How much kindling?

Just wondering how much kindling you folks store for the winter. I have been picking up the nice thin slices of wood, and little left over bits every time I had to move my splitter this year, and threw them all in a pile. They finally got all nice and dry, so I started throwing them into cheap 34 gallon storage containers I picked up at K-mart on sale. Well, I filled 2 of them right to the top, and still have a bit left over to pick up still. I figure once it is all picked up, I will have the equivalent of about an 80-90 gallon container full.

I'm going to pick it up either way, and it will all get burnt sometime, but it just got me wondering about how much everyone else stores for the winter.

You've got a lot more than I will! I am doing the same as you as far as picking up under the splitter. I'll jam three or four 5 gallon buckets full and that'll be about it for me. I doubt I'll make it the whole year but I'll be a lot better off than I was last year....

That's the part that worried me. Last year was my first with my stove, and I bought my wood. I ended up spending a bunch of time in the basement with a hatchet getting the kindling I needed from day to day. I wanted to avoid having to play that game again.

Kindling is used primarily when your starting a fire from nothing. Once you start burning 24x7, there's no need for kindling IMO. I guess that depends on your stove size too to have enough coals in the AM to start it up again.

That's true, but I find it much faster to throw a small handful of kindling on top of the coals and then some sticks on top of that to get the fire back alive more quickly.

When I had an open fire place, I used ALOT of kindling. Fires every weekend. I would bring home pallets from work and cut/chop them up. Since I put a gas stove in the fire place I barely burn any kindling at all. Like stejus, I now only use it for start-up three or four times a year.

For those of us running gassers with storage we have to start a new fire from scratch every day. So I do go through a fair amount of kindling.....and newspaper!

You can never have too much kindling. It's nice to be able to add a few pieces every time the fire burns down to coals, when reloading. Helps to get it going quicker than full size splits alone. You can always save any left over for the next season.

I used to collect all the little pieces and shavings from the splitting process, but I found it to be much more exercise and very rewarding to split all of my kindling. Still, if I see a few nice pieces leftover from splitting the firewood, I'll usually throw them on the kindling pile. I split kindling from my seasoned oak firewood, using a single bit 3.5# ax. I choose the straightest splits from the woodpile, with the fewest knots, then place them on top of a stump and turn them into kindling.

Here's a picture of my kindling pile:




And here's a picture of my kindling workstation:

Nice wagon! I have the same one but unfortunately bent the frame trying to move 3 150 lb rounds down a sloped hill. Now, it always wants to travel a little sideways.

I used to split up my splits to have enough kindling for the year. This year I found a hardwood lumbar yard that was giving away a pallet of pecan boards that were defective. I now have a face cord of kindling, which along with some SuperCedars should last me for many years.

I've never reallly kept track of how much kindling.

I'm surrounded by acres of white pine.
The bottom branches of which (are quite dead) and make for nice kindling.

Either by going out and cutting them off, or grabbing a few from piles of branches from cut down trees.


I have piles of branches all over.
Some years I chip them for mulch (easier when they are green), right now I need a new engine for my chipper , so I have lots of kindling.

Quads, What or where the heck is Mare Imbrium? Am I showing my ignorance?

On the Moon! I haven't posted in a long time. I moved back from there now (hee hee). Guess maybe I'll have to update my profile.

That wagon ranks as one of the worst purchases I ever made in my life. The wheel bearings went bad (figure that, by just pulling it around the yard), part of the steering mechanism broke off and I had to weld it back together, etc..........all for an $80 purchase price. Now it's used only for kindling and occasionally leaves. For real firewood duty I use my wheelbarrow, little Harbor Freight trailer behind the ATV, or my pickup truck.

We use about a trashcan +/- full of broken sticks etc every month during the heating season. We start the woodstove every night and start the garn every other night. The woodstove uses more kindling than the garn. We gather the branches that fall off the oak/maples in our woods in the fall/winter storms and pile them on rocks, pallets, stumps etc in the woods to keep them off the ground. Every once in a while we'll head out there with some adult beverages, break up the sticks and fill up a trashcan. You'd be surprised at how much wood gets knocked down in a wind storm.

Last year I was paranoid about running out of kindling to get the fire going . . . and since I originally planned to mainly have just evening and weekend fires I wanted plenty of kindling on hand so I stockpiled a little less than half a cord of kindling . . . mostly cedar and spruce kindling that I cut and split from trees that were standing dead or were dead, but off the ground.

Since I ended up being more of a 24/7 woodburner I only used a small fraction of that amount -- maybe 1/3 of the amount.

Besides stockpiling the cedar and spruce kindling that I specifically split up for kindling I also had quite the collection of pallets split up into kindling, scrap wood from various wood working/renovation projects, some splitter "trash" and even several bags of large pine cones that dropped in the Fall for use as kindling.

I posted this in another post of mine and figured I have about 2.5 times this much in bags. Its all Ash with a moisture of around 18-20%. I can always cut it smaller, but if I keep my fire hot at all I can throw a few pieces on and be ready to go.

Shipper

I've been cutting up all the brush that came down in the Dec ice storm to kindling. Just a bunch of sticks and such and it'll help me keep more of my nice split wood. As said above, save as much as you can. You'll use a big pile in the fall and another big pile in the spring when you're lighting the stive every morning or every other morning, you'll use almost none in winter.

Looks like Shipper50 uses a similar source for his kindling. Aside from the little bits and pieces I get from running the splitter I have a neighbor in the custom cabinet building business. They generate a huge amount of scrap which makes perfect kindling. If you've got a cabinet shop in the area I suggest stopping buy and getting a load of their cutoffs and scrap. Most of the shops in this area pay to put their scraps in a dumpster or pile it up and burn it in the back lot on occasion. I go thru about a 55 gallon drum of splitter droppings and another 55 gallon drum of cabinet shop cutoffs per year.

A box of split 2 by cutoffs makes the wife happy when she gets home first and we are 9 or 10 hours into a burn. I make sure the box is never empty.

I split one or two 5 gallon pails of kin'lin at a time. I use 4 or 6 pieces to start a fire and how long a pail lasts depends on how often I start a fire.

While doing the yearly splitting, I also make some kindling. I use soft maple for the kindling because it lights very easy and burns hot. We don't require a lot of kindling simply because it is only for a short time in fall and spring when it is needed. Other times the stove is kept going 24 hours per day.

The kindling we use is about the same size as LLigetfa's. I usually just stack it in the ends of the rows of firewood that is stacked. Sometimes I will mix some right in the regular stack if the ends won't hold it all. Sometimes my wife will also pick up the chips and little pieces after the splitting is done. I usually end up throwing that in the stove when we just need a little bit of heat because I don't like it for kindling. But whatever works.

As to how much kindling, I really don't have a handle on that. I just make some every year. If it looks like we are running low I'll make more or if we have lots I'll make less. It is extremely easy to make nice kindling with a hydraulic splitter. I think sometime I shall take some pictures to show how I do it.

There is a place around the corner form me that gives away lots of skids, they are all hardwood ( oak I think).
I have been cutting them up and storing them in the basement. They work great for starting fires.
I am going to stock up as much as I can.

No worries about nails? I would think you would NOT want them in the stove.