Another half cord today......

[woodchip]

With everybody's pictures of huge stacks of wood, and the thread about another cold winter, I decided it was time to get another half cord in (in fairness, I already have over 2 cords in store, and this is for next year 2012-13.

A buddy of mine knows the team from Adams Axemen, so we went over to day to fill his trailer twice, once for him, and once for us.
We had arraned to fill the trailer ourselves, so we had the chance to pick some ash and sycamore rather than pine or other softwoods.
At £50 a cubic metre, we knew we could get 2 metres on each trip, so we loaded carefully, and the results are below!
Adams axemen are quite famous over here:
http://www.adamsaxemen.co.uk/

Below is the yard the Adams family use, with a very nice combination cutter splitter by Palax:

And the trailer filled level, also the rear of Steve's 4x4 had some too:

By the time I got home from the second trip to Steve's, Mrswoodchip had already got this load round behind our house, ready for stacking:

We burn about a cord a year here, so 2/1/2 cords is a reasonable amount, and for over here, is almost unheard of.

Had a call from Steve just now, looks like we will both go for some more in couple of weeks, may as well keep stocking up while the price is good ;-)

 

[loon]

looking good woodchip they sure have a bit of wood piled :coolsmile:

loon

 

[dafattkidd]

woodchip,

Looks good. That's a ridiculous wood pile. You said you burn about 1 cord per winter. What are your usual burning habits? Do you burn 24/7 in the winter? Just curious.

 

[woodchip]

Last winter we burned about 16 hours a day for December when it was really cold, but the rest of the time we burned lunchtime to 10pm.
Our house does have good insulation, and we are close to the coast here with a mild maritime climate (most of the time).
With a fairly small firebox (just under a cubic ft) next to some of the ones in use over there, it is fairly cheap to run.

Mrswoodchip wants to see one of their shows now ;-)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_tJXoevjLwk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hK5Mm6e3NJ0

 

[Woody Stover]

Can't beat free wood! :cheese:
I looked at the manual for your stove; Looks pretty neat...adjustable secondary air. Do you use that feature much?

Doesn't look like you plan to split that wood any further, how do you fit some of those monster splits into that little firebox? I saw this in the manual: "logs of greater than 10 cm diameter should be split." Some of those might be closer to 10". :lol:

 

[woodchip]

I'll be splitting some a bit more I think.

Several of the chunks of oak were 8"x8"x16" (probably a struggle in most stoves), but I worked on the basis of easier to split them at home than fiddle about sorting sizes out there.... ;-)

And no, we don't adjust the secondary air down much.

I find once it's running sweetly I can drop the primary right down, get a nice blue flame rolling round the baffle, close the secondary slightly, and just leave it there for a couple of hours or so.

This coming season should be much more interesting, I have learned a lot from everyone here, and my wood is looking in great shape too.

It's better seasoned wood for this coming Fall, plenty of one year ash, hawthorn, some very dry cherry, and some excellent maple from some branches which just happened to fall off a tree during a storm last winter.

I really must get out and shake that tree a bit more, still plenty up there ;-)

 

[Backwoods Savage]

Good for you getting that wood now. Our theory on getting woods is simply, get more!

 

[Todd]

Looking good Woodchip. Keep gettin while the gettin is good.