Heating with wood, 40 + years now. This is how I deal with it.

[Larry Caldwell]

Some of you old timers truly amaze me.. Dad is 75 and still burning wood; cuts and splits it himself with a little help from myself, grandsons but he does most of it himself. Hobbles around with replaced knees, pacemaker and doesn't complain... He uses the tractor for large stuff and that is what we help him with mostly.. getting the big stuff on the splitter.

Amazing. I'm not nearly that tough.

He'll probably have to give it up when he gets old, in 15 years or so.

 

[2ndhalf]

He'll probably have to give it up when he gets old, in 15 years or so.

Ha Ha, yeh that sounds like something he would say. I think it would take a wheel chair to keep him from doing wood. When that day comes it will be very sad for all of us kids/grandkids.

 

[nickmags]

Do sort of the same thing here, but use what seems a never ending supply of 5 gallon buckets to hold the kindling and small splits and bits that I get using the hydraulic splitter. Burn anywhere from 5 to 7 cords a year, all oak and hickory. Only been doing it for six years now. I cut wood all winter. Pile it up in a huge mound. Then split as I use up stacks. Generally cut about eight or nine cords a year. At any given time I have 9 cords cut, split and drying under cover, most ( depends on how much we used the winter before) is at least a year old.

Like many, I also quite enjoy stacking wood, but only those larger pieces. Since I got a loader with pallet forks, the small pieces of kindling that get the wood burner going quickly go straight into large bags, then kept under cover and used the following year.

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[nickmags]

I'll be willing to bet that even from a wheel chair he can run the spitter!

Ha Ha, yeh that sounds like something he would say. I think it would take a wheel chair to keep him from doing wood. When that day comes it will be very sad for all of us kids/grandkids.

 

[Garandman]

I'll be willing to bet that even from a wheel chair he can run the spitter!

I'm thinking in a few years Deere and Kubota will have their own line - of wheel chairs. Baby Boomers.

 

[nickmags]

Wouldn't be hard, put in a hydraulic side lift like you see in those handicapped vans, and have the deck length extended to power the lift in and out. the wheel chair becomes the operator seat.

I'm thinking in a few years Deere and Kubota will have their own line - of wheel chairs. Baby Boomers.

 

[tcreeley]

The climate here is different. It's dryer than a popcorn fart all summer, so firewood will cure if it is ricked up where the air can get to it. Then it has to go into the wood shed, because it rains all winter. The picture is all madrone, which is the premier firewood around here, lights easy, burns hot, holds a good coal and pretty much splits itself. The fireplace insert is a Fisher about 45 years old. It's a great old stove, and we cook on it during power outages. The state will make me tear it out and destroy it when I sell the place, but until then it will keep us warm.

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That's a nice setup - inside and out!. Never heard of madrone- have to look it up. Wood looks good.

 

[Larry Caldwell]

That's a nice setup - inside and out!. Never heard of madrone- have to look it up. Wood looks good.

It's the local name for arbutus menziesii. It's an evergreen broadleaf tree with deciduous bark. The bark flaking off every year means the wood is very clean with no moss and not many bugs. It has about the same heat characteristics as oak, but lights easier and is a lot cleaner to haul into the house. It's also the most common weed tree where I live, and its only commercial value is as firewood. I think one mill is producing dimensional lumber, but madrone is very unstable dimensionally. When I said it almost splits itself it was the truth. A round will develop 1/2" checks as it dries. Stack up a rick and the sun side will shrink so much the rick will fall over, so you want to stack it north-south instead of east-west.

 

[2ndhalf]

I'm thinking in a few years Deere and Kubota will have their own line - of wheel chairs. Baby Boomers.

Yeh, he would own one probably. He built the splitter in 1976 with a big Wisconson engine; it has a pull rope that you have to wind and it comes off when you pull to start. It got too hard for him to pull after his surgeries so he he hooks the rope to his ATV and takes off. Said it takes him a couple time but it always starts.... the geezer :laughing:

 

[rox]

I don't burn much a winter. Just 4 cords, sometimes less. But it is the primary heat and we use a large Shenandoah that looks more like a box furnace. Ugly as all get out, but it holds the fire all night. Fire brick lined - I'm on my second set of bricks- replaced them last year.

I buy 4 cords every fall and burn them the following year. In my area- seasoned cordwood can be anything that was cut last spring- or green wood thrown in a home kiln for a week- and still on the heavy side for being called dry wood. -So I season it myself another year by buying a year ahead.

I used to buy tree length, switched to 4', and finally to small stuff - split or not. - The tractor is great to move it around.
First pic is 2 cords stacked, 2 in the pile. Rows are 16' long on 2x4's. Then there is last year's wood ready for this winter. I throw it in the bucket and drive it close to the door. 4-5 days per bucket.
I'll throw a tarp over the pile I am burning, peeling it back to get at it. Keeps the snow off.

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Boy you must have some good insulation in that house if you live in Maine and heat with firewood. How do you know when it is time to replace the fire bricks? Do they kind of disintegrate?