# Cutting firewood.  Any one else burn wood?



## DAN_IN_MN (Aug 17, 2013)

Just as soon as I get off my computer (like that's going to be anytime soon!  LoL!   ), I'm going out and cutting a pickup load or 2 of firewood.  Living in MN, and in a house built in 1890 with an addition built in 1980, I either go through a 500 gallon tank of propane every month to 2 months depending on the weather or burn wood.  Cold isn't bad.  Windy is the killer.  I've done some improvements so it's not as bad as when we moved in in the fall of '08.  The "new" looking windows did a good job of slowing the wind down!  GASP!

I can keep the propane furnace off and have it comfortable in the house burning wood.

Who else burns wood for heat?

I'll see if I remember to snap a few pics along the way.


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## jgedde (Aug 17, 2013)

I too burn wood.  I have a woodlot that I've been harvesting oaks from for about 8 years.  I then let maples grow in their place.

Since I installed the wood stove, my home heating oil consumption has dropped 80+%.  At $4 a gallon, this is a huge savings.

Now the oil burner only kicks on when there's hot water to be made, or the woodstove goes out and the house gets cold.

John


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## f350ca (Aug 17, 2013)

Dan, I heat my house and shop totally with a wood fired boiler. I buy a truck load of logs in the winter then cut them up in the spring, and let them season for two summers before burning. Over the winter I burn 18 to 20 cord of oak and maple to heat 3000 square feet at a cost of about 6 or 700 dollars, cheap heat for Canada.



Two years wood drying in the yard.
Greg


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## doco (Aug 17, 2013)

I burn wood as primary heat. We burn 3 to 4 cords of wood a year depending on severity of winter (eastern Oregon). We do not use any other source of heat. We have an electric furnace but almost never turn it on. I will say there is almost no savings by using wood over oil, gas or electricity. Wood is about $225 a cord whether you cut it yourself or buy it.


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## doco (Aug 17, 2013)

f350ca said:


> Dan, I heat my house and shop totally with a wood fired boiler. I buy a truck load of logs in the winter then cut them up in the spring, and let them season for two summers before burning. Over the winter I burn 18 to 20 cord of oak and maple to heat 3000 square feet at a cost of about 6 or 700 dollars, cheap heat for Canada.
> View attachment 59059
> 
> 
> ...



You can get wood for $30-$35 a cord?! As a kid in the 60's we would cut and deliver a cord of wood for $35 but that was a long time ago. We have about 2000 sq ft house and even when its sub zero weather 5 cord is the most I have ever used in a winter. Last year was fairly mild with only a few days of sub zero and we burnt 3.5 cord. Additionally, I used about a cord in my 1000 sq ft shop keeping it around 50-55 F(just right) but only when I was in the shop - no heat otherwise.


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## jgedde (Aug 17, 2013)

doco said:


> I burn wood as primary heat. We burn 3 to 4 cords of wood a year depending on severity of winter (eastern Oregon). We do not use any other source of heat. We have an electric furnace but almost never turn it on. I will say there is almost no savings by using wood over oil, gas or electricity. Wood is about $225 a cord whether you cut it yourself or buy it.



A cord of wood is a bit cheaper here - but it can get to $225 (and even higher) if you don't know where to go.  There's a place right around the corner that sells firewood at $10 a wagon load.  A wagon load for them is a small Radio Flyer wagon that holds about two armloads of wood.

But how do you figure it costs $225 if I cut it myself?  My labor is free!

Another option we have around here is to buy logs from a tree service.  Many of my neighbors do this.  Of course they need to buck and split it themselves.  I have no idea what this ends up costing as opposed to a cord of split and seasoned firewood.

John


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## doco (Aug 17, 2013)

I make $22 and hour before taxes and not including benefits. 
My time isn't free. (even if I do work around home I take a wage out of the house budget - its a long story) I can get +/- a cord of wood on my 3/4 ton 4x4 P/U. It takes all day to go, cut, load and haul home (30 to 60 miles one way). Then when I get it home it takes a bout two hours to split and stack a cord using a hydraulic splitter. That's 8 - 12 hours of labor not counting anything else or $176-$224 for labor alone) . I figure buying it at $225 a cord is the most cost effective by far.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vbbfACAuqOA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=plbWirDusow


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## f350ca (Aug 17, 2013)

Cut, split and delivered, firewood here goes for $85 a face cord (16" x 4 x 8 ft stack). I buy the logs delivered to my yard for $850 and can get about 25 face cord or 8 bush cord out of a load. A daunting task to start into a load with the saw though.



This is two truck loads, I cut one up for my aunt and girlfriend, yah a sucker for punishment.
This past winter I lit the boiler in October and kept it going till early April.
Greg


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## 7HC (Aug 17, 2013)

jgedde said:


> But how do you figure it costs $225 if I cut it myself?  My labor is free!
> 
> John



You work for free?! :yikes:

If you have a job then your labor rate is already established.  You have agreed or accepted with your employer that your time is worth $X.00 an hour.
If you value your time at that rate, then it's worth the same amount when you expend it on a project for yourself.

If you spend ten hours cutting wood, then you've added $X.00 times ten to the cost of the wood, or you can say you've added $X.00 times ten to the value of the wood depending on how you want to look at it.
The only way you can regard your labor as 'free' is if you're choosing to regard the time spent as recreation, rather than doing something constructive.

The only time you labor would be truly free, would be if you worked for me and I didn't pay you anything. 
That way it would have been free to me, but you'd probably feel cheated out of $X.00 an hour. )

M


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## Bill C. (Aug 17, 2013)

DAN_IN_MN said:


> Just as soon as I get off my computer (like that's going to be anytime soon!  LoL!   ), I'm going out and cutting a pickup load or 2 of firewood.  Living in MN, and in a house built in 1890 with an addition built in 1980, I either go through a 500 gallon tank of propane every month to 2 months depending on the weather or burn wood.  Cold isn't bad.  Windy is the killer.  I've done some improvements so it's not as bad as when we moved in in the fall of '08.  The "new" looking windows did a good job of slowing the wind down!  GASP!
> 
> I can keep the propane furnace off and have it comfortable in the house burning wood.
> 
> ...



Do you use box fans to move the heat around?  I worked with a farmer in one shop who used one to spread the heat from his stove.  We have a morning stove, my mother used it to take the chill off the front room.


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## doco (Aug 17, 2013)

I us an 18"x18" box fan and it does the trick just fine.


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## nobog (Aug 17, 2013)

Western Wisconsin, we used to go through five, 500 gallon tanks of propane then we got a heat pump - above ground - and now use 2 tanks per year, that's about $1600.00 per year savings. Keeping the path through the woods open I give away enough wood to heat the house but I don't use wood at all. 

Jim


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## sniggler (Aug 17, 2013)

I find this thread very interesting. The thing about value of time as related to efforts other than work is very much dependent on having unlimited employment readily available right outside your door. I with i could work at my normal rate where when and for how long I wanted. 

The benefit of burning wood is that there is less actual cash outlay for the fuel itself the labor of preparing and using it is spread over time and hopefully shared with other family members. There is value in time spent working together with friends and family with no monetary exchange.   

You might pay someone less than you get paid at work to mow your lawn but if you have always mowed your own lawn it could still be tough take the money out. Personally paying someone to do something i can do myself always bothers me. 

Around here hurricane sandy made a surplus of fire wood especially for scroungers like me, and it will mean a lot of ground stock of seasoned wood next year.

If we had use the per hour cost formula homemade: jam, tomato sauce, venison sausage, my wife's awesome zucchini fritters, pan fish, wild mushrooms and smoked eels... would all be off the table even though the actual cash outlay was small, well except for the ruger no.1's and taxes on the hunting camp and the boats and the gear.

Bob


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## Gary Max (Aug 17, 2013)

Kinda funny----- I figure I must still be alive----- I am still cutting firewood and splitting it by hand. :rofl:


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## Kickstart (Aug 17, 2013)

Are any of you wood burners using the outside wood burners? I'm thinking about getting one is why I'm asking.


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## f350ca (Aug 18, 2013)

Kickstart, my boiler is in a separate building, attached to the wood shed. Same idea as outdoor only not weather proof. Some of the outdoor boilers are little more than wood disposal units, if the fire is totally surrounded by water jacket you'll never get a hot fire and always fight creosote and smoke in the yard. Mine is a down draft design, The wood and fire sit on refractory, the smoke is drawn down into a reburn chamber where the unburnt gases in the smoke burn. The hot gasses then go through water tubes to a blower that creates the draft. I see a little smoke for a few minutes when the boiler calls for heat, then only heat waves off the stack as it reaches full combustion. The manufacturer claims 1800 degree burn temperatures in the reburn section and 300 degree stack temps. Some of the boilers operate with the water vented to atmosphere, those ones can have corrosion problems as air is always entering the system. Mine operates at 20 psi sealed with an air bladder pressure tank, I can then use prestone in it, so no freezing problems if the boiler goes down and no internal corrosion.


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## DAN_IN_MN (Aug 18, 2013)

sniggler said:


> I find this thread very interesting. The thing about value of time as related to efforts other than work is very much dependent on having unlimited employment readily available right outside your door. I with i could work at my normal rate where when and for how long I wanted.
> 
> *The benefit of burning wood is that there is less actual cash outlay for the fuel itself the labor of preparing and using it is spread over time and hopefully shared with other family members. There is value in time spent working together with friends and family with no monetary exchange. *
> 
> ...



Yes, this is why we and my in-laws burn wood.  Currently, there isn't any way we could afford 4 tanks of propane a winter.  The in-laws burn oil and the wood keeps money for other things.

The wood turned out to be Boxelder which is a very soft wood and doesn't produce enough heat to make it worth gathering and processing.  So, no wood was brought home today. 

I have other sources for Ash, and Elm.

I have older pro chainsaws, which all of them combined wouldn't cost what a new quality pro saw would cost.  These saws I've obtained in various ways.  My first one was a Jonsereds 49sp which I paid the most years ago.  ($80.00)

Some of the other saws I have:  Jonsered 830, Stihl 026, 051, 046, MS260, Poulan 2050.  If anyone looking for chainsaw help, I've learned a bit along the years.

I'm sure it's nice to be in the position where burning wood isn't a necessity.  Perhaps again we will too be in that place.


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## oldgoaly (Aug 18, 2013)

we burn a few cords of wood here, a fireplace upstairs and a wood stove downstairs, brick and tile (hollow rectangular type), so no insulation in the walls. The propane furnace fireplace get outside air for combustion, the wood stove doesn't but I want to replace it with a larger one.  attic has lots of insulation, doors and windows are efficient.  I get my wood from a tree trimmer, they give it too me I burn some of the brush, I also get wood chips for free. We have a Stihl farm boss saw, 26ton splitter, and a JD Gator to haul it around the farm! Attached a pic of last years pile, this years is in the same place, just picking from the other end!
I'd sure would like to build a wood/gas  burner, but just don't have the youth or the brains too! 
tt:thumbsup:


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## reds (Aug 18, 2013)

I burn about 3 cords a year to heat my home. Usually buy it in the summer at $125 a cord split/delivered and dumped.


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## sniggler (Aug 18, 2013)

f350ca said:


> Kickstart, my boiler is in a separate building, attached to the wood shed. Same idea as outdoor only not weather proof. Some of the outdoor boilers are little more than wood disposal units, if the fire is totally surrounded by water jacket you'll never get a hot fire and always fight creosote and smoke in the yard. Mine is a down draft design, The wood and fire sit on refractory, the smoke is drawn down into a reburn chamber where the unburnt gases in the smoke burn. The hot gasses then go through water tubes to a blower that creates the draft. I see a little smoke for a few minutes when the boiler calls for heat, then only heat waves off the stack as it reaches full combustion. The manufacturer claims 1800 degree burn temperatures in the reburn section and 300 degree stack temps. Some of the boilers operate with the water vented to atmosphere, those ones can have corrosion problems as air is always entering the system. Mine operates at 20 psi sealed with an air bladder pressure tank, I can then use prestone in it, so no freezing problems if the boiler goes down and no internal corrosion.


Wow that sounds like a great system who makes it? I know a lot of towns and local governments have regulated outdoor wood burners over the issue you describe, thick carbon laden smoke hanging low in town. 

Without getting into the argument about global warming it seems fair to say that every effort should be made to get the most out of whatever fuel is burned. Wringing energy out of the secondary burn of carbon laden smoke is critical. The oil/gas companies have a financial disincentive which probably effect the transfer clean/complete burn technology to home wood systems. 

Bob


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## jererp (Aug 18, 2013)

I live on 5 acres of mature hardwood, with half of those acres in front of my house.  Just cleaning up trees that have fallen or died keeps me in firewood. Been doing this for 20 yrs now, and never paid for any wood. I try to keep at least 2 yrs of wood stacked & split.  I have a masonry fireplace in the family room that I try to put a fire in every day during heating season, and a wood stove with a blower attached to heat my pole barn/shop on the days I head out there.


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## f350ca (Aug 18, 2013)

Sniggler, this is the boiler I have model E180. http://www.alternateheatingsystems.com/WoodGasification.aspx Good people to deal with, they didn't market the product up here so I made a road trip down to pick it up, must be 7 years ago now.
They regulate them here too, have to be so far from property lines, etc. When I installed this one the building inspector agreed it wasn't an outside boiler so the rules didn't apply.
Now need to convince insurance companies that they are safe, even with it in a separate building I pay the same premium as someone with a solid fuel heating devise in the house.


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## jgedde (Aug 18, 2013)

I think the main issue with outside boilers is smoke and safety concerns.  As far as the environmental issues go, I believe wood burning is, over the life of a tree, carbon neutral.  This is because the tree isn't a fossil fuel and when it dies and decomposes it gives up it's carbon anyway.

John


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## Kickstart (Aug 18, 2013)

f350ca said:


> Sniggler, this is the boiler I have model E180. http://www.alternateheatingsystems.com/WoodGasification.aspx Good people to deal with, they didn't market the product up here so I made a road trip down to pick it up, must be 7 years ago now.
> They regulate them here too, have to be so far from property lines, etc. When I installed this one the building inspector agreed it wasn't an outside boiler so the rules didn't apply.
> Now need to convince insurance companies that they are safe, even with it in a separate building I pay the same premium as someone with a solid fuel heating devise in the house.



Thanks, that looks interesting and won't need to be too far away from the house. I have a friend who lives in Northern MO and he had to put his outside burner 60' away from his house to avoid the smoke. Where he is there are no requirements or permits required.


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## sniggler (Aug 19, 2013)

jgedde said:


> I think the main issue with outside boilers is smoke and safety concerns.  As far as the environmental issues go, I believe wood burning is, over the life of a tree, carbon neutral.  This is because the tree isn't a fossil fuel and when it dies and decomposes it gives up it's carbon anyway.
> 
> John


Fossil fuels are just trees giving up their carbon millions of years later. Wood fired power plants have enjoyed some freedom from regulations for emissions based on the carbon neutral argument but that is changing, and environmental groups are calling for tighter regs still.

bob


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## doco (Aug 19, 2013)

sniggler said:


> Fossil fuels are just trees giving up their carbon millions of years later. Wood fired power plants have enjoyed some freedom from regulations for emissions based on the carbon neutral argument but that is changing, and environmental groups are calling for tighter regs still.
> 
> bob



The elimination of a lot of those 'environmental groups' so called, would remove a lot of hot air from the environment and free up resources for something useful.


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## sniggler (Aug 19, 2013)

doco said:


> The elimination of a lot of those 'environmental groups' so called, would remove a lot of hot air from the environment and free up resources for something useful.


No argument there Non-Governmental Organizations have way too much power over the actions of the government. They are not elected they cater to large contributors and often raise funds from people who have no understanding of what they do.

On the subject of emissions from wood burning the Co2 is a red herring. Burning wood produces Co2 just like fossil fuels do. The real issue is that most wood burning is very inefficient and results in the releases of lots of unburned hydrocarbons. The challenge is to have a simple practical home wood burning system that burns as much of the hydrocarbons as possible. If your oil burner put heavy smoke out you would flip out.

Just stand behind a newer car while it's running then stand behind a car from the 60's your nose will tell you how we have come a log way.

Bob


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