pallets and such like
Hi my name is Cody i need as much fire wood i can get my hands on i would like free if its all possible left from like tree trimmers or just someone trying to get rid of it. I live in Alexandria Ky i would like to keep my travel time as close to home as possible please. 859-486-1800 is my cell if you need to get a hold of me i'll even come pick it up to please just someone help me i gotta heat my house somehow and i'm trying this please.
You can scrounge pallets and burn them, along with construction scraps, anything non pressure treated. I don't know the status of scrounging in your local forests, but smaller diameter deadfall on the ground already with the bark off can be cut to size, split, and might be ready real dang soon that way. Bark still on standing dead..sorta too late unless it is the real small diameter stuff. You can also contact the professional firewood sellers local to you and ask them for a deal on their odd cuts and chunks and less desirable species of wood, perhaps you might could get a big discount, especially if you will go pick it up.
A lot of people east of the mississippi don't burn pine, based on the old wives tale urban rural whatever legend that one stick of pine is a guaranteed chimney fire and your house will burn down. Of course that is ridiculous nonsense, so look for free pine any place you can.
The greener the wood you scrounge now already into heating season, the smaller you must make your splits. If that means you have to get up three times a night to feed the heater, ya gotta do it. I mean, that's reality.
Do NOT try to make burning smoldering greenish wood "last" in your heater by closing down the damper and air intake. Now THAT is a good way to have a chimney fire.
Once you have some wood up that is working, dry enough to burn good, stack as much as possible of the next load you will be burning right inside close to the heater, to give it extra drying time. Try to keep as many days in advance as you can. I keep 2-3 days in advance stacked right behind our heater, and my wood is seasoned. It still makes a difference, gets that last little bit of outside humidity moisture out of the wood before it burns.
Forget using a damper trying to burn marginal still greenish wood, it won't work, keep the air draft open and burn as hot as possible and just put up with it. If you don't, ya, it might burn, but won't throw much heat and you'll creosote up everything , real fast. I mean quick.
I have been in the same predicament you are in, moving into a new place at the beginning of heating season, no wood, and did all ^ of the above....and try doing that when all you have for transportation is a ten speed bicycle...or just your feet. I had to heat one winter in an intown apartment old fireplace because the radiator only worked every other alternate blue moon tuesday. I found all sorts of stuff to burn, all sorts of pallets and wooden crates behind supermarkets and such like. Old busted furniture people were throwing out, bust all the wood legs and arms and backs off and burnt that. You do what ya gotta do. I burnt tightly rolled up newspapers. No real garbage, just real off the wall bits of cellulose/wood stuff material.
Deadfall branches in the woods are the best you can scrounge short of the firewood guys off cuts and odd pieces. Even wet, they will dry out real fast given half a chance. Not real fresh deadfalls, something that has been laying around since at least last summer, you can tell, check the bark, loose and falling off, good enough. Heck's windchimes, ask some farmers or woodlot owners if you can clean up, not take big trees, not drop trees, just clean up their woods. Take any species you can find, it'll all burn. Wood species snob=always pay a premium and have a harder and harder time to find wood. You don't even need a saw or axe, I have burned cumulative cords in my life scrounging firewood with my hands and boots, stomping, breaking, etc, to size.
If you got pallet wood to start a fire, it's good nice dry fast stuff, burns hot, you can throw marginal tree chunk pieces on it and it'll work, it gets them going good.
Back to the firewood guys, ask them for a swap, grunt labor for firewood chunks, those oddball pieces they get! Can't hurt, and they always got grunt work a-plenty, but maybe not cash, see, a barter deal? Not "free" all the way, but no cash involved, so makes it sorta easier for both parties concerned.
Been a lot of years now, but last time I crossed KY I noticed both sides of the road..lotta trees out there. Seems like if you are dedicated and motivated enough you can scrounge all ya might need. Just get creative about it...
My relatives told me stories about the great depression when everyone who wasn't a fatcat was dirt poor.. My rural relatives on heating with wood and using bucksaws and crosscuts and mules, my urban relatives about walking the railroad tracks and finding free little pieces of coal to bring home.
If you are motivated enough, you can find stuff to heat with.
