What to do with your slab wood........

[Robert Long]

Buzz-sawyer & Farmerdoug;

On a similar note, we have a grapple and I load a yard trailer with slab and usually when it's too full I use the grapple to pick up a good amount of the slab and holding the pile in the air I cut fire wood size pieces from the outside to the middle for my brother to take home to burn.

It's not the work but the job....it's always when you have other things to do >:( : :-\

Robert

[Engineer]

I wasn't very neat and tidy when I sawed all the timbers and lumber for my new house.  All the slabs and sticks went into a big sloppy pile leaning up against a tree near the mill.  I've done various things with several stacks like that.  One stack is still full length and haphazardly piled up near my wood boiler, one stack got neatly sawed into 3' lengths and stacked, and another pile got sawed into 2' lengths and stacked.  I don't have a good system yet, and I haven't sawed a thing in a year because I've been too busy working and building.  All of the slabs and waste wood, however, goes into my outdoor boiler.  I have found that pieces over 3' are awkward and difficult to handle, and don't dry as well.  I'm a firm believer in thoroughly drying and stacking firewood for future use, and not trying to burn green wood right off the tree or the mill.  Plus, my dad lives next door, and he can't easily handle pieces over about 8" diameter and 20" long due to the size of his woodstove (and advancing age) so we try to "coordinate" firewood cutting now, so that every piece we cut can be used in either his woodstove (at maximum size) or in my wood boiler (where it's easy to handle).  The only thing I leave long (3-4') is small sticks and branch wood 2" diameter and smaller.  That's a good hot fire quickly, and only the really small tops and tips go in the chipper for mulch.  Around here, everything gets used, even the sawdust goes around the blueberry bushes or gets packed in old paper bags and tossed in the wood boiler.

[scsmith42]

Farmerdoug - GREAT IDEA!  Consider it "borrowed"  :D

Scott

[slowzuki]

The sawmill up the road has a harvestor bar on a conveyor and an electric motor with a few switches he rigged up.  The slabs edgings etc ride the conveyor and get chopped into 16" pieces automatically.  From there they fall into a metal bin that gets dumped roadside.  People clean up the slabs for him then.  A load rarely lasts over a few days.

I currently have a giant slab pile but also have pallets with sides that get tossed full of cut wood.  I burn soft wood slabs so it takes quite a bit of wood to keep the stove humming.

[Robert Long]

slowzuki ;D

Do you and your neighbour give away the slab at roadside?

Robert

[PineNut]

Before I got a FEL, I would pile my slabs on top of a chain beside the mill. When there was a pile of them, would wrap the chain around them, pick them up with the boom pole and drag them to a place where they could return to nature. But I don't have large quantities of them but do like to move them the easy way.

Now I stack them beside the mill (not too large of a pile) and move them with the FEL and later cut them up in firewood lengths, place on a pallet and move to the outdoor furnace.

[slowzuki]

I don't but he does.  He doesn't have any wood heat from what I can tell.  His kiln is all electric.
Ken

slowzuki ;D

Do you and your neighbour give away the slab at roadside?

Robert

[SwampDonkey]

Robert, maybe invest in an old manure spreader and take the bucked slabs off site to dump in a pile for customers? ;D

[farmerdoug]

scsmith42,

Just return it in the same condition as borrowed.  ;): :D :D :D :D

Glad the idea is helpful.  I tell you I love those outdoor boilers.  They sure have taken alot work out of cutting and spliting the firewood, haven't they. 8) 8)

Farmerdoug

[SwampDonkey]

It's great if ya have a sawmill for slabs to use in your outdoor boiler, but the poor buggers next door have a front yard full of enough long length wood to do me for 4 years. ;D :D :D They are heating the house and a shop, which might be hydroponics, with two. The farm that they had bought last summer was scalped hard by the previous owner (my neighbors since forever), so all the wood is trucked in. They may have a woodlot some place else, don't know. All I ever see them do is tend fires, with green wood.  ;D

[farmerdoug]

SD,

With my CB boiler I find that green wood burns good and I have less problems with creosote buildup in it.

Farmerdoug

[SwampDonkey]

Was wondering how many hours of heat from a load of that green wood in your boiler. I bet its a lot bigger than my load of wood. ;) I only use a couple arm loads (3 or 4 limbs, and 3 slabs-16-20") of dry seasoned wood and the auto fan runs continuous for up to 5 hours, then intermittent for 2-3hrs. If I want, I can go down and turn the manual fan on and I could get 10 hours or more out of it. I think the fan controls can be adjusted for temperature if I want to mess with them. I'm amazed at how much even 3 year old wood gives for heat. I had a couple of cord I put up front to use first. I filled up the furnace last night at 1 am and had fire until 8 am this morning. Was 90+ most of the night, too hot.  : I'd say I had intermittent fan from 6:30 am onward. Went down at 9:00 am and had a nice bed of coals to build the fire back up. If you have a big pile of stabs staring at you to be burned your not too concerned about supply and cost of your heating, but if you have to go cut it or buy it, the rose bed will not look so pretty. ;D

[Engineer]

With my CB boiler I find that green wood burns good and I have less problems with creosote buildup in it.

I've been finding just the opposite.  I got sick of the creosote buildup from burning wet, cold pine slabs and scraps from building, so I started in on some firewood that was cut and stacked three years ago when I started clearing for my house.  Bone-dry cherry, ash and sugar maple, almost has a ring to it when struck, and I can go a full 24 hours on a tractor-loader bucket full (I have a small tractor with a 54" bucket, so four or five good-size armloads).  That gets me a demand call for heat and a small but workable bed of coals 24 hours later.  I've been mixing the cold wet stuff in, one or two large pieces at a time.  I still don't have a lot of experience with the CB, but spending half an hour with it almost every day is teaching me what to do and what not to do, right quick.

Man I'll tell you, if you don't like being outdoors and working on firewood, an outdoor wood boiler is NOT for you....   ;D  But I think of the $2500 a year I'll be saving by not burning oil, and that goes a LONG way toward new saws and chains, tractor payments, and fun stuff around the house.

[farmerdoug]

SD,

All depends on what is being heated.  I currently heat the house and a 48x24 foot double poly covered greenhouse.  One load a day like engineer will do it.  The firebox is big enough to have to men sit on buckets in with no problem end empty in the summer.

Engineer, 
I have the same problem with dry pine pallets.  The creosote gums up the damper and blows the fuse.  Green hardwood burns out the creosote so it does not build up as fast.  I think it may because of the slower heatup of the water with green keeps the fire burning more.

Farmerdoug

[SwampDonkey]

 :D :D :D :D Well I'm just gonna keep my mouth shut with the green vs dry. All I know is there is some funky science going on. ;D

[LT40HDD51]

I've never had or heard of problems burning dry wood and getting bad creosote buildup in a conventional stove.  I'm quite sure that if green wood is allowed to sit and smoulder, creosote will build up extremely fast. If the stove/burner has forced air input, green wood is forced to burn hot = less emissions = less creosote. Fill it with dry wood that burns very easily and the fan isnt needed much and the wood will smoulder = more emissions = more creosote. That's probably why the "Wood Doctor" type stoves are getting rejected in some places because of the smoke and poor air quality.

Something else interesting for ya: wood all puts out the same btu's of heat per weight. Good wood = dense wood.

[SwampDonkey]

I agree.

I use dry wood and all there is a little wisp of smoke when the fire starts up and soon goes to nearly nothing. The neighbors burning green wood in their outdoor furnaces has a yard full of smoke. It was worst when they were burning green cedar slabs, never seen nothing like it. In a south wind if I open my kitchen window my house is full of 'green' smoke from their yard. ;D :D

[Robert Long]

That's all great stuff people

My question is how is the slab handled off the mill and into the wood stove?

I soon will start welding up a rack to put the slab as it comes off the mill, can someone offer suggestions for a better mouse trap ???

Robert

[SwampDonkey]

 :D :D Bare hands, blood, sweat, and shovel and ash pale. ;D

[farmerdoug]

 : :D :D :D :D

[PineNut]

I have been placing the slabs in a pile and cutting to firewood lengths. Then loading them onto a pallet where they stay until they go into the furnace. It is only half bad to handle one slab. But when you cut it into firewood lengths, then there are many pieces to pick up and load.

I am going to try something else and see if it will work better. Going to load the slabs lengthwise on a 3 x 8 ft pallet. For slabs longer that 8 ft, will place two pallets end to end and then cut the slabs to fit. Then will take the slabs to the furnace (still in 8 ft lengths.) Now plan to cut the slabs into firewood lengths just before I burn them. Probably not cut them all at one time as they would not stay on the pallet and you would have a big mess.


This is a 3 x 6 ft pallet (loaded with firewood, not slabs) I use at the present. Of course you need a FEL to use this procedure.

[mike_van]

Down here there's been new zoning regs past for outdoor furnaces, if your chimney is less than 500' from your property line, you get turned down. Too many people use these like trash dumps, burn everything they can find, and it's usually wet. Smoke pours out of some so bad it looks like a plane crash. 

[SwampDonkey]

Well an example, and not an outdoor furnace, but a burn barrel. The neighbor upwind was burning all their office refuge from there business, plus the diapers from their baby. That was going downwind to my brothers where he had to breath that mess until my brother got after the Environment. Imagine smelling old dirty wet diapers burning.  : Some people mock recycling services and toss recyclables in barrels or incinerators to burn and call it 'recycling'.

[RMay]

     
                                                                                                                                    I burn the most of my slabs there pine and most people want burn pine   :(                                 

[LT40HDD51]

Thats the way  ;D Especially with the edger flitches...

I like pine nut's pic, its like what we do. Get big pallets and build a little simple rack on it so you can fill it with slabs and move it with forks, cover with small cheap Crappy Tire tarps. Then hire the neighbour kid, teach him how to run a chainsaw, and let him fill em all day long