Hello. I am looking to see if anyone could suggest a reputable wood dealer in Southern NH. This is my first year with a wood stove and I hear that there are alot of companies selling "green wood" and passing it off as seasoned wood. Could anyone suggest an honest company? Any response would be great.
Need seasoned wood - any suggestions
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Might be tough to find someone in December . . . not impossible, just tough.
If you are desperate, start hoarding pallets. Many businesses throw them away, just make sure they are not stained with chemicals.
As long as it didn't rain on them recently, pallets are often very dry. Cut them up with a sawsall or a chainsaw, but watch for nails if using a chainsaw. When burning, don't fill the firebox completely or you may have an overfire. Start with 1/4 full and work from there to see what works for you.
Good luck.
If you are desperate, start hoarding pallets. Many businesses throw them away, just make sure they are not stained with chemicals.
As long as it didn't rain on them recently, pallets are often very dry. Cut them up with a sawsall or a chainsaw, but watch for nails if using a chainsaw. When burning, don't fill the firebox completely or you may have an overfire. Start with 1/4 full and work from there to see what works for you.
Good luck.
I would suggest going with BioBricks or Envi-8 blocks as an alternative to wood. They are essentially bricks of compressed saw dust. Cost is similiar to cord wood - maybe a little more depending on where you live. Just do a search for BioBricks and read up on them.
I would suggest you check with any wood burning neighbors and get their recommendations...even if you don't know them. Just stop and intro yourself...nothing beats word of mouth.
I have been buying 2 year seasoned / split hardwood from Tonas Firewood 603-679-8211. He is located in Fremont, NH and just dropped another cord on Saturday ($335). This is a FULL cord, not a wimpy face cord and I believe he always gives a little extra versus less. Good guy that is honest as a day is long. I have recommended him to my neighbors and now half our development buys from him. Good luck and tell him that Brian from Brentwood recommended him.
The BI Guy said:
At $335 per cord, you may want to re-evaluate your fuel costs. That sounds like it is getting into the break even costs of other fuels. Just say'in.....
If your doing because you want to, thats good enough, but if your doing it to save $$$$ you may want to take a second look.
yeah wow - $335/cord is pretty steep, but I guess that's what it runs this time of year... I think if i had to pay that, i'd go w/ a compressed-log manufactured product...
kflorence said:
If somebody tells you they have "seasoned wood" for sale, you need to ask a bunch of questions to figure out whether it's really seasoned as we mean it or not. I had one guy with "seasoned" wood meaning he'd cut the trees down in April and they'd been lying in the woods until December, when he would cut and split to order. Hah. Not seasoned, not even slightly.
Another guy had "seasoned" wood that sounded good-- he'd cut and split it in April or May and it had been lying out in an open field until December. But in a couple of big piles. The wood on the outside of the piles was pretty good, the stuff underneath not.
The wood has to be cut and split well down and stacked for an absolute minimum of 6 months to be burnable. There are very, very few wood dealers who actually do that, and those who do charge an arm and a leg.
I did find last winter that I could get by with the semi-seasoned stuff that had sat in piles in the field all summer if I split it down even further myself and built loosely stacked fires, and especially if I used some of my tiny supply of really dry wood from a neighbor and/or pieces of firelogs, a couple pallets I dismembered and split down, bags of lumber trimmings from Canada sold at the local Aubuchon and the like to get a real hot initial fire going before adding the less seasoned stuff. But no way could I get the most out of my stove or anything resembling even a half-overnight burn.
I didn't freeze, but I used my oil burner more than I wanted to and had a very, very frustrating time of it.
bluefrier said:
Scary prices, I know. Late summer through early fall they were getting over $400 a cord in our area. I was thrilled when it went down to $335. Before I moved from Michigan, you could get it for about $125. I am learning that nothing is cheap in NH. Live free or die.
Jags said:
You are not off base, we moved into this house last year, put in the stove and a high efficiency heat pump. Wood would need to be about $150 / cord for it to be cheaper than my heat pump, but I like to burn, I like it warm and we like the feel of wood heat. We purchased 3 cord of seasoned this year (given first year burning here) at a cost of $1000 for the wood, since then I have cut, split and stacked 4 cord that came from our property (next years stash of maple). In the spring I will order 3-4 cord of green (bulk wood) to cut, split and stack for the 2010-2011 heating season. I hope that this will start to drive the cost down, however; last year we spent $6000 in fuel oil to heat the house to a balmy 66*, so for $1000 worth of wood and $3600 for the stove / install, we are way ahead of the game from last year and the house is toasty.
But I completely agree that $335 is WAY TOO MUCH! It is good wood, but unfortunately, I have not found better wood at a better price. I have seen clowns around here trying to pawn off green as seasoned for more than $400 a cord.
I have had mixed luck with Quality tree service (306-365-7364). Got seasoned two years ago that was dry. Got green 18 months ago that was dry. Then got seasoned 9 months ago that was very dry that was mixed with pine. We switched to cutting and splitting our own this year and couldn't get them to deliver a couple grapple loads. Price was good but deliver was always two weeks away. Ending up finding someone else who was in a hurry to get rid of some trees. Quality's prices were always fair. I think the pine was an accident. We didn't notice for a couple weeks - still working off of other piles of wood, by the time we noticed things were warming up.
Also craigslist often had a posting for 100's of cords - don't know how dry. Or try searching for "Wood boy" (http://www.wood-boy.com/) seemed expensive, but might have what you need.
Welcome to wood burning.
Also craigslist often had a posting for 100's of cords - don't know how dry. Or try searching for "Wood boy" (http://www.wood-boy.com/) seemed expensive, but might have what you need.
Welcome to wood burning.
- Feb 10, 2006
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If you are serious about getting seasoned wood...you should build a wood fired time machine, go back 2 years, and buy 3 cord of green wood, then come back to the present and it would be seasoned and ready to warm you
I drive by this place often and it looks like a professional company that has been there a while.
Kiln dried ? I thought you could only get that in those little bags at the convenience store. No idea on price, but it's an option.
http://treehuggerfarms.com/firewood.html
Kiln dried ? I thought you could only get that in those little bags at the convenience store. No idea on price, but it's an option.
http://treehuggerfarms.com/firewood.html
Wow $350 a cord is a lot of money . I grabbed a cord off the side of the road on saturday with my 12 year old son . It took us about 11/2 hour to cut the downed trees into 18" rounds and hump them 200 feet up hill to the truck. and 10 minutes to clean up the area of branches. I mite start selling wood . I could get 3 cord cut and split on a saturday. That's $1050 for the day I don't make that kind a money at my day job . Did i mention i had three sons.
I was in the same boat you are, and bought kiln-dried wood from Coll's Firewood 603-532-7604. I've been VERY pleased with it. It burns hot, no hissing or weeping or any indications that it's not dry enough, and it lights right up. No idea what a cord is going for at the moment, though.
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