Firebox Capacity/Loading Door Dimensions for the EKO 60

[Eric Johnson]

Somebody asked about this in another thread, and now I can't find it. Either I'm getting old or this forum is getting busy--or both.

Anyway, according to the spec sheet, the 60 has a firebox capacity of 82 gallons, which the Google conversion reveals as 12.75 cubic feet, assuming that the "gallons" stated are "dry" gallons. Whatever--12.75 cubic feet sounds about right.

The loading door is 22 inches wide and 11 inches high.

There's probably one or two chunks in my 40 some-odd full cords that wouldn't fit through that opening, but precious few. And I have ways of dealing with them.

 

[Moose]

So, I was curious, how does one come about 40 full cord (4'x4'x8') (128cu ft.) of wood in the north country? I am extreamly envious.

 

[Eric Johnson]

By plugging away at it, I guess.

 

[Moose]

Deep down I was definatly hoping for the magic unlimited wood well.

 

[Eric Johnson]

Well, I'm thinning a woodlot that was abused in the past, and in the Town of Webb, that means beech. So I'm taking out all the beech and leaving everything else of any value at all. That's a lot of great firewood and an improved forest in the process. So everybody wins. That's pretty close to a magic wood well. The trade-off is that I have to stay in shape in order to cut and split all that wood. Or, maybe I stay in shape because of it. Well, whichever, it works for me.

Chain saw and a pickup truck and an 8-pound splitting maul.

 

[Moose]

Thats great I've been doing a lot of research in the past few years about properly managing woodlots. Pretty interesting stuff and great for the enviroment all around. I'm trying to get guys interested in learning about proper thining rather that just randomly hacking away at what ever so that their woodlots will actually start yeilding more/better product. I wish more people people realized this. I have a lot of property arround me that is nothing but scrub from logging or clearing projects gone terribly wrong. I offer to select cut their property to help it recover therfore raise the value of their property and providing me with the almighty fire wood but most people will have nothing to do with it.

 

[Eric Johnson]

That's great. Do you have red oak up your way? There's none around Old Forge.

What I'm doing, according to the forester managing the property, is "crop tree thinning," which basically means thinning around the crop trees. In our case, that's yellow birch, hard maple and some black cherry. There's also some soft maple, which I mostly try to leave. And I've got nothing against beech--just that it gets the canker and it doesn't have much commercial value. You'd worry about depriving wildlife of a food source, except that the stuff is basically a weed and it's all over the place. Plus, the deer browse the yellow birch and black cherry seedlings, so that's another problem with trying to re-establish a decent woodlot.

But, as you know, it's pretty satisfying work, especially years later (hate to even think of that, but it's true), when you can actually see some positive results. I think that's what motivates a lot of loggers.

BTW, I Googled your boiler and only came up with one hit--an expired listing on Craig's List out of Syracuse, which was a dead link. The Google listing description said something about it taking up to 3-foot pieces, so it sounds like a fairly big boiler. Wood or coal. From your description of the firebox, I'd guess that it's a coal boiler that can burn wood, vs the alternative. But that's just a guess. We'll know a lot more when we see a pic.

 

[Moose]

There is a lot of oak in general in the area, as far as the lots that I am harvesting there isn't much to speak of. I just moved to the area in september so this year I'm scrambling arround trying to cut dead and seasoned wich in my case consists of mostly elm wich seems to have been hit hard by a growth ring boarer of some sorts. And there must also be a fungus of sorts atacking alot of the hardwoods because I have never seen so much punky wood in my life in this particular lot. The property that I just purchased has an abundance of white walnut or butternut with a few oak hickory and black walnut thrown in the mix. the property where I work is right on the st. lawrence and is easily 50% oak, reds, whites, pins you name it its here definatly pedominatly oak.