Efficient Firewood Handling

This topic has 29 replies, 16 voices, and was last updated 13 years, 7 months ago by FELLMAN.

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April 5, 2011 at 10:51 am #42596
Does’ Leap
Participant
We burn quite a bit of firewood. We have an outdoor wood boiler which heats our house and dairy. I burn firewood year-round b/c I we heat the hot water for our dairy, cheese facility, and home as well. This amounts to substantial savings for us not having to heat all that hot water with propane. Between us and our farm tenant house, I estimate we burn around 25 chords.
I like processing firewood. It is gratifying, honest work and seeing those neatly stacked rows of wood is payment in itself. That said, I would like to be as efficient as possible as this amounts to a substantial amount of labor.
I am curious how folks go about putting up their firewood. What are all the tips, tricks, techniques, and tools you use to heat your homes (or sell firewood for that matter)? One rule I try to live by is to handle the wood as little as possible. I usually skid wood to a landing about a quarter mile from my house. I lay bunks across a depression and pile the wood with a front-end loader when my landing gets to crowded. I block it on the pile and move my splitter back and forth along the length of the blocked pile. I then move it to the boiler with a wagon which fits a 1/2 chord. This works o.k. as I only handle the wood (not counting splitting) twice – once in the wagon and once out of the wagon on the stack. In the winter, I also yard wood right to the boiler and block, split and stack it right there. Depending on how close to the stack I can get it, this might be only handling the wood once.
This summer we will be building a new barn that will include a large woodshed to house the boiler and 20 chords of wood. I have seen sugar makers (the masters of firewood!) around here use old manure handling systems – boxes that run on metal tracks (not sure of the proper name). I hope to get set up with one of these (anyone know of one for sale in Vermont?)
In terms of tools, I am a big fan of the pulp hook. I had been processing firewood for years before someone introduced me to this great tool. Most of my splitting is done hydraulically, but I recently purchased a Fiskers splitting maul. For easy-splitting wood like ash and white birch, it is faster than a splitter – also a great tool.
George
April 5, 2011 at 12:58 pm #66602
Jim Ostergard
Participant
George
You sure use much more wood than I do. I gave up the pulp hook after about 30 years of using one in favor of the pickeroon. I have a short one I use on four foot wood and a longer one that works well of eight foot sticks. Seems they give more leverage and less stress due to less bending and lifting.
For getting my wood from the wood-lot to the house I put a sheet of plywood on my scoot ( pictures in the gallery, single horse category or under J) and have some stake sides and ends that fit the stake pockets. This makes a handy rig for fitting the wood right in the wood-lot, load it up and haul it to the wood shed.
Jim
April 5, 2011 at 2:31 pm #66615
mink
Participant
george my brother-in-law built a building -woodshed like i think you are wanting to. one word of caution dont put the outside burner under the roof as the smoke stays trapped when you open the door . i have my woodburner about 7 feet in front of my woodshed so i can run the tractor between the 2 for snow removal and filling the shed.i had my outside burner for 6 winters so far and i think their just the cats nuts. i havent burned a quarter tank of heating oil since. one guy i know has a shed and he just pushes wood into it with his tractor , thats a saver if you have a big enough shed.
April 5, 2011 at 3:14 pm #66607
grey
Participant
My firewood handling regimen is terribly inefficient. They say that firewood is the fuel that heats you twice. Mine heats me about five times. I’ll be paying attention to the ideas and advice in this thread.
April 6, 2011 at 3:55 am #66620
PhilG
Participant
George,
what kind of boiler do you have? the boilers we have been looking into say you don’t need to cut and split wood but that you can put in 3′ – 4′ pieces? Are you able to do that with yours or dose it just work better cut and split? if you can burn long lengths you can get slab wood from sawmills cheep maybe to help offset cutting that much wood from your own woods, I know I have given away many semi loads of slabs to who ever would take them away.
Phil
April 6, 2011 at 10:02 am #66611
dominiquer60
Moderator
We have a Tarm indoor furnace that we love. It is very efficient and for a two family house is takes 10+ cord a year. The better the wood the less it takes, we tend to only use dead/dieing trees or limb wood from two neighbors recent logging jobs on their lands. We fell, buck and put it in a dump cart. We have a trap door on our porch that lifts and we dump into a room in the cellar right next to the boiler/laundry room. We tend to harvest smaller diameter stuff, but if we need to split we have and wedge and a small electric splitter in the room. If we have larger diameter stuff, we generally collect it in one place next to the stacks for winter, when we get to it we split stack and cover. In the winter we can get a cart load or tractor bucket load of wood and dump into the wood room.
It probably doesn’t help you much, but to anyone reading that has an indoor furnace adjacent to a long porch, this works great to be able to back up and dump. Digging out the wood room and making concrete walls took Gramps a bit of work, but it is slick.
Erika
April 6, 2011 at 11:21 am #66598
Rod
Participant
I have a central Boiler outdoor furnace and uses 14 cords between Thanksgiving and the first of March. After and before that we use the wood stove in the house. Ours heats the house, hot water and my shop which get shut off when I am not using it. The best system I have found is to get some teenagers to cut and stack the wood. But that does not always work out. We burn mostly down trees, slabs do not work out well because they require too much volume to get any heat. The best pieces are the big ones and green is not a problem in fact I like green wood because it lasts longer. I do not split anything for the furnace but cut it shorter if it’s too large to handle. My furnace takes 54″ wood but I find 3′ is the best length piled close to the door end so as to capture most of the heat. I put a small load in twice a day unless I am going to be away then I can stuff it full and it will go for two days.
Mostly I have been cutting to wood to length where it is lying and put it in the back of my mechanical mule. I use Jenny my living mule to pull the poles out to out wood roads for processing to length on the spot. This year I am going to use the single horse firewood forwarder to move the wood to my furnace area where I can cut it to length and stack it it the sheds. This will mean loading the 10-12′ poles once onto the forwarder and removing the cut wood from their to the shed stack. The wood cutting to length will all be done at standing height as will the off loading which should save my back and minimize bending to pick the piece up something that helps my bad knee. The forwarder can either be pulled with the single horse arch (walking for me ) or my forecart (riding ).
My sheds which hold 14 cords are in a L shape arranged up-wind and 10′ away from and facing the the furnace door. This is very convenient and we have no problem with smoke or wind as we load. The furnace is 200′ for the house and I wish it was closer because their is a lot of heat loss in the underground piping in that distance.
April 6, 2011 at 12:18 pm #66623
FELLMAN
Participant
This is a interesting thread for me, but im not familiar with the term cords of firewood, is a cord a ton ? or a cubic meter or something ??
April 6, 2011 at 12:34 pm #66617
Andy Carson
Moderator
A cord is a stack of wood 4x4x8 feet or 128 cubic feet in volume. This is a somewhat arbitrary unit of measure that is (as far as I am aware) only used to measure firewood in the US. Still, it’s a very standard measure here. A cord is about 3.6 cubic meters to our european friends.
April 6, 2011 at 12:54 pm #66603
Does’ Leap
Participant
Thanks for the replies. Jim, my wife gave me a pickeroon for my birthday (“keep at that wood honey”:)). I found, at least with frozen wood, it doesn’t sink as well as a pulp hook. I am eager to try it again on thawed wood. Phil, I have a central boiler. Any wood that is too heaving to handle (a.k.a the “hernia-makers”, I cut to length and split. The balance gets tossed in whole. Rod, any chance you can snap a few pictures of your woodshed / boiler set-up. Also, how do you heat your shop? This new barn we are building will have a 30×30 shop and I am planning on putting a 47,000 btu Modine unit heater in it.
George
April 6, 2011 at 4:07 pm #66624
FELLMAN
Participant
@Countymouse 26138 wrote:
A cord is a stack of wood 4x4x8 feet or 128 cubic feet in volume. This is a somewhat arbitrary unit of measure that is (as far as I am aware) only used to measure firewood in the US. Still, it’s a very standard measure here. A cord is about 3.6 cubic meters to our european friends.
Ah, i understand now thankyou very much Countrymouse.
April 6, 2011 at 5:50 pm #66608
near horse
Participant
@Does’ Leap 26139 wrote:
…….Also, how do you heat your shop? This new barn we are building will have a 30×30 shop and I am planning on putting a 47,000 btu Modine unit heater in it.
George
Hey George,
One of my neighbors has a big shop (like 18 ft ceilings) that’s not even at their home place (so you can’t fire up the heater and then go have coffee while it warms up). They have a good sized wood stove in there BUT they drive off the initial cold by running a 300,000 BTU construction heater for a bit(I think it runs on diesel). Then the stove doesn’t have to work so hard to heat up the shop from lo temps – saves wood but not money.
April 6, 2011 at 7:31 pm #66599
Rod
Participant
@Does’ Leap 26139 wrote:
… Rod, any chance you can snap a few pictures of your woodshed / boiler set-up. Also, how do you heat your shop? This new barn we are building will have a 30×30 shop and I am planning on putting a 47,000 btu Modine unit heater in it.
George
Hi George
Photos are below. I use a Modine also, shop is 24×36′ insulated. The hot water runs through the unit all the time but I shut the fan off when I am not using the shop. Temperatures run between 40 and 70 or so depending on the outside conditions and length of time between uses.
April 6, 2011 at 8:21 pm #66618
mitchmaine
Participant
my neighbor has an interesting way of putting up his wood. off and on from september through spring, he goes in his woodlot with a saw and a maul and cuts and splits his wood right on the stump. he and his wife rick it up in a rough pile and move around making little piles here and there. then in august they drive out with his pickup and load it up and pile it in their shed. don’t think he even has a hook. pretty simple and effective. nice dry wood.
April 6, 2011 at 9:29 pm #66604
Does’ Leap
Participant
Rod, thanks for the pictures. Do you know how many btus your modine is rated for. I am considering 2 smaller units instead of one big one. How well does the one heat your shop? How high are your ceilings? I am thinking of constant cycling to the heater as well and kicking the fan on with a thermostat when I need it.
Geoff, I plan to have a remote starter so I don’t have to get off my lounger to start the thing. Just kidding. I am so used to working in unheated space that any heat, even while warming, will be a luxury. However, any excuse for a cup of coffee is welcome.
George
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