Caved in

[unclemoustache]

Wife and daughter were cold, and the stove has been running 22/7, so I lit the pilot and got the boiler running. We should wake up warm tomorrow morning. Costs a lot, but with this huge, drafty old house, the stove just can't keep up, even though I'm on to the oak and hickory now.

In the meantime, here's my start to next year's firewood for sale:

Silver maple. 36" bar - I didn't measure the stump.

Lotta firewood in there!

Much of it loaded up.

From the trailer to the Super Split to the stack. Each stack is 8' wide and 6' tall.

Yet another close call. New(ish) bar and chain - I'd hate to bite metal so soon.

Had a blowout on the hardwood stack. Took me less than an hour to unstack, fix and restack.

 

[tla100]

Nice work! Those silver maples do split so nice. Hardly hit them and they pop. Looks like you will have some bigs to load on the SS. It does burn a little faster hotter than other hard woods but I got a lot of it put up for next year and maybe 3-4 years down the road.

 

[unclemoustache]

Yup. I avoid burning it myself if I can get hardwood, but it's good burning anyway. I won't get the overly huge rounds. Too much work, and probably has nails. These trees are coming out of a trailer park. I've been pretty lucky so far.

 

[Dale]

I've had Poplar and Ailanthus trees actually claim screw in steps (for climbing) after being in the trees for 15 or so years. Forunately, I know which trees ate them, and I doubt they would be cut anyhow, as they won't fall on a road, etc...

 

[Iska3]

Dad would always pass over the maple but mom would like it and called it 'Day Time Wood'. Little did we realize that mom would toss in a few sticks during the day and the house was always warm. Many years later I'm buring wood again but in an OWB; We do a lot of trails on our property so I burn a lot of that Maple and Poplar during the day and save the oak for nights. Most of us are spoiled and want hardwood all the time, ask the guy who is heating with scrap pallets what he thinks of that maple. That's some nice looking wood..

 

[Davej_07]

It's all relative. I scrounge for wood so I will take just about anything with a few exceptions.(willow, box elder are not my favorites)
Over the years I've had many people ask why would you heat with pine? My answer- because it's what I have to heat with.
Lucky for me I have 2years of ash, locust, and hard maple in the stacks, as well as a line on a guy who wants 20 acres of mixed hardwoods cleaned out and dead standing stuff removed.

 

[unclemoustache]

There's a guy nearby who has a CL ad of oak and hickory for $25 a truckload. I think I might jump in on that, if I can load the truck to bursting. It looks like hardwood is going for nearly $300/cord around here.

 

[Iska3]

I'd jump on that load of oak. Only going to go up in price... I'm still paying 2012 prices for my log wood but everyone else got hit with a 15% increase and new orders are 20% more and he's still selling 100 cords of logs per year. I think this cold snap is going to fool a lot of people..

 

[jthornton]

Nice load of firewood, is it cold up there yet? 17°F here last night and I'm a few hours south of you. Everyone knows when Momma ain't happy nobody is happy...

JT

 

[unclemoustache]

It got into the teens last night. Cold is a relative term, and since I grew up in Montana, I don't consider it 'cold' until it's in the single digits or below.

Got another tree down yesterday - maybe 2/3 of what I got before. I think I'll go back and get some big stuff today. Need to sharpen the Echo, though. I think I must have hit something, but it's not bad.

 

[GrassGuerilla]

Gotta keep momma warm Josh. It really not a sin to run some electric. I run the blower on the furnace pretty much year round on a very low setting just to move the air. With the thermostat set low enough, it only kicks on when its quite cold out or the fire burns out. Supplementing with wood keeps our electric bill very manageable while staying comfortable.