What I learned in my first season of wood burning...

[ADDvanced]

So I did a video of my fireplace insert install, and it wound up being a huge surprise and is one of my most successful videos. I personally find race boats and rebuilding 911 engines more interesting, but regardless, I decided to do a second video on what I've learned heating my house with my insert this season. We leave the thermostat at 64 degrees, so the furnace might run occasionally during the night, but the living room is usually 75-80 when we fall asleep. The thermal mass of the masonry surrounding the insert helps a lot! Our heating bills have dropped about $200/month, so now we're paying $180-250/month with electricity, which honestly is not bad at all for working from home and running a few monster computers.

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Let me know what you think! Always looking for more tips.

 

[Caw]

Nice video. One thing I would add is that to measure wood moisture properly you need to measure the face of a fresh split, ideally at room temp (but you can always correct for temp). Measuring the outside of a log thats been sitting on the rack in the cold isn't going to be accurate and almost always be a low reading.

 

[ADDvanced]

So are you supposed to split something everytime you want to read moisture?

 

[Caw]

Yep. It's not something you should have to do too often though. You can take a big piece from the stack to measure as a good indicator of how the whole stack is doing if it's all the same species, was C/S/S at around the same time, and properly covered. If that piece is good the smaller pieces should also be good.

To get a true measurement you should bring the piece to room temp, split fresh down the middle, and measure the middle of the fresh split face with the prongs running parallel to the grain. You can skip the room temp part if you wanted but I'd add 2% to be safe if its cold out when you're measuring.

I could go out back to my red oak pile right now and measure a random piece on the outside and get 20% but if do as I described above I'll get 28%+.

 

[ADDvanced]

Yeah this stuff has been on racks for 6-8 months and I did split some earlier in the fall, and it was all under 20%, so I think it's okay?

 

[jatoxico]

Yeah this stuff has been on racks for 6-8 months and I did split some earlier in the fall, and it was all under 20%, so I think it's okay?

If you got a good measurement and it lights and burns easily you should be good. Now I generally can't get anything under 20% in < 1 year so I count on it being 2 years at least.

 

[avsmusic1]

If you got a good measurement and it lights and burns easily you should be good. Now I generally can't get anything under 20% in < 1 year so I count on it being 2 years at least.

Agree with the one exception of standing dead Ash

 

[Caw]

Standing dead ash is candy for us burners! . If you're ever in a tough spot wood wise that's what you want to find.

Id rather have the live healthy trees but if the beatles are gonna take those from us at least we get good wood.

And yeah if you got sub 20% back then and it's been stored well it's good. As said earlier the true test is to throw it on some coals. If it's good it'll go quickly. I tend to just split and measure outside and adjust a couple percent based on the temp versus doing it the super accurate way cause #lazy.

 

[ADDvanced]

welp. I am almost out of wood. I did not estimate the amount we would burn well at all. Ordering another face cord, hoping to get through to march with it. Would prefer not to buy too much as I do live in the woods.

 

[Rickb]

If you buy any wood now and its anywhere clsoe to burnable I would be hugely surprised.

 

[EatenByLimestone]

Order next year's wood now. Actually, get ahead of the game and order the next 2 years. The wood you burn in 2 years will be absolutely wonderful.

 

[bigealta]

nicely shot ckear video. But try starting fires Top down. You’ll be able to throw out that window cleaner, and make way less smoke on start up. Also you won’t have to keep opening the door to mess with the wood.

 

[Caw]

Order next year's wood now. Actually, get ahead of the game and order the next 2 years. The wood you burn in 2 years will be absolutely wonderful.

This is the winning strategy. I think especially in your first year, which I am. I will have processed about 13-14 cords this past calendar year when all said and done in anticipation of burning 3-4 cords a year:

- 3 cords burned so far. I started off with really crappy old poplar/butternut that was like tinder and I started early cause I wanted to use my new toy...so this number is inflated. If I had good wood and started on schedule I think I'd be at about 2 cords consumed.
- 5 cords racked drying
- 2 cords C/S/S in my driveway waiting to be moved to the wood racks. Too much snow now for the tractor.
- 3-4 cords in rounds in my driveway waiting to be split.

I cant stress enough how important it is to get ahead. It's been a TON of work but I'm going to be sitting pretty moving forward. I'll just need to keep up with my annual consumption (and maybe more if the wife let's me add more racks ) and I'll always be ahead 2-3 years.

Here's my driveway today...just got done bucking about 1.5 cords. Only a few logs left but my back started acting up and the snow was really coming down. I'll finish this week. Then the next month or two is Fiskars time!

 

[PistolPeets]

Nice video. Thanks for the idea on the cinder/concrete block wood rack idea. I never thought of that, but it looks like a cheap and easy way to stack wood. I'm sure you'll learn every year you burn wood like I have.

 

[Caw]

I've taken the block and timber idea to the extreme in my yard. It's very functional and affordable. Though when you take into account the current ridiculous lumber prices and make a many as I have it all adds up:

 

[Highbeam]

If you buy any wood now and its anywhere clsoe to burnable I would be hugely surprised.

It’s all about money. I would sell my sweet 14% fuel if the price was right!

 

[jetsam]

I've taken the block and timber idea to the extreme in my yard. It's very functional and affordable. Though when you take into account the current ridiculous lumber prices and make a many as I have it all adds up

Look up portable chainsaw mills if you live in the woods!

Another thing you can do is go get some small standing dead cedars (pretty common around here because the big pines crowd them out after they get so big). If they're small enough you can rip them with just a tablesaw and stop buying PT 3x5. Cedar lasts pretty well outside (not as good as PT but hey it's free). They make good poles and landscape timbers.

 

[brazilbl]

If you are jammed for your wood supply. Check out compressed bricks at Tractor Supply or feed stores. Another option is North Idaho Energy Logs, which you can use that guarantees you will have dry wood (bricks or logs) to get you through.

This is what I used on my first year burning. Was pleasantly surprised with the logs and their performance. Needless to say after the first year, I planned on doubling my wood usage and planned inventory based on that!

I think all of remember our first year and our heap of ignorance and mistakes. Hang out here, you will learn. This place is my “University of Wood”...

 

[Caw]

If you are jammed for your wood supply. Check out compressed bricks at Tractor Supply or feed stores. Another option is North Idaho Energy Logs, which you can use that guarantees you will have dry wood (bricks or logs) to get you through.

This is good advice just a word of caution if you go this route:

* Do not stuff your stove full of these things! *

They burn much hotter than cord wood. If you toss 3 on hot coals you could have a big problem. I'd start with 1 and see how that goes then adjust accordingly. Every stove is different.

 

[brazilbl]

Never had more than one in the box. I have heard stories about this. NIELS recommendation is no more than two.

 

[Tron]

Though when you take into account the current ridiculous lumber prices and make a many as I have it all adds up:

That's why I build remesh silos. About $50 for the mesh and holds about 1.5 full cords. No stacking, either, just toss it in, and the wood dries very well.

 

[ADDvanced]

If you buy any wood now and its anywhere clsoe to burnable I would be hugely surprised.

I found a local dude that had some kiln dried stuff, sent pics of the oven and everything. Freshly split an it's at 13% moisture reading. Nice. For some reason it's coaling a bit more tho? Idk what kind of wood it is tho.

Yeah, well, I live in the woods, with 1 acre. My neighbor has 30 acres, she doesn't care if I cut down dead stuff, so I've been poaching that. The biggest issue I have is once I cut up a log into rounds.... I can't split them! I have a splitting maul and give her everything, but most of the time the wood won't pop. They say you're supposed to split the rounds to help the wood dry out, but I typically can't split the rounds unless they GET more dried out. I don't have a splitter so I'm chopping everything manually since it's fun, but IDK how you people split all this stuff. I'm 180lbs... not a huge guy, but not small either. Does everyone have power splitters or what?

 

[Caw]

Certain woods coal more than others. If you're used to burning soft woods like pine which hardly coals at all then switch to a true hardwood like oak you'll notice a big difference in coaling. If you share some pics of the wood we might be able to ID it for you. The other reason for lots of coals is under seasoned wood but it sounds like that's not the case here.

I'm 6'2 180 lbs and do the majority of my splitting by hand. I use an 8 lb Fiskars maul to break the big rounds then a 36" Fiskars splitting axe for the rest. Im splitting exclusively hardwoods like Maple, Oak, Ash, and Cherry... in that order by volume. Most of the rounds are 12 to 18" ish up to the ocassional big boy 24-26". Biggest log I got so far this year was a 26" cherry that was 8 feet long...tons of wood in there! My neighbor let's me borrow his splitter whenever I want but I enjoy hand splitting. A few beers and some friends and its a good afternoon.

Red Oak is by far the easiest to split. Barely have to try unless its got a big knot. Ash is also pretty easy but can be a little stringy. Cherry can be a bit of a pita as it's very stringy and tends to have wavy grain. Maple is a total gamble. If it's straight grained it's a piece of cake but it often grows twisted and knotted if it was a yard tree. Other random stuff I've gotten thats real tough is Box Elder...yuck...not worth the effort unless using a splitter.

For the big boy rounds I make sure any visible knots are on the bottom and on the opposite side of me. I look for a natural crack to start. Aim for the outer portion, not dead center. Keep the round on the ground so it's not raised up...you'll get more power. You gotta make a big old swing, big arc, and come down with everything you got. I find yelling helps and is cathartic lol. I've even jumped into my swings to get more power when needed. You do need to know when to quit though...sometimes it just isn't gonna happen. Let it sit for a bit and try again later or put it in the "needs a splitter" pile. Not every round is hand splittable but most are.

Proper technique, good equipment, alcohol, yelling, music, friends/family...all very helpful lol.

 

[Rockey]

So everyone here is going to focus right in on the firewood/hearth aspect of this thread and skip right over the mention off a 911 engine?? Even if someone here has ignored all advice and hung out on the hearth.com waiting patiently for years for someone to come along and help out with a 911 engine rebuild?? What kind of crazy world do we live in!!?

Im just here, hanging out trying to keep warm and figure out a boost leak on an 991.2 TS I just picked up. Makes sense, right?

 

[Sailrmike]

So everyone here is going to focus right in on the firewood/hearth aspect of this thread and skip right over the mention off a 911 engine?? Even if someone here has ignored all advice and hung out on the hearth.com waiting patiently for years for someone to come along and help out with a 911 engine rebuild?? What kind of crazy world do we live in!!?

Im just here, hanging out trying to keep warm and figure out a boost leak on an 991.2 TS I just picked up. Makes sense, right?

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I'd wrather take that out for a spin than deal with this wood heat nonsense, anyday!