What can you tell me about wood?, page 2
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reply posted on 9-3-2010 @ 09:31 PM by NotThat
reply to post by Terapin


That's pretty cool! I don't see me on the roof either. I hired an expert to clean it when I moved in, but you never know, it might come in handy to know how to do it myself.



reply posted on 9-3-2010 @ 09:35 PM by Terapin
reply to post by NotThat


Any snakes in a wood pile, would only be there for the insects or other food they could find there. Keep the wood off the ground so it gets air, and if snakes worry you, bang on the wood pile with a stout branch before you take any wood. The banging will scare off any snakes who are more scared of you than you are of them. Snakes like sunlight so wont be hiding deep in a wood pile for very long. Here in the US snakes like to live in holes in the ground when they are not getting sun. Woodpiles do not offer them the same protection or even temperatures that a hole in the ground does.

I have lived in the Amazon rainforest, and the jungles of Borneo and never once had any problems with snakes. Let them know you are there and they will simply go away.


reply posted on 10-3-2010 @ 04:31 PM by Terapin
reply to post by NotThat


Husquavarna is a famous brand of chain saw. How much wood? . . . Well it all depends on your local climate, and if wood will be your only heat source. I have friends who go through two cords of wood and others who only use half a cord. In my opinion, you can never have too much wood. If you don't burn it in the first year, you can use it the next and then you will get an idea of how much you need in general.

Wood stoves are more efficient than fireplaces, but you will need to have it installed and you can not simply put it in your fireplace as they have specific chimney requirements. Most states require that you install a chimney liner so there is added cost. If you plan on using wood to heat your home a wood stove is the way to go. If you just want a fire now and then a fireplace is fine.

Dual burner stoves have a secondary burning system to burn the wood gasses that usually escape up the chimney, and thus they can also burn of much of the soot and thereby allow you to burn Pine.

The house I grew up in was built around 1720 and had a huge central chimney. Two fireplaces in the second floor and three downstairs, plus a much larger " kitchen" fireplace on a separate chimney. We also had a Dutch Oven in one of the chimneys which allowed for baking bread or other Oven meals. You could keep a fire going in the central chimney, and it heated up the chimney mass so that the warm bricks would then keep the house warm. Each fireplace also had a crane arm so you could cook over the fire or heat water if you wished, by hanging a pot over the fire.


reply posted on 10-3-2010 @ 07:56 PM by NotThat
reply to post by Terapin


Hey, I was going to ask you how much wood was in a cord but first I clicked on the dark"cord" on your last post and got an answer! How fancy is that!!

So I have about half a cord. That's not too bad for free. I'll keep on looking. It has become a sort of treasure hunt. I fill up the back seat of my car with wood and go home, and add it to my stack.

I bought a ventless gas stove for my last house but the pilot was always going out and I had to lay on the floor to peer at a tiny gauge to re-light it. I didn't like it very much.

I was going to buy a pellet stove but they need electricity to shake the ash out of the pellets to keep it burning, and my area had frequent power outages. I didn't think a back-up battery would work well for a week long power outage.

I thought wood or coal would be too heavy for me to lug. I thought you had to empty the ash every few days and I didn't know what to do with it. It seemed complicated. But here in my new house I have a fireplace. I have burned a few fake logs this winter and didn't burn the house down. I enjoyed it so much that I decided to buy real wood so I could have bigger fires. Then all the trees came down - and here I am with free wood.

I got a shop vac for Christmas and it has a special filter and bag for fireplace ash. It looks really easy - not complicated at all

I saw a picture of a house with a central stone fireplace like the one you grew up with but I never came across one in person. I think I would like a house like that as long as someone else took care of all the fires!


reply posted on 11-3-2010 @ 05:18 AM by rnaa
Another trick that might be useful if you don't have much experience using a fireplace.


  • Make sure the damper is open before attempting to light the fire. Obvious, I know but smoke coming back into the room is definitely unpleasant and I have been caught out more than once.
  • Remember that cold air sinks. If you've just opened the damper and it is cold outside, you WILL have a column of outside temperature air in the chimney. That column of cold air does exactly the same job as a closed damper when it comes to forcing the smoke to back up into the room, ever heard the term 'temperature inversion'?. The secret is to warm up the chimney air before trying to light the fire.
  • I generally use a 'torch' made of wadded up newspaper to do the job. Scrunch up a newspaper page (or two) into a torch about a foot long and an inch or so thick light it and hold it up inside the chimney at about the level of the damper two pre-warm the chimney air. Don't burn yourself.
  • You may find that the smoke from this torch does back up into the room for the first few seconds. This is usually because you haven't been able to stick it far enough up the chimney and there isn't enough room for the smoke to be held inside. In practice, this seldom happens to me, but it is just a tiny bit of smoke compared to that generated by the newly lit kindling.
  • I find that it usually doesn't take much warming to solve the problem and one 'torch' does the job. YMMV, especially on very cold days.




reply posted on 12-3-2010 @ 12:36 PM by NotThat
reply to post by NotThat

Ha Ha Ha!! My new full wood rack is sinking into the dirt on one side and looks like it will soon fall over! I have to empty the rack and place the rack on cement blocks before I refill it. This is becoming alot of work for my free wood.
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