cleaning the stove while a good bed of coals was going, take half of it out ash and coals and throw another log in afterwards, worked great. I bet I only had to start 10-15 fires since October to late April, and most of them were in April.

Yep. I don't start many anymore. If I do, cardboard egg crates and some cheapo spray non-stick oil that my wife gets at the co-op makes for quick starts. My hydralic splitter makes a lot of good small splinters, especially from crotches. I have more kindling than I really need.

 

[woodbooga]

I don't mind the work involved, even if it's splitting by hand. But I can't get over the mess it makes. I made the mistake of spilting 6 cord las year on the lawn.. still cleaning up the mess

If my wife were to vote, she'd go this way, no doubt. Messy endeavor, certainly. But my little boy loves filling his toy dump trucks with sawdust and other debris.

 

[wistattman]

Stacking

I think the worse part of woodburning is stacking the wood. It seems to take forever to stack the wood and then it never fails, the rank fall over.

Splitting the wood is probably my second favorite thing about burning. I love the smell of freshly split wood - especially red oak. My favorite is sitting by the wood stove on a cold winters night enjoying the fruits of my labor.

Gary

 

[chowdozer]

I have an indoor wood stove. I run about 7 cords a year through it, so I am bringing about 28,000 pounds of wood into my house each year. There always seems to be bark, splinters, ashes, etc. all over the place. I go through filters on my shop vac like they're going out of style. I love the warmth but I really don't like the mess.

Here's a shop vac tip for you. Go to Lowes, get a filter called Gore. It's a HEPA and about $30. Guaranteed for a year. It's made by the company that makes GoreTex. It is a true wet/dry filter. It's got a slippery plastic feel to it. I have a friend that bought one while doing sheetrock. When it clogs, shut the vac off and bang it a few times. Turn the vac on and continue. When I got mine, I thought hmmmm... what's a good test? Stick the hose in the cold woodstove. Ashes are h3ll on filters. When I was done I took it out and hosed it off with water. Looked and worked like new.

They make them for Craftsman and Rigid vacs for sure. Not sure about others.

I wish they made car and furnace filters.

 

[BlueRidgeMark]

That's a good tip, 'dozer. I'll have to look those up. If it handles drywall dust and ashes, well, that's pretty much the acid test.


I have a Rigid, so should be good to go.

 

[Tazman1602]

Transportation. By far. For me it was the most costly aspect of firewood. In order to get enough wood, without having to pay for it, I'd have to do a lot of driving. Not to mention that I'd have to handle the wood three times before I even got down to the real business of turning it into firewood.

For this year at least I've managed to eliminate that aspect by getting a local tree service to dump two truckloads of wood (I'm guessing 10-15 cord because I've already split and stacked 2+ cord and you can't even tell that I've been there) in my driveway. Transportation is down to moving the splits to the woodpile 20 feet away via wheelbarrow by my organic free labor force. I'm lovin' it.

Dude I've got 20 acres plus my moms 60 to cut off of -- I rarely do because I want the trees to be there for my grankids if I ever have any. I buy bulk from a local sawmill. The attached pic is what $750 gets me delivered to my house.

If I had to go out "hunting" with my truck and gas at almost $4/gallon up here I wouldn't do it.............

 

[046]

yuk... I hate loading big rounds!

overall love working with wood... moving all that tonnage keeps me fit!
otherwise my body would fall apart...

Loading big rounds.

 

[ropensaddle]

Here in the south I hate the black widows firewood draws in
and occasional scorpion! I seem to kill a new clutch of widows each year especially white oak something about it widows love that wood.

 

[turnkey4099]

Number 1 is the cleanup - piling brush. I have never in over 30 years had an occasion where I could just let it lay. I figure I spend at least 2 hours piling brush for every 1 hour of cutting.

Number 2 is loading up: By the time I am ready to load, I am played out anyhow. I try to 'load as I go' but most times it is

Fall
Trim and pile brush
Buck
Load

Today I was working small gauge stuff, Fell 3 stems, brushed and cut up 3 before loading, fell and worked up a 4th. Came time to load that little bit and I hated every minute of it altho it only took about 10 minutes total.

Splitting/stacking is one of my favorite activities as I can work at it at my pace, split some, stack that, split some more, etc. Got that to do on the small load I hauled today.

Harry K

 

[stihl sawing]

Here in the south I hate the black widows firewood draws in
and occasional scorpion! I seem to kill a new clutch of widows each year especially white oak something about it widows love that wood.

Yep, Find em in the wood pile all the time.

 

[nitro]

it pains me dearly

watching my wife run the splitter and then stacking the wood scarred me for life
but with the proper counseling i guess i'll be ok

 

[stihl sawing]

watching my wife run the splitter and then stacking the wood scarred me for life
but with the proper counseling i guess i'll be ok

You lucky rascal.

 

[wdchuck]

Handling my wood so often is really the downer, just wears off my skin so much, and I'm starting to stay away from the expense of gloves, that tannin really does me no favors.

With the new gas prices, that may top the list though, transportation, saw fluids, splitter fluids, operator fluids,.....fluids/lubricants are getting expensive.

 

[outdoortype]

Right On!

Well my furnace when loading love to blow smoke into yer face
so smoke buggers is my biggest pet peave! Also when its going
real hot and am stuffing it for overnight and real cold like 15 degrees
and I run out in my underwear and try to throw a big back log in
and it don't really fit good; burning yourself trying to get it in

I know just what you mean. It's a good thing the kids are asleep when I trying to load it for overnight so they don't here me cussing trying to jam that monster oak in there!

 

[BlueRidgeMark]

I found this thing made my life a LOT easier when moving The Big Rounds (36"). 1000 pound capacity, and the wiiide tires really make it easy to roll with a big load. It was a hundred bucks very well spent. I throw a quick nylon strap around the wood, and away we go over lawn, gravel driveway, and dirt.

Bother. Somebody told me the link died. Looks like TSC just stopped carrying this. Here it is at Northern Tool:

http://www.northerntool.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/product_6970_200311463_200311463

Milwaukee 1000-Lb. P-Handle Hand Truck, Model# 49977

Designed for heavy-duty farm applications — moving bales of hay, feed bunks, livestock feeder and other equipment. U.S.A.

If you're moving big rounds, you will love this. Just over a C note.

 

[BlueRidgeMark]

Handling my wood so often is really the downer, just wears off my skin so much, and I'm starting to stay away from the expense of gloves, that tannin really does me no favors.

Get pigskin. Northern tool has them for about 4 bucks, and they outlast cowhide by... I don't know how long. I usually go through a pair of cowhide in one season of cutting & splitting. Haven't worn out my pigskin yet, so I don't know how long they last. All I know is, it's a LOT longer than cowhide, and they don't mind getting wet the way cowhide does.

 

[ken45]

I would say that my least favorite is bucking up the wood in summer when the brush and weeds are heavy. It's hard walking and seeing what you are doing.

I've got some down trees that I haven't been able to get to yet and now it's getting hard to see them. Of course the heat/humidity/bugs doesn't help.

I would do more in winter but then it's muddy and slippery. Winter a year ago I had a utility trailer full of wood that I couldn't get out of the woods. Small tractor (27hp), bigger tractor(47hp), even the backhoe couldn't get it out. I unloaded it to a cart on the 4 wheeler and the empty trailer sat there for a year. Ended up with two flat tires

Ken

 

[cjcocn]

With the price of fuel being what it is I finally voted in this poll.

Transport is my least favorite, but only because the price of fuel makes it pretty costly to scout around for good wood. Otherwise I certainly don't mind taking a drive with Bones (BLM) and moving some wood. It's fairly dry here now so Bones and I will probably go out this weekend to see what we can line up.

 

[arlen]

Bother. Somebody told me the link died. Looks like TSC just stopped carrying this. Here it is at Northern Tool:

http://www.northerntool.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/product_6970_200311463_200311463

Milwaukee 1000-Lb. P-Handle Hand Truck, Model# 49977

Designed for heavy-duty farm applications — moving bales of hay, feed bunks, livestock feeder and other equipment. U.S.A.

If you're moving big rounds, you will love this. Just over a C note.

I looked at the cart at northern tools for $109.- I got a quote on the site for shipping to my home $140. to $170. would be hard to justify with the shipping costing more than the cart. David