How much wood do you have left?

[Magicman]

Forty eight (48) poles landing on a two lane road.

That sounds like a chain reaction mess !!  :-\  No 500 but it could be 400.  That's big and heavy cable plus the strand and poles.

[Don P]

Those old phone poles sure ain't much. We're about out of stacked dry wood. A healthy pile of next years. We've been around home more than usual this winter and I haven't been bringing scrap home from a house job. I'll grab some standing dead locust for the duration. I've about decided they have made the decision easier. It would cost about the same to refill the monitor tank as to DIY a mini split and we would get summertime AC with it. When I first put the monitor in K1 was cheap enough I said "I'll never cut another stick of firewood". K1 has gone up over 4x since then and a few trees fall on the drive every year.

[Magicman]

Looks like my firewood is preserving itself.  I built a flicker (40º) this morning with 3 logs and I'll just let it die down and go out.  The highs look like will be in the 60º's for the rest of the week so no more wood will be burned.

[SwampDonkey]

Not even a morning smudge? 60° is kinda cool when it's damp. ;D

I have an opposite outlook on wood versus other sources. I'll be a lot older than I am now before I rely on anyone or anything else for my heat source. AC last summer  only ran 3 weeks and only 12 hr days even then. :D On this road most of us heat with wood or pellets. One old guy has a heat pump up the road  a step, and when it's cold, he's burn'n wood I can guarantee that. You just ask him what he thinks of heat pumps. :D

[Don P]

All new construction has been required to have some automatic method of heating here for some decades. Although I didn't until her Mom moved in with us. Use of that depends on how much we're home, there's about 8" left in the tank which should get us to spring, empty and pig cooker bound. We were talking yesterday, I do prefer the heat coming off a flame vs a slightly warm coil of wire. For sedentary folk they are in the warm all day. We come in cold to the bone and need to bask in the glow for awhile. Primary will probably always be wood heat and we use around 3 cords/yr but that has been going down pretty much at the same rate summers have called for some ac, we're in the fungal zone now. This is the third winter on that 200 gallons of K1. 

[SwampDonkey]

Yes, always a need for back up if you're away from home for a day or more. That's actually required by insurance more than anything. However, with no power, nothing else heats except a big window and sunshine on it, so not much of a back up plan if you have a heat pump. A gas fire place needs a fan to be much use outside a living room. Even without a generator I can still be warm on a forced air furnace. Convection and radiant. I can feel heat from the ducts with no fan on, clean up on the second floor. Duct and floor up there is insulated. I can remember heating an old house with no duct to second floor at all, never froze. Not 80° up there but high 60's in outages. The ice storm of 1998 was the worst ever in Canada, swept through from the Atlantic coast, westward into southern Ontario in February. Destroyed a lot of sugar bush. All we had was forced air furnace. In fact the original furnaces here were ductless, big steel grate over it, in the centre of the house. Convection and radiant off it. Plus a kitchen wood cook stove. I remember that clearly. Big woodsheds in those days, most people made them into car garages in later years. :D Dad was always cutting firewood ahead for several buildings. Days you didn't process potatoes you was on the end of a saw or an axe. :D Better construction and especially insulation cut back on the wood. :D I cut 3 more cord of wood than I really need because I can let the fire out all together and be warm for hrs during daylight. I don't even have a fire all night, who can sleep with 80+ heat?  not me. :D I have a grow tent, so I burn some wood to keep that warmer than the basement around it. I have a duct into the tent off the main furnace. My wood is free except time and a gallon of mixed gas a year. A lot cheaper than $5000 of stove oil, what ever you pay down there  x by 2.5 for our cost.
:D For away from home, the furnace has a side unit with 20,000 w electric element. Heats this place no trouble at all. And is not that expensive. In fact electric furnace was always installed with heat pump up here. Those weren't mini splits, they were probably at least twice as big. Used furnace duct and fan to move the heat because the trouble is it's on one end of the house. Where as a proper furnace is in the middle of a house.

[B.C.C. Lapp]

How much do I have left?   Its becoming painfully clear I don't have enough.   Oh I have plenty of wood.   Its DRY wood that's going fast.   
I'm cutting for my daughters house, its the first year with their new stove and they are burning more than expected.  I thought they would use about what i do but they are using more.   And I've sold more than ever in my racks (always referred to these days as "wacks" ) this year.

So I'm going to run low. I'm cutting a dead ash or two every day when I'm done logging, splitting it with a maul right there  and bringing home a row across the back of the pickup. Its keeping my stoves hot and extending what dry wood I have.   

[GRANITEstateMP]

I moved a trailer load of rough cut for one of my customers yesterday (he just doesn't have enough truck to pull or stop the trailer).  While hooking on I asked about trading next years firewood toward lumber for another wood shed.  He said, YES, he is running low and was going to have to buck up.some firewood that afternoon. Heading out to finish off a cord for him in a bit, got to get my inside chores done first!

[SwampDonkey]

Like I've always said, if it ain't summer the wood is burning. Consumption might fluctuate, but still need heat from somewhere. ;D It's only mid thirties here so far today, but I had a window up clean to the top and a smaller fire that is almost done by now. Good airing out, otherwise it would smell like lasagna in here. Guess what's for dinner. :D

[Wlmedley]

We've had mild weather so far in February. Still burning the stove but wood use has slowed down considerably. January was cold. I felt like a engineer on a steam train.

[Don P]

I just opened the door on the shop so it can warm up in there. I saw 65 yesterday. It is a soggy mess out there though, no off roadin.

[cutterboy]

I had a window up clean to the top and a smaller fire that is almost done by now. Good airing out, otherwise it would smell like lasagna in here. Guess what's for dinner. :D

Swamp D, I'd put the window up and suffer with the smell of lasagna.

[Al_Smith]

Looks like I'm good to go .Snatched a 60 foot log shag bark out from a 100 foot tree .I figured about 1.5 cords more or less .I might add that little Fergy pulled that thing like it was a feather .Good old tractor .

[SwampDonkey]

How big diameter Al? I got 2 cords from a 36" but diameter maple, 90 feet long.

[Al_Smith]

30 inch on the butt end with approx 15-16" mid by 60 feet .Grave yard standing dead .Hard as a rock and dry as a bone . The cord and a half is more related to weight and it's only a guess .I've had these hickories just die for reasons I have no idea .I let this  one stand  too long and the wind took it .However the wind did a better job on the lay than I could have .Dead on .

[SwampDonkey]

Definitely be more than a cord. Always figured a 20" dbh maple 80 feet long to get a cord with all the branch wood. Degrees latitude north affects tree height, just as elevation does. Up on Mars Hill I doubt a trees grows taller than 60 feet, but fat as a barrel on the but.

[Klunker]

To the original post I have enough wood for about 4 more winters all split and stacked under cover.
My current concern is I resupply so all my firewood storage is full in spring.
I do not venture into the woods with the tractor unless the ground is frozen.
Its been so warm that I think for the most part the ground is too soft on most days.
So I'm going to wait till late fall to refill my stores.
Hopefully next fall will be very cold with little snow until later.

[Wlmedley]

Been trying to straighten up the shed I store my lumber in. All my lumber was stickered and was plenty dry enough to flat stack so I have been trying to get it organized. Found out that quite a bit of it wasn't worth keeping. I hopefully have learned a lot in the last couple years. Had some hickory that most warped so bad I threw it out and boards where I left the pith cracked and bowed. At least now I know what I've got plus I found that boards burn really good in the stove. No bark to fall in the floor and they stack tight in the stove. So I guess all is not lost and I've got a couple weeks worth of wood . Poplar and pine will go in a brush pile and hardwood on the back porch.

[Don P]

That's probably 50% of what I burn in the shop stove, dimensional firewood. I'm generally standing near it feeding it often.

  I've poked a ~3/8" hole in the lid of a gallon paint can. When I'm in the mood I pack it full of cut up dry scraps, put the lid on and put it in the stove. Put a scrap of metal over the hole after the flare goes out. Set it out for a day and then open it up, summer charcoal.

[Wlmedley]

I've always heard that burning firewood warms you twice .Once when cutting it and once when burning it. I'm pretty sure burning lumber has warmed me more than twice. I plan to try making charcoal at some point. Have read about it on here several times. It's on my (things to try list) which only seems to be getting longer.

[nopoint]

About 2 winters ahead at this point. Probably 40-50 full cords of oak. Mostly stacked but there is always more to stack. I don't do a very good job of tracking how much wood we burn. In addition to decent wood I burn lots of slabs and debris from tree removal work. The ugly hard to stack, poor quality wood tends to go right into to the boiler. As of late I've been burning a bunch of elm and box elder. Makes me wonder if it was worth the effort of bringing home. Got paid to remove it and figured it was better than burning in a pile although the amount of ash is crazy. Warm winter has really helped, there has only been one stretch when I had to burn good solid wood in order for the boiler to keep up. 

[SwampDonkey]

I'd definitely use it. Have burned every kind of wood except oak, osage, locust (non around here to burn). Never froze yet and cheap heat since it's my own. Better than  paying $3000 or $4000 to someone else for other forms of heat. A jug of mixed gas and a 5 gallon jug for the buggy is way cheaper, throw a chain in and a jug of chain oil. :D

[g_man]

I might have too much left if that is possible ?? I have six rows going cross wise in the wood shed so I can only get to one row at a time. I split to different sizes putting the biggest stuff in in the January and February rows where I expect to just throw more wood onto a continuous fire that lasts thru the night. This year I'm getting tired of starting a new fire every day with big wood.

gg   

[SwampDonkey]

I can't even consider an all day fire here even in the cold, especially if it is sunny. Way too hot here. Starting a fire isn't an issue with me. Dry wood starts easy with some newsprint or even a piece of wood with some flecks cut into it. It's still easy to burn a wheel barrow of firewood because I most often stuff the furnace full, in the morning or night. I'll probably have 10 cord here left over, counting 8 cords of green all cut and ready to stack.

[Wlmedley]

I quit spitting kindling several years ago and now just use a propane torch. With good dry wood it doesn't take long to get a fire going and one tank will last me all winter. In the cold part of winter I hardly ever let the fire go completely out. Looking in the shed I should have plenty of dry wood for the rest of winter and some left over. Around the end of March I usually clean out stove and use furnace if needed. Like SwampDonkey I don't like the house to hot.