Scrounging Firewood (and other stuff)

[svk]

So here is the heating system as it sits right now… Dual fuel electric on the left, gas boiler middle left, two gas water heaters middle right, and wood boiler right. The gas boiler and gas water heaters will be removed tomorrow. The wood boiler will be bypassed. By measuring it looks like if I cut the vent shroud and air intake off of the wood boiler, it should roll through the door if we remove the door trim. Otherwise I need to get someone in with a cutting torch to cut it into pieces. And obviously it’s a little harder to remove than it was to set because they put the boiler in before they built the walls lol.

I’m most excited by all the space I’m going to gain by getting rid of all of this.

 

[WoodAbuser]

So here is the heating system as it sits right now… Dual fuel electric on the left, gas boiler middle left, two gas water heaters middle right, and wood boiler right. The gas boiler and gas water heaters will be removed tomorrow. The wood boiler will be bypassed. By measuring it looks like if I cut the vent shroud and air intake off of the wood boiler, it should roll through the door if we remove the door trim. Otherwise I need to get someone in with a cutting torch to cut it into pieces. And obviously it’s a little harder to remove than it was to set because they put the boiler in before they built the walls lol.

I’m most excited by all the space I’m going to gain by getting rid of all of this.

View attachment 985364

I think it is safe to say that your utility room looks busy.

 

[svk]

I think it is safe to say that your utility room looks busy.

Busy but very functional. Going to miss the wood option although it never worked to full potential.

 

[rarefish383]

OK, I know you guys can't stand the suspense any longer, so here it is.
View attachment 985311
Sire and stallion together.
Old faithful still works fine for firewood but it's getting a little rough for mixing mortar and other such duties so I've been watching Craigslist for a reasonably priced model to add to the fleet. And now I can move firewood twice as fast!
Plus a couple of bonus loads. View attachment 985309
View attachment 985308

Did you put a hitch pin between them so you can push two at a time, like a pair of hay wagons?

 

[H-Ranch]

C'mon dad. You got a new wheelbarrow, and besides, think of all the wood we could haul with it .

Oh, that has crossed my mind... no, wait, what am I saying?!? No! And no heated seats.

 

[Backyard Lumberjack]

This one is for you @Backyard Lumberjack - tried to change it up a little for you!View attachment 985342

 

[MustangMike]

Went over to my brother's house yesterday for a short while. His 6'4" grandson was over there climbing and removing some limbs. He does this stuff for a living.

My brother could not get his Asian 660 started, and complained it was leaking fuel, so I fired up my MOFO hybrid (28" B+C) and handed it to the kid to drop a dead Black Birch tree. I could tell by the look on his face that he was impressed with it (they use all stock saws on the job, and often not even pro saws).

The 660 came home with me. I replaced the decomp (it was missing the cap), cleaned the air filter, tightened the fuel cap and got it running.

The kid also showed me 3 saws he purchased for $400. from a tree company that just "replaces" their saws on a regular basis. One was a top handle Ecco that runs, one was a non pro Husky with an imploded star sprocket, and he also got a MS 261 Ver II that just needed a B+C (which he put on it). Compression was good, and it started right up and cut well. I told him that saw alone was worth the $400!

He is getting another batch soon for the same price that is supposed to include a 440 and a 460. Can't wait to see them!

 

[Backyard Lumberjack]

So here is the heating system as it sits right now… Dual fuel electric on the left, gas boiler middle left, two gas water heaters middle right, and wood boiler right. The gas boiler and gas water heaters will be removed tomorrow. The wood boiler will be bypassed. By measuring it looks like if I cut the vent shroud and air intake off of the wood boiler, it should roll through the door if we remove the door trim. Otherwise I need to get someone in with a cutting torch to cut it into pieces. And obviously it’s a little harder to remove than it was to set because they put the boiler in before they built the walls lol.

I’m most excited by all the space I’m going to gain by getting rid of all of this.

View attachment 985364

 

[Backyard Lumberjack]

Gotta watch that stuff, in cali it gets a prop 65 sticker .
https://www.p65warnings.ca.gov/fact-sheets/wood-dust
Speaking of stuff in wood, I won(drawing) a chunk of fatwood at a GTG yesterday.
Tonight I split a 1" thick piece off and then split a 1"x1" chunks of that down to small pieces for starting fires.
Most resinous wood I've ever seen.
View attachment 985362

fatwood, interesting

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatwood

 

[Backyard Lumberjack]

After thinking about it overnight, it may have been one of my customers who stops by for just enough campfire wood for one day. I'll look around over there and see if maybe he left a bill tucked in a crack.

I mentioned putting a chain and lock on the gate at coffee club this morning. Cutting buddy is supply a 3' chian and Master padlock.

hi tk - that ought to at least slow them down. i have a cage big enuff for wood and some equipment. scrounged when i first acquired the place. i have a small chain n lock on the wire door. hurricane fence stuff. thinking... mite keep any 'passers by' out of things. or misplaced Lookie Lu's...

well, u get the idea

 

[svk]

Guy has been here for 2 hours. Already a lot more room in the furnace room!

 

[muddstopper]

So here is the heating system as it sits right now… Dual fuel electric on the left, gas boiler middle left, two gas water heaters middle right, and wood boiler right. The gas boiler and gas water heaters will be removed tomorrow. The wood boiler will be bypassed. By measuring it looks like if I cut the vent shroud and air intake off of the wood boiler, it should roll through the door if we remove the door trim. Otherwise I need to get someone in with a cutting torch to cut it into pieces. And obviously it’s a little harder to remove than it was to set because they put the boiler in before they built the walls lol.

I’m most excited by all the space I’m going to gain by getting rid of all of this.

View attachment 985364

Never seen such a redundant system. Wood, gas, and gas, and then electric. Is this normal for you northern folks.

 

[muddstopper]

fatwood, interesting

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatwood

I used to love watching the guy hunting for fat wood in South Ga. He had a little terrier type dog that was trained to sniff out the stumps. The timber companies would clear cut a section for pulp. Then they chipped all the brush for mixing with coal for the power company. They then brought in the guy with the dog and he would find the stumps and mark them with flags. Then a trackhoe came in and dug up all the stumps and loaded them into large trailers. The stumps went to a dynamite factory somewhere around Brunswick or Jesup ga. Once the stumps where gone they disked the ground and replanted in pines. Wait about 20 years and rinse and repeat. Timber companies had a helicopter they used to broadcast fertilizer You could see them in a large field with a fertilizer truck pumping the fert into a huge broadcaster hopper and the helicopter taking off and flying over a new stand of trees and making a cloud of dust in the air.

 

[svk]

Never seen such a redundant system. Wood, gas, and gas, and then electric. Is this normal for you northern folks.

I seemed to think it was genius....I burned wood when I was home, electric when gas was high, and gas when gas was cheap.

The original system was wood and gas. The electric boiler was added several years back when gas had gone up in price and electric was still cheap. As it stood with the old boiler, it was about a breakeven at $1.50 per gallon propane to use gas or electric.

FWIW most people who burn wood have a backup system such as gas or electric...just so happened that I had two backups.

 

[turnkey4099]

hi tk - that ought to at least slow them down. i have a cage big enuff for wood and some equipment. scrounged when i first acquired the place. i have a small chain n lock on the wire door. hurricane fence stuff. thinking... mite keep any 'passers by' out of things. or misplaced Lookie Lu's...

well, u get the idea
View attachment 985428

I checked, no money tucked away

Out at the willow bush clearance. 3.5 hours to clear all the thornwood brush and dead fall out of the way of the good willow tree I did the top on a week or so ago. All ready to start bucking. I'm looking a about 40' of log ranging from 20" top to around 30" at butt (from what I can see. All parallel with the ground about 2' clearance. Gonna be a cake walk to buck.

Blasted camera apparently down loaded the pics but I can't find them in the picture file. I was expecting them to show on the main screen - nothing, no error messages. I'm not exactly 'puter literate,.

 

[JAXJEREMY]

How much wood is too much?? The other day I was driving along and literally a quarter mile from my house a guy had a huge oak cut down that he was cutting into rounds..I got home and looked at my wood pile which had already grown significantly over the last couple months and realized I had no more room..

 

[LondonNeil]

I seemed to think it was genius....I burned wood when I was home, electric when gas was high, and gas when gas was cheap.

The original system was wood and gas. The electric boiler was added several years back when gas had gone up in price and electric was still cheap. As it stood with the old boiler, it was about a breakeven at $1.50 per gallon propane to use gas or electric.

FWIW most people who burn wood have a backup system such as gas or electric...just so happened that I had two backups.

I think you said you've several fireplaces and will put a stove in one. Do you use the others? You can still be primarily/almost solely wood heat with a stove or two.

 

[muddstopper]

I seemed to think it was genius....I burned wood when I was home, electric when gas was high, and gas when gas was cheap.

The original system was wood and gas. The electric boiler was added several years back when gas had gone up in price and electric was still cheap. As it stood with the old boiler, it was about a breakeven at $1.50 per gallon propane to use gas or electric.

FWIW most people who burn wood have a backup system such as gas or electric...just so happened that I had two backups.

I guess it makes sense. We dont get down to those minus kayro numbers here. I had electric with a heat pump, but I heated mostly with wood. I installed a heat exchanger on my wood stove along with a hotwater heater as a storage tank. I had it plumbed to where the hot water from the stove was stored in the extra tank and fed hot water to my electric water heater. It made things easy. I had more than enough hot water and the wood stove heated the house. My electric water heater never came on because it was being fed with hot water from the storage tank. When I didnt have a fire, i still had electric hot water and in the summer, all I had to do was let the stove go out. I like redundancy. I now have a wood fire place with propane for backup as well as a Kero heater. I have a generator that I have had to use once already when the power was out for a couple days. The generator is 8000watts and not quite big enough to run the whole house, but by choosing what and when to run, I managed to keep the well pump running, plenty of hot water and run the heat pump, as well as lights. I even dried a load of clothes in the electric dryer, but I had to turn off the heat pump while the dryer was running. Even managed to cook breakfast on the electric stove. My house was the only one in my area that you could see at night. I also have a battery backup that will keep my freezer and lights going for about 4 days, longer if I hook the batteries chargers to the generator while I am running it. I can also connect cables to my truck and run it to charge the battery bank, so I don't know how long I can go before things go completely dark.

 

[JustJeff]

Simple propane boiler does it all. Hot water, floor heat in 2 zones in the basement, hot water to the air handler for forced air heat to upstairs. It does a good job. The downside is that propane price fluctuates. If we lived where natural gas was available I still wouldn't know how to sharpen a chain. It was those price fluctuations that caused me to sell my motorcycle one year to buy a tank of propane. My wife's idea was to get a wood stove. Best idea ever. My plan was just to augment with the wood. So I put the stove upstairs on the main level rather than try to move heat from the basement of a bungalow. Best decision. Forced air heat only comes on when we are out for more than a day. Floor heat is quite efficient for the basement. Wood took us from 3-4 tanks of propane a year to one every 8-10 months. Sure it's work but I keep that house way warmer than it ever would be with gas. Actually burning some gas now in the fireplace. I hardly use it but it's handy a couple weeks in the spring and fall when the wood will cook you out but you need a little heat.

 

[Jeffkrib]

My Sis and Bil don’t know what species of Eucalypt it is, all they know is some locals call it brittle gum as it will often split itself when you fell it.