Your Favorite Part of Wood Burning

[begreen]

Yes a summit used 2 seasons. If I can get it at the right price I want to try it out

Awesome. Good luck.

 

[KBCraig]

My favorite part is that every day is a new learning adventure about how to light the fire, how to maintain it, how often to clean ashes, and just the joy of watching a fire kick into reburn mode in my glass-front EPA insert.

 

[Ashful]

... and so it begins.

 

[vbu]

My favorite part is watching the fire, and getting the house to a temperature to where the wife wears the wardrobe I prefer her to wear, without spending money on natural gas

I don't mind the cutting/bucking or splitting, but the stacking is what I don't care for. I split a huge pile over the summer, waiting for my woodshed to be built. My woodshed is just about done, and I'm already dreading filling it up

 

[Newbie78]

Get wifey to help on a really warm day.

 

[Ashful]

I don't mind the cutting/bucking or splitting, but the stacking is what I don't care for. I split a huge pile over the summer, waiting for my woodshed to be built. My woodshed is just about done, and I'm already dreading filling it up

Split right next where you stack, such that every piece comes right off the splitter (or splitting pedestal) to the stack, with no extra process involved. Here's my workflow:

1. Fell tree, buck to 15 foot logs
2. Skid logs onto trailer, bring home
3. Lift logs off trailer, stack in a pile by year.
4. Then sometime later... park splitter next to where I'll be stacking.
5. Roll log off oldest pile, mark and buck to 18" lengths
6. Roll rounds into bucket of front end loader, lift, drive to splitter
7. With loader bucket parked next to splitter at hip height, swing each round out of bucket and onto splitter beam.
8. Split, let log catcher on splitter fill up with splits
9. Grab splits off log catcher when full, stack
10. Repeat steps 5-9, ad-nauseum

 

[nola mike]

They’re all hard to start, due to the direct drive hydro pump, but ones with bigger pumps are obviously hardest. You can run a lower viscosity hydro fluid, particularly if you’re only using it in cooler weather, and that should help.

You could also convert it to electric start, as I did with mine a few years back. See if there’s a variant of your engine with electric start option, and either buy the parts required to convert, or just swap engines. If there’s no variant of your engine with electric start, then find a replacement that will fit, based on HP, exhaust location, shaft orientation. Make an electric cord set that allows you to plug it into your tractor for starting, if you want to avoid having to mount a battery on it. I made my cord set out of some cheap jumper cables, cutting off the clamps and replacing with forklift batter connectors (50A).

I did this a few years ago, and thank myself every January, when that big pump is full of cold fluid. I only use the electric for the initial cold start, it’s much easier to pull after warming up.

Can you start it by throwing a drill on the flywheel? I've done that on countless small engines over the years when trying to repair them. Btw, this thread is making me want to sit in front of the stove and start drinking.

 

[bholler]

Split right next where you stack, such that every piece comes right off the splitter (or splitting pedestal) to the stack, with no extra process involved. Here's my workflow:

1. Fell tree, buck to 15 foot logs
2. Skid logs onto trailer, bring home
3. Lift logs off trailer, stack in a pile by year.
4. Then sometime later... park splitter next to where I'll be stacking.
5. Roll log off oldest pile, mark and buck to 18" lengths
6. Roll rounds into bucket of front end loader, lift, drive to splitter
7. With loader bucket parked next to splitter at hip height, swing each round out of bucket and onto splitter beam.
8. Split, let log catcher on splitter fill up with splits
9. Grab splits off log catcher when full, stack
10. Repeat steps 5-9, ad-nauseum

I split where ever I dump the load of rounds or next to the pile of logs I am cutting from. Then either throw the splits in the back of the dump truck and dump it in front of the stacks. Or make a big pile then push it over to the stacks with the snow plow.

 

[bholler]

It does help that I am processing in my big parking lot. I wouldn't push a pile across the lawn

 

[vbu]

Split right next where you stack, such that every piece comes right off the splitter (or splitting pedestal) to the stack, with no extra process involved. Here's my workflow:

1. Fell tree, buck to 15 foot logs
2. Skid logs onto trailer, bring home
3. Lift logs off trailer, stack in a pile by year.
4. Then sometime later... park splitter next to where I'll be stacking.
5. Roll log off oldest pile, mark and buck to 18" lengths
6. Roll rounds into bucket of front end loader, lift, drive to splitter
7. With loader bucket parked next to splitter at hip height, swing each round out of bucket and onto splitter beam.
8. Split, let log catcher on splitter fill up with splits
9. Grab splits off log catcher when full, stack
10. Repeat steps 5-9, ad-nauseum

Yes that's my plan going forward, without the tractor to do the lifting for me, that is. I'm just dreading filling up my new 10+ cord woodshed, but after that it should be smooth sailing

 

[Ashful]

Can you start it by throwing a drill on the flywheel? I've done that on countless small engines over the years when trying to repair them. Btw, this thread is making me want to sit in front of the stove and start drinking.

I imagine you could, with the right drill, and if on a machine with access to flywheel or output shaft (eg. belt-drive variants). But it seems most commercial log splitters these days are set up with direct drive, most even having vertical engines with output on bottom like an old push mower. No access for the drill, on those.

 

[Ashful]

Yes that's my plan going forward, without the tractor to do the lifting for me, that is. I'm just dreading filling up my new 10+ cord woodshed, but after that it should be smooth sailing

I did that my first few years, starting with a wheelbarrow, and then quickly transitioning to a utility wagon behind a 50 year old Cub Cadet. Eventually this wood habit and other jobs around the property pushed me to buy a cheap old tractor with a front-end loader.

But that's another slippery slope, I've since transitioned to a brand new tractor that could pick up the first two tractors, together. Not the cheapest means to an end, but toys get bigger as you age into any hobby.

 

[vbu]

I did that my first few years, starting with a wheelbarrow, and then quickly transitioning to a utility wagon behind a 50 year old Cub Cadet. Eventually this wood habit and other jobs around the property pushed me to buy a cheap old tractor with a front-end loader.

But that's another slippery slope, I've since transitioned to a brand new tractor that could pick up the first two tractors, together. Not the cheapest means to an end, but toys get bigger as you age into any hobby.

That's how I started out too, borrowing a poulan chainsaw from a friend (never again!!) and renting a splitter for a day and running it 16+ hours together with my wife before returning it. I've since bought my own saw and splitter, and I'm finishing up a massive wood shed. I'm in the south so we don't even really get cold here lol. I can definitely see the slippery slope you're talking about, and I'm definitely going down it. However there's much worse ways to spend your time and money so as long as I enjoy it I don't mind. My wife will sometimes gripe about it during the summer, but I never hear a peep about it during the winter and its 76 in the living room lol

 

[GrumpyDad]

My favorite part? Not paying Superior Plus outrageous prices for heating oil and propane. After that, my favorite part is cutting, splitting, and stacking. I get a real sense of accomplishment out of it.

BUT have you ever done the math?
I have an unheated space that I bought a wood stove for, and without getting into that stove and why I dont like to use it, I bought a small electric heater that puts out enough BTUs to warm this area enough so that I can work in it (unfinished interior, work in progress that will take a long time as I rarely have the time to work on it and dont have the money nor can find anyone to do the work)
At first I thought well, I am going to pay an arm and a leg on heating with electric then I did the math. I actually come out AHEAD vs burning with wood.

A cord of wood, for me, costs me about .30 cents a split. When delivered, I have to resplit many of the pieces and then stack it, and of course store it, kindle it and then let's not forget about firing it and the cost of the 'stuff' we buy to burn wood and chimney cleaning, plus babysitting a stove.
So let's say my time and 'other' costs are worth .10 cents a split...bringing my total split cost up to .40 cents.

Im still pretty new to burning with a wood stove, but I burn 30 splits throughout a 24 cycle. That's $12 a day!
Right now, heating with wood is more economical with heating oil being $5 a gal. For us we would burn through 3 gal a day, So $15. By the end of the month we would save $90. $90 is $90 so yea, wood burning right now will save you money, but it wont (I hope) be long until wood burning is actually more costly.

I really thought it would be more economical when I jumped into wood burning. I had unicorn dreams that I would put in 5-6 medium/large splits and let that rip for 12 hours straight pumping heat into the room and the rest of the place. Those dreams fell flat fairly quickly. Even on secondary burn w/ cat installed recently and constant babysitting Im ripping through wood. The area being heated gets to an uncomfortable 77 degrees while the area next to it gets to maybe 67 even with a fan forcing cold air back into the heated space (I originally tried with the fan turn from the hot room to the cold).

Turning the knob on the furnace is SO much easier, and it heats the unconditioned space only 5 degrees cooler than the rest of the place.

So for me, the stove became a , ok well this is good in case we get 3' of snow and the power goes out for 3 days, or...for ambiance. Well ambiance is out of the question, as you rarely see a flame and that's IF your glass isnt black.

So now I really have a stove for a natural disaster only really at this point?

I love burning with wood. I have a fireplace and enjoy that SO much better than using the wood stove. I thought it was going to be the opposite once I got into the stove, but it is what it is. In hindsight, I probably should have gotten a large propane tank, and a propane generator to cover me for a natural disaster, that would allow me to run my heat AND my lights AND my refrigerator...something my stove can do. And I would have spent just as much.

 

[Ashful]

However there's much worse ways to spend your time and money so as long as I enjoy it I don't mind. My wife will sometimes gripe about it during the summer, but I never hear a peep about it during the winter and its 76 in the living room lol

My wife griped the first few years, esp. when I was wasting enormous amounts of time fighting with and constantly rebuilding my old Jotuls. With the new stoves and better equipment, the time investment plummeted, and now she's the first to ask, "when are you going to light the stoves?"

What I will say, having owned five tractors now, is that I've never lost a dollar on any of them, if you ignore inflation. By that, I mean I've sold every tractor for what I paid for it, even after owning for 10 years and putting many hundreds of hours on them. When I buy one in 2010 and sell it in 2020, the dollars I'm getting back are worth less (esp. today), but I always seem to get dollar for dollar on resale.

BUT have you ever done the math?

Yes, I have. Actually, many times. If you have to buy wood, it's going to make it much less attractive. Likewise, if you were only using $1000/year for your central heating... don't bother. But if your heating costs are over $10k/year, and wood is free with some hours of labor, it's really not hard to save some serious coin, especially if you have a salaried job.

Where I'm losing today is that I'm no longer salaried, I'm self-employed at an hourly rate that makes it pretty much impossible to recoup hours spent on handling firewood, but there really are only so many hours you can sanely spend at a desk looking at computer simulations.

 

[nola mike]

A cord of wood, for me, costs me about .30 cents a split.

Are you buying it at 7-11? You're either paying $1k+ per cord or burning 12" diameter splits.