RE: Season slowing down

Its that time of year... foot traffic was real slow last saturday in the shop: we did a grand total of 75 dollars in sales (all in individual bags of pellets)... the phone isn't ringing off the hook, and I actually have time to talk to a customer for more than 2 minutes without something else coming up or someone coming in.... gettin' ready to hang up the wood cart and start running the golf cart! On a side note; there are two courses that just opened for the season.. One of them is a big, family owned course where we have installed stoves and sweep the chimneys at the clubhouse and several of the private residences. they told us its the earliest opening for them ever.

We've been going strong in sales up until this week. December 1st till this week we have been averaging $13,000 per week in sales. For us, thats good for those months. This past Monday came and all I hear is the chirping of crickets. We're at about $7000 so far this week and may hit our dollar amount, but the phones, store traffic and emails are deathly quiet.

As a new member on these forums, this will be my first sping summer transition. But like Jake, I already notice that there much less reading to do on the forums. I may need to go stir up the ash can with a new thread or two.

You are right Jake. I started noticing the counts going down a couple weeks ago. I just seem to come on here by habit but sometimes I actually have work to do so am thankful the count is down because it doesn't take so long looking through them.

Last night my wife started another fire before I got home from the sugar bush. It was a small fire but the house heated up fast. It did not get very cold last night so I just let the fire die out. So, she started another one this morning...and it is getting hot in here. Maybe it is time for me to head outdoors.

I burn both NG and wood. With the current spot price of NG at $4.44, unless it gets below freezing at night it is hardly worth firing up the stove. I'll probably still burn a couple fires on the weekends, but that is for fun more than anything. I have a cord of oak left. I've mostly been burning up the pieces of maple I have left and the smaller odd pieces of red oak. No worries as the oak will be even drier by next fall.

firefighterjake said:

I can tell folks are starting to not burn any more . . . the thread count here has dropped off a lot in the past few days . . . in the winter I wouldn't check the forum for a few days and would have 5 days of reading in the hearth section alone . . . the other day I had not checked in for 5 days and there were only 1 1/2 pages of unread threads . . . to be expected I suppose . . .

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It's been warm the couple weeks (at least here in RI) so that may have a lot to do with it. Folks getting outside and doing stuff. I know that there are enough outdoor/yard/garage projects to keep me more than busy so I can't justify spending hours reading. Not to mention fun stuff like the beach, hiking, camping, car shows etc. My work tends to pick up as the weather warms too...I only get online once a week in the summer for an hour or so if I'm lucky. So I guess the slowdown on Hearth.com is a good thing, I won't miss as much this summer and it's helping to wean me off the addiction slowly. Never thought I'd be this into the "stove/wood burning culture".

LOL! A thread about things gettin' slower...and only a couple of folks have posted in it so far.

We heat with an antique cookstove - manufactured about 70 years before the EPA was even created, so I doubt ole Beulah's certified. It cooks our food too until it gets too hot to get a quick oven going. Only then do we pay the gasman for the privilege of using the modern range.

Actually hit the pine culls yesterday to cut up some more kindling and biscuit wood. Gotta keep the cookstove fed through at least Memorial Day. When she goes hungry, so do we.

It's slowed down here too with the nicer weather. It just means I work on other stuff rather than customer work. It's also given me a chance to get the motorcycle out and do some work on it.

Haven't burned in a week and the furnace hasn't gone on at all today. Local Agway is advertising chick and turkey orders and I've seen some municipal folks starting to sweep up the sand. Can't stop the relentless march of the seasons.

BrotherBart said:

So we gotta say goodbye for the summer
But burners I promise you this
I'll be splitting wood
Every day in the summer
So that blasted oak won't hiss

Yes it's gonna be a hot, sweaty summer
But I'll fill the emptiness
I'll be stacking wood
Every day in the summer
So two years from now that oak won't hiss.

(Sorry about that Bobby Vinton)

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I'll be on youtube looking for oldies all night now.
Brian Hyland's version is the one I remember.

Depends on where you live. I had 5° last night & up to 17° for the high today with more snow.
I may quit burning the stove soon, due to poor planning on my part,
I thought I had enough wood, but there is a difference in seasoned fire wood. I think Ill be
better off on the NG furnace after the last bit of good seasoned wood is gone.
If I've learned nothing else, i've learned to burn dry well seasoned wood. "It's the wood stupid"
Going thru wood faster now, mostly all spruce so to be expected. But it's dry & burns well.
2 to 3 more weeks of good wood left.
BUT NEXT YEAR BY GOLLY, I'll have some wood all of you would be
proud to burn, mainly because I learned here how & why to season it, what seasoned wood is & have experienced the difference
between seasoned & not..... (No hissing here next winter )

Should be warming up anyway, the GH was 58 in the sun 2 days ago,
tomato plants 4" tall & should be ready in about 4 weeks to plant.

Certainly slowing here. After the morning fire, to warm the house from 62 deg., the stove cools and the fire goes out until 5-6 pm.
House was still at 67 and I think the outside temp was around 45, but it "felt" cool in the house.
Time for a fire. Then, another small load before bed about 11:30-12:00, and no getting up at 3-4 anymore. WOOHOO!
It's been this way for over a week now, the ground is thawing, I've got a few of my treated posts for the woodshed, but now the forecast is for rain for a few days.
Damn spring. :lol:

We've been in the upper 50's and low 60's for the past two weeks. The next 10 days have us from the low 50's to the low 60's. I've been doing evening burns only. Hopefully, this continues as I hate it when I start to enjoy the warmer weather and then we get hit with a cold blast.

BrotherBart said:

So we gotta say goodbye for the summer
But burners I promise you this
I'll be splitting wood
Every day in the summer
So that blasted oak won't hiss

Yes it's gonna be a hot, sweaty summer
But I'll fill the emptiness
I'll be stacking wood
Every day in the summer
So two years from now that oak won't hiss.

(Sorry about that Bobby Vinton)

Click to expand...

No I won't be splitting any this summer
But I certainly can promise you this
Our wood is very well seasoned
We guarantee it won't sputter or hiss

Yes it will be a hot summer
We'll sweat and slap at the skeeters
But come the cold air next winter
We'll all be enjoying our wood heaters.

The burning may be slowing down but the cutting and splitting should be picking up.

Every thing is picking up for us. Log length wood is going out and the pellet orders are rolling in! Hope it is like last year busy spring and summer slow in the snow and slush.

We were slowing down in the NE until the weather turned to 30's and freezing cold rain. Burnt all weekend and it was great. Temps due to hit the 60's later in the week - looking forward to that. Just about done w/ this rain.

My fire has been out and I thought I was done
But the wind today is cold and has spring on the run
So later today
After I make it home
A fire will be burning that is second to NONE!




...it will only be down to around 40* tonight but I hate to leave the last couple of pieces of dry wood left in Florida unburned :cheese:

No slowing of the burning here....


28 degrees below zero here this morning. That would be on the F scale.

oldspark said:

The burning may be slowing down but the cutting and splitting should be picking up.

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Agreed still got to finish up some stuff and still got wood in the woods i cut i gotta get out.

Yes, I haven't been on much lately either. I sure am going to miss this cat next shoulder season. Still burning 24/7 but just 2 loads a day with the air set at .5. Keeping the house nice and comfy.

finally time to start offseason projects, nice to have a break

local sales are picking back up due to nice weather jumpstarting construction projects