Free firewood ?

[cathead]

I'm pretty much a wood scavenger although I did buy some black and green ash last fall. Scavenging works
for metal sometimes too. A friend of mine was cleaning up behind his buildings and I happened by at the right time.
I hauled home a huge pile of iron as well as enough roofing steel(mostly new) to put up a shed for my tractor.

I have an oil furnace but havn't used it for years. Presently I'm heating my domestic water fired with some dry
fir poles from my neighbor. Every few days I haul home a jag of wood with my ATV and stack it by the boiler.
I tend it once a day. There is an outside light that comes on when the boiler draft fan comes on so I let it
idle until it calls for more wood. That feature is really handy in the dead of winter.

Presently the outside temperature is 44F so it's nice to have a cooler day than we had earlier on....

 

[Eddyde]

How expensive are pellets? How much do you use?
Martin

This winter they went up to about $300 a ton, packed in 50 @ 40lb bags. Up from about $220 a ton 3 years ago. I average about 3 ½ tons a year. However, I also have an oil/hydronic system, that now only heats the bedrooms. Oil was super expensive this year at about $1,400 a tank, approximately 250 gallons, almost triple from 3 years ago. I used about a tank and a half of oil this year, it would be at least 4-5 tanks without the pellet stove. So the pellets do save a lot of money. I plan to build duct & fan system to circulate the wood stove heat to the bedrooms, I so could abandon the oil altogether.
I have a regular wood burning stove in my cabin/bungalow that I heat only with wood that I cut and process, but since moving up here and living rural full-time, I no longer go there in cold weather.

 

[MrWhoopee]

"The firewood you cut yourself warms you twice".

The man who said that (Henry Ford?) obviously never did it. I burn about 5 cords/year. Between felling, limbing, bucking, loading, splitting, stacking and moving twice, I am warmed way more than twice before I ever light a fire.

Cordwood is, and always will be, the most economical way to heat. Most of the cost is labor, and there is always someone with a truck and saw who is willing to work cheap. Due to the costs of hauling, processing and distribution, pellet prices reflect energy prices in general.

Back when I bought the house in the mountains there was a pellet shortage due to a drop in housing construction, the waste from which provided a large amount of the raw material. I knew a number of people with pellet stoves who had to resort to electric heat.

Face cord = unit of measurement of firewood intended to defraud the buyer. Illegal in most states but still in common use in the eastern U.S.

 

[mmcmdl]

I have logs delivered free here in Md . I never know what size but I now specify small oak . DumpChips&Wood.com may be in your area . I go thru Arnie .

DumpChipsandWood.com - Free Woodchips Mulch, Firewood, Wood & Fill Dirt! | Home

DumpChipsandWood.com - Free Woodchips Mulch, Firewood, Wood & Fill Dirt!

dumpchipsandwood.com

 

[f350ca]

About 24 face cord in a log truck load. Most years I burn a full load heating the house and shop. Keep the 1700 square foot shop at a shirt sleeve temperature all winter.

Greg

 

[Eddyde]

The man who said that (Henry Ford?) obviously never did it.

Yeah, it was Ford and since he grew up on a farm in Michigan, it's very likely he had some experience chopping firewood.

 

[7milesup]

When you pick up the phone be sure you’re sitting down. A face cord in our area goes for$160.00. A full cord is $340.00. A 60cc 24” Husqvarna saw is about $600.00. Two cords of wood and the saw is paid for. The labor adds to your character, and leaves more money in your wallet for toys, trips, and beer.

This is proof of how the locale changes prices. I am 200-ish miles North of you, and a face cord up here is $75 or so. Two winters ago, it was $60 at the most.

I have 20+ acres of woods so I can burn as much wood as I want. I heat the shop this way, but honestly, if natural gas were available, I would go that route, but that will probably never be, so wood heat for the shop it is.

 

[projectnut]

This is proof of how the locale changes prices. I am 200-ish miles North of you, and a face cord up here is $75 or so. Two winters ago, it was $60 at the most.

I have 20+ acres of woods so I can burn as much wood as I want. I heat the shop this way, but honestly, if natural gas were available, I would go that route, but that will probably never be, so wood heat for the shop it is.

We used to heat with fuel oil and wood as a backup at the family cottage. A few years ago we replaced the oil furnace with a natural gas one. We leave the heat on year round and the cost so far has been $300.00 or less per year

 

[MrWhoopee]

We used to heaT with fuel oil and wood as a backup at the family cottage. A few years ago we replaced the oil furnace with a natural gas one. We leave the heat on year round and the cost so far has been $300.00 or less per year

Wow! I switched from NG to wood when my bill hit $200/month. Of course it was a big, old house and during the artificially created 2001 California energy crisis.

 

[projectnut]

Things might change drastically in the not too distant future. The EPA is considering new rules for wood fired heating systems. I didn’t read the entire article but they sound as draconian as the new rules for gas stoves, eater heaters, and other fossil fueled appliances