Outdoor Wood Furnace Info
All-Purpose OWF Discussions => Fire Wood => Topic started by: silver star on December 02, 2016, 06:55:39 PM
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When I first got my furnace , I posted on my car website, asking if anyone else used an owb. Typical replies about wasting time and work. One guy used the term wood slave, being obsessed with fallen trees, and throughout the year looking for and cutting etc. he knew a guy who was always making it a priority, always begging off other activities and obliging his children to help him. The kids moved out as soon as they were able.
Anyone feel they have too much fun messing in the woods, cutting,stacking, burning ? I only look for wood around the property which needs cut anyhow. Found a tree across a logging road tonight. Going to gobble it up first thing in the morning. I find every good productive hour equals a week of burning.
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I don't have a wood lot to turn to for my wood supply, I get it delivered log length. But, last year one of my neighbors asked if I ever stop stop working? I replied, no, you get old that way (I do take Sunday's off for church and then get in a much football as I can). Us boys used to help our dad cut the wood supply when we were younger; worked the family farm, etc... but it didn't kill us. Every one of my brothers heat with wood (I'm the only one who has an outdoor wood boiler). My dad is the person who instilled the work ethic that's carried us through our occupations. So, am I wood slave? No, I prefer to look at it as part of my wellness program. :) Roger
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No doubt, its a labor intensive way to heat your home. I've gotten that "your crazy" look more then once over the years. I guess I just enjoy cutting, splitting and stacking wood. Like they say, if its something you like to do, then its not going to feel like work.
Spending a December afternoon cutting wood is something i actually look forward to.
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We own several hundred acres and rent over a thousand more, all of it has fencerows that need cleaned and you can only shove dead trees back into a fencerow for so long, would be a sin to just leave the stuff to rot. Out of what we own fifty of that is woods, turns a woods into a real mess if you never cut the tops after it’s logged.
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Well as a slave I can heat my home to 78 degrees and my hot water to 170 in northern Maine for 7 months out of the year at the low price of 1200 bucks and not even get mad if the doors are left open. The exercise is part of the game. I am completely different than my parents they would never even mow their own lawn where I refuse to get a riding mower as long as these legs keep working I will push mow my 1/2 acre of hilly grass and cut and split my 8 to 10 cords a year.
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One of the reasons I went with a wood pellet/shelled corn with a bulk storage solution. As soon as I get the bulk bin and automation system up all I will have to do is clean out the ash! :thumbup:
Neal
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One of the reasons I went with a wood pellet/shelled corn with a bulk storage solution. As soon as I get the bulk bin and automation system up all I will have to do is clean out the ash! :thumbup:
Neal
How does wood pellets compare to Nat gas or LP? seems like they are always over $200/ton around here.
I was working on a prototype corn burner at one time, had it working well enough then corn got over the break even point and never messed with it again.
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Oh yeah, for me, I enjoy being in the woods cutting. Figure i wouldnt be there otherwise. I have fifty acres which needs fence rows cleaned, and 600 acres that the owners allows my brother and I to hunt on. Always blow downs across logging paths which need cleared.
I suspect if i lived on a little property with an OWB, i would just have a dump truck of mill refuse delivered and call it good, rather than chasing potential tree cutting opportunities.
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One of the reasons I went with a wood pellet/shelled corn with a bulk storage solution. As soon as I get the bulk bin and automation system up all I will have to do is clean out the ash! :thumbup:
Neal
How does wood pellets compare to Nat gas or LP? seems like they are always over $200/ton around here.
I was working on a prototype corn burner at one time, had it working well enough then corn got over the break even point and never messed with it again.
There is nothing that can compete with the cost of Natural gas, however there is no service offered out here on the farm. LP has been on the rise lately.
I got my pellets for $180 a ton, corn (free since we farm it) would cost about $95 or so a ton at $2.50 a bushel. I use a figure of $135 a ton after mixing.
Corn skyrocketed up several years ago, but now is dirt cheap.
Right now I am about at $3.70-$4.00 a day cost of fuel, depending on temp.
Neal
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Depends on where you’re at far as basis I imagine, delivering mine to the ethanol plant for a little over $3.75/bushel.
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I've worked for a natural gas and electric utility for 39 years and you are correct that for the masses, natural gas is a very good option for heating, especially since fracking has taken off unlocking the worlds largest gas reserves right here in USA and driving prices down (imagine what it could be if we got this terrible administration out of the way). The most efficient heating source right now is Geothermal at approximately 500% efficient. The down side is that it is very costly to install and for most installs needs space for the loop field. The pay back depends on the fluctuating cost of the fuel it replaces but it will pay for itself in fuel savings.
Heating with wood or corn, even owning your own wood or corn, is not free heat. You have the cost of your heating unit, installation, maintenance, chainsaws, wood splitter, gas, oil, electricity, vehicles, trailer, tools, safety gear, tax on land, other things I've forgotten not to mention your own labor (your time always has worth even if you like doing it).
Bottom line, nothing is free except for the obama welfare class and us working people pay for that. Hopefully that is coming to an end.
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Yeah nothing is free for sure , but it does keep me out of the house and the wife doesn't complain about my buying new toys if she thinks we need them to cut and split the wood. I've scored 2 new chainsaws and another tractor since we hooked up our boiler all because we "needed it" ;D We all have plenty of things to do but I would rather be a slave to the wood pile than some of the other things the wife could come up with.
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My greatest disappointment now is when the weather is to bad to get to go cut some wood. After three years on the farm that came with a wood boiler, I enjoy cutting wood. Good excersize. I have a 82 year old friend that no longer burns wood, but still wants me to come over and cut some logs up that he has piled up for me. He still likes to cut and can out work me.
Last week another friend put me in custodial care of a 661 c Stihl chainsaw, I could not wait till Saturday to get to use it. Used a gallon and a half of premix by myself in one day, another first!
A good day, is a day outdoors with my chainsaw.
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I agree guys, even after 38 years of burning wood I always like getting out to the woods and it is good exercise not to mention feeling good about providing my own heat source.
Cooling off good here now, down in the teens tonight with wind chills in the single digits and supposed to continue for the foreseeable future. Hope we get enough snow to start riding snowmobiles soon.
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Now I was a slave to my old one and it only heated the house and sidewalk, so far I’ve been going out and using the Polaris Ranger topping the ash out that I’ve dropped, try to do this every day or every other day, already have a few weeks worth of wood cut. Ashes that had no leaves on them this summer are 22% or under already. Get enough logs lined up then I’ll run the processor for a day or two and have a years worth of wood.
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I've been told that ash is one of the only woods that needs almost no seasoning time to be ready to burn. I have found this to be true with the ash we have cut around here.
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I've been told that ash is one of the only woods that needs almost no seasoning time to be ready to burn. I have found this to be true with the ash we have cut around here.
Used to have a chart at one of the local hay auctions, it said ash was one of the best woods to burn green if you had to burn unseasoned wood.
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The power company up here is cutting down trees all up and down the side of the road like they are a logging company on a clearing job. They leave all the wood and chip the tops. It's usually like the wild west with people out there trying to grab what they can , but there is a lot of bigger logs and it's been cold last couple days. Good for me I have a loader and I don't mind the cold. I could have most of my wood for next year in a couple days if I wanted to work at it. :thumbup:
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This is how I got my wood boiler, I saw all that free wood on the side of the road! I went and got a pick up load in about five minutes for our fire pit and said to my wife we should switch to wood ! I never herd of a wood boiler before I came across one on the internet and here we are about 7 years later I still haven't paid for wood yet I have tree guys bringing it to me for free all cut to about 20 in or so it's not the best wood but it's free wood and free is for me!
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I found out that they are going to keep cutting from all the roads around here so I went and looked at a dump trailer today. a little rough , but I could fix it if the price came down. I figured this would make it really easy to collect all that wood. Fill the trailer with the loader and only handle it once :)
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I always thought wood cutting was getting one with nature . and fresh smell of 2 stoke oil and fresh cut oak ..
and the echo of a screaming husqavarna .. wood slave naaaaaaaaa LOL
heat550
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Wood slave, is that when you drool over trees you see the town cutting down? They are clearing near the highway out our way, just over the guard rails. Bad news is they chip it all. I was getting lots of free wood via craigslist but now I am too late if it's over a few hours old. I think someone gets it and sells it. I still have a few good leads and I am expanding my path out back. Kind of rough out there but I think it's doable.
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Power company was cutting again today on my street. I couldn't get the saw and the tractor started fast enough when I saw them cutting white oak next door to my house. I grabbed one load with the wood vultures hanging nearby waiting to see what I left em. I got a good cord and left some scraps. Another pile down the road , bet someone is on it by morning if they aren't out there tonight. I'll let someone else have some I have a wood lot to cut off of and I got my share.
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Got in trouble today. I was cutting up trees the power company had cut down and the land owner showed up. I told him I didn't know anyone wanted the wood , it's been there a while and it just off the side of the road. Turns out he knew my father and he let me have what I had cut up. He left and I went up the road to get some on the other side of the road and the tree company that cut the trees came by and they were picking up the wood. I got a couple cords in a couple days before I got shut down. :thumbup:
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It's like that around by me as well. Don't touch it unless you have permission. I found about a cord of red oak near my inlaws that was laying in the road ditch for months and months so I decided to cut it up and load up a few truck bed loads. I was reading in the paper a few days later and saw an article about people stealing firewood and this would be prosecuted. Guess what one of the addresses was. Lol oops.
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Many times utilitys dont actually own the land they run across. Theres usually an easement placed on the deed to the land that gives them access to it, but the land owner still owns the property and everything on it.
If they happen to be cutting within the the road right of way it might be fair game, but if its beyond that, it probably belongs to the land owner. Either way, it wouldn't hurt to knock on some doors and ask permission. If they don't burn wood, they'll more than likely be happy to get rid of it.
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It's like that around by me as well. Don't touch it unless you have permission. I found about a cord of red oak near my inlaws that was laying in the road ditch for months and months so I decided to cut it up and load up a few truck bed loads. I was reading in the paper a few days later and saw an article about people stealing firewood and this would be prosecuted. Guess what one of the addresses was. Lol oops.
Yeah, the shame is they probably had no intention of cutting it until it was missing. My power supplier had a Jihad against the trees that might affect sevice. Seems to be working. Power outage in Winter was a common occurrance. Last three years, hardly an issue. They cut four along my property and since I didnt make an issue over it, they took down a maple in the front yard that needed to go.
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I work for an electric and gas utility. Virtually never do we own the land our lines are on. Even when they are at the edge of road right of way, the trees still belong to the land owner. Unless it is a limited access highway (fenced) the land owner owns to the middle of the highway so any trees in road right of way belong to the land owner.
A friend and I unknowingly cut some trees we thought were on the land we had permission to cut on. The owners were from a long ways away but we found their contact info and called them to apologize. They were thankful we contacted them and gave us permission to cut all the dead red oak we wanted as this parcel is land locked by a railroad track. They were glad is wasn't going to waste and appreciated us making rabbit brush piles for them.
Just like we tell our hunter education students, ask permission first and you may be surprised by the answer.
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I work for an electric and gas utility. Virtually never do we own the land our lines are on. Even when they are at the edge of road right of way, the trees still belong to the land owner. Unless it is a limited access highway (fenced) the land owner owns to the middle of the highway so any trees in road right of way belong to the land owner.
A friend and I unknowingly cut some trees we thought were on the land we had permission to cut on. The owners were from a long ways away but we found their contact info and called them to apologize. They were thankful we contacted them and gave us permission to cut all the dead red oak we wanted as this parcel is land locked by a railroad track. They were glad is wasn't going to waste and appreciated us making rabbit brush piles for them.
Just like we tell our hunter education students, ask permission first and you may be surprised by the answer.
That's like hitting the lottery. I wish :)
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I work for an electric and gas utility. Virtually never do we own the land our lines are on. Even when they are at the edge of road right of way, the trees still belong to the land owner. Unless it is a limited access highway (fenced) the land owner owns to the middle of the highway so any trees in road right of way belong to the land owner.
A friend and I unknowingly cut some trees we thought were on the land we had permission to cut on. The owners were from a long ways away but we found their contact info and called them to apologize. They were thankful we contacted them and gave us permission to cut all the dead red oak we wanted as this parcel is land locked by a railroad track. They were glad is wasn't going to waste and appreciated us making rabbit brush piles for them.
Just like we tell our hunter education students, ask permission first and you may be surprised by the answer.
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You don’t even want to guess how many asshats I run off our property that are “just out mushroom hunting” etc. Used to be really bad with poachers, we only allow a few people to hunt our property, the game wardens know who they are and know we will gladly press charges, it’s not near the problem it used to be.
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I can't belame ya mlappin. Our family shares 1200 acres with 4 of us using the wood it supply's to heat our home. I've been out on the tractor and come across some mushroomers that we're well past our marked property stakes. Clearly marked. I was pretty rude but I got my point across. I told them if u want to pay my land taxes this year I'll be glad to share, until then u better be steppin or I will be pressing charges!
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I just tell em my wife would really like to find some mushrooms once in awhile on land that my family paid for and that I’m paying the property taxes on before some a**holes from the cities either take em all or walk em down. Got bad enough there for awhile she wouldn't even go out by herself to mushroom hunt, having the Polaris Ranger for her to use instead of walking it all has made her a lot braver.
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Glad it has gotten better for u! Our land butts up next to arrowhead campground so as you can imagine, it never ends.
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I started this conversation and don't get me wrong I would always ask for permission if I wanted to cut wood or hunt or anything else on someones property. There are plenty of people who will let me do about anything I want on their land as I have been fair to them. The wood I was cutting was on the side of a public road and not near any ones house even. I wasn't even sure why the person stopped at first I thought he was asking if anyone could take the wood. He was very nice to me and I even offerered to cut what he wanted to keep for him. No harm done , but I'll be going back to cutting on the wood lot , don't need the wood on the road that bad , just convienent.
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Finally got some firm figures on what it cost us to run our Geothermal last year versus buying wood. Even with Ontario hydro being the most expensive in North America I can run the geo for the same price as paying $60/ bush cord of dry maple.....
Burnt about 12 bush cords heating our two houses (and domestic water) so far this year.
Spent just over $5000 for Logstor pipe last summer so even burning our "free" wood from out back, it will be a few years to break even.