firewood help

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Bugs have nothing to do with the bark, and a little bark flaking off when wood is dry is not a big deal. Buy a nice shop vac and keep it near the fireplace
 
Sure..when you are splitting, go around the round and split off the smallest slab wood you can, throw that to the side. Split what you have now like normal and stack it. Stack that slabwood separately and wait until the bark loosens, which it will eventually, then just knock it off and discard it (most of it should just fall off), use it for garden compost is good, and burn the regular wood.
 
the answer is simple

remove stove. give away remaining wood.
Use "normal" heat source. Natural gas or electric heat.

If you insist on a "wood burning" stove but can't deal with the dust and bugs, then perhaps you could get a pellet stove!

I wonder what I would charge someone who ordered a cord of bark free wood? Interesting concept. With some of the larger rounds I could do it with a single blade on the splitter. I would imagine that would be a "premium" load, and it would be about 50% more $$.
 
Rather than use a metal frame or something to hold the indoor wood, build a wood box. That will help keep the debris inside it better. The rest just has to be always swept or vacuumed up. One of the downers of buring wood inside, I'm afraid.

My wood box is 20" wide, 3' long, and 6" deep. It's also got a 30" high back with the same 6" sides to protect the wall. It looks like a large L shape box. (Sorry - too lazy right now to post a pic, but there have been threads on this before - search for some).
 
thats what i thought guys thanks i have heard of debarked firewood i thought there maybe something that someone has done but OWB or live with it it was a curiosity question cuz the wife posed the question so i asked thank you
 
Bright sun and nature debarks some of it. If the bark is loose when we stack it, the bark goes in a barrel for starter. A broom and dustpan takes care of the mess. We don't have much problem with bugs.
 
didn't some one on here have some large round perforated tube machine that cleaned the wood?

as for the bugs....you can always spray the wood pile with Ortho Max if bugs are an issue.

the dust in the house is just a way of life for wood burners.
 
True, much of the bark should peel off by the time it's fully seasoned. Splits can be de-barked with an ax or hatchet if one desires.

On the topic of bugs and mess, we've eliminated much of that with these plastic totes. Two hold a day's worth of splits. I carry the empties out, dump the dust and refill with wood. There's a pair nested in the photo, at the time being used for gift logistics. :D

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The totes are your practical answer to containing the mess. Unreal how much winds up in the bottom of a tote after two weeks of use. Saves one heck of a mess on the floor and hearth area.
 
didn't some one on here have some large round perforated tube machine that cleaned the wood?

as for the bugs....you can always spray the wood pile with Ortho Max if bugs are an issue.

the dust in the house is just a way of life for wood burners.

I thought I saw something like a drum cleaner but it was for commercial firewood guys it had Slotted rotating drum that tumbled the wood I usually save all bark & small slivers from splitting to run through my tomahawk chipper & make mulch for the flower beds I'm thinking the wife wants more bark for more mulch lol:greenchainsaw::dizzy:
 
I thought I saw something like a drum cleaner but it was for commercial firewood guys it had Slotted rotating drum that tumbled the wood I usually save all bark & small slivers from splitting to run through my tomahawk chipper & make mulch for the flower beds I'm thinking the wife wants more bark for more mulch lol:greenchainsaw::dizzy:

Just always throw a pile of branches on top of the rounds when you bring them home, and chip those up.
 
to keep the house clean & bug free
I would like to debark my wood any ideas

Buy only wood that was from large rounds. But as it dries, bugs still find crevasses to hide in, and chips break away as you move them. Plus, the bark portion gives you one place to grab a wood that doesn't normally have splinters waiting to penetrate your cold fingers.

Oak is especially a splinter hazard when it's all center splits and seasoned for a couple years.
(where's the "ouchy" emoticon?)
 
I thought I saw something like a drum cleaner but it was for commercial firewood guys it had Slotted rotating drum that tumbled the wood I usually save all bark & small slivers from splitting to run through my tomahawk chipper & make mulch for the flower beds I'm thinking the wife wants more bark for more mulch lol:greenchainsaw::dizzy:

Just always throw a pile of branches on top of the rounds when you bring them home, and chip those up.

I now run the chipped bark through a drum I gleaned from a big fan squirrel cage of an old swamp cooler. The little slots filter out the smaller chips as it turns. I have a second one that I am going to put some screen in too, so it gets an even finer product. the dustier it is, the faster it composts. I'm testing some redwood filtrations to see if it works to that end right now. Whole redwood leaves seem to dwell forever, but a chipped, then screened pile seems to be composting at the bottom a bit faster now.
I also recently used the power planer on some redwood bark to produce a very fine hair-like product that encouraged the growth of grass where the big dog hangs out and wore down to the dirt for years. It also looks sharp in the one flower bed I covered with it.
 
Yup, the bark lets loose after a year of drying time. I use bark for starter some times. Sometimes we use it to keep a light day fire going when the temps rise.
If you burn inside, you will have debris. Learn the best way to deal with it is all I got to add. It's a chore. I love toasty wood heat, so it's well worth it. :heart:
 
I now run the chipped bark through a drum I gleaned from a big fan squirrel cage of an old swamp cooler. The little slots filter out the smaller chips as it turns. I have a second one that I am going to put some screen in too, so it gets an even finer product. the dustier it is, the faster it composts. I'm testing some redwood filtrations to see if it works to that end right now. Whole redwood leaves seem to dwell forever, but a chipped, then screened pile seems to be composting at the bottom a bit faster now.
I also recently used the power planer on some redwood bark to produce a very fine hair-like product that encouraged the growth of grass where the big dog hangs out and wore down to the dirt for years. It also looks sharp in the one flower bed I covered with it.

If you want to make compost faster with chemistry and biology instead of mechanically, its not hard. Shovel a buncha completely composted//uh...compost into a big bucket, garbage can etc. Add water, stir it up. Now get a coarse holed sprinkler can (drill the holes out larger so they dont get plugged as easy) and saturate your chips and barks as is, no grinding or turning in a drum necessary. This spreads the microbes out all over the green to be composted stuff and makes the decomposition go faster, much faster.

We have huge composting operations here, but its all done with just piles on concrete floors inside of compost barns (three large barns for that, called litter barns) and the use of big loaders for mass quantities or skidsteers with buckets for daily add to the pile action to turn it once in awhile. Big is in between flocks during cleanout, daily is compositing in dead or culled cluckers.

Because the shavings (the bedding) are so thoroughly mixed with clucker crap, the available microbes are quite well spread out as soon as it is started.

Ive tried it on a smaller scale with splitter crap and coarse wood chips (fresh) from the big chipper, works about the same, get the microbes all over the chunks, they rot fast.

The compost here goes through two or three heat cycles then is ready to go out and get spread on fields. Each heat cycle is one full turning. It composts so wicked fast we have to watch out for excessive moisture, it quite literally will catch on fire if it is composting too fast. Smaller scale, proly not, your stack or heap just wont get that large. Ive never had a small pile catch fire, but the 100 ton or larger piles (whatever, multiple big truck loads per pile), seen those catch a few times....

I built a test pile once to see how hot it would get and if it would pump..yep. thermosiphon, self pump..it is *entirely* possible to rig up a home heater with wood chips and compost piles and some tubing, and add a pump or not. Never built one, but it isnt any more complicated in theory then what the guys here do with their wood boilers. Moving liquid hot from where it is made to where you want it. About the hardest thing would be pulling the lines once a year and then reloading it and removing the compost for use elsewhere. I havent got that figure out yet (I do have some ideas in my head though), but still think it is doable on a large scale using high temp hoses. 24/7 heat once it got going. Most likely could make it last for a full year. Very valuable product to use or sell once you needed to reload.
 
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Retailers that specialize in log construction sell several tools for removing bark. A bark spud is one of the better ones. But it seems like an awful lot of work just to peel bark off firewood. If you did that, it would be better to do it before cutting the wood to length; the log would hold itself in place while you use the bark spud.
 
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