almost out of wood for the year!

[Al_Smith]

"I grew up in a small house,maybe 25 feet square"
--that has to be a typo . ;)

[Corley5]

I've got firewood client who stacks his wood in an open sided shed.  He's having moisture issues with wood that I processed for him and he stacked in there two years ago.  I'm pretty sure it has something to do with the 14" of rain we got in 6 weeks last fall  ;) ;D

[SwampDonkey]

The 3 cord will be supplemental heat in Jan-March Al and Cfarm. Same foot print, same hole in the ground except the rocks removed and new cement. But I know a couple new houses heated here with 3 - 4 cords, just because you ain't been in one don't mean we ain't got'm. I only burn 1.5 cords in the shop, how much you burn in yours?  Plus mine don't freeze over night and that's with an ancient inefficient stove. :D

[Al_Smith]

Since it's been mentioned I'll chime in .I usually cover about 8 cords as I did this past fall .Danged tarps got holes in them ,water got on the  wood, like ice cubes ,frozen .Yet from an uncovered 4 cord stack of EAB ash ,nice and dry.Go figure .

[Al_Smith]

"I only burn 1.5 cords in the shop, how much you burn in yours?"/ Nary a stick.350 thousand BTUs' of radiant natural gas which I have turned off at the moment . Any hoo it's 4200 square feet with 16 foot side walls and 26 feet to the roof peak ,I doubt seriously if a cord and half would do much good .

[SwampDonkey]

"I grew up in a small house,maybe 25 feet square"
--that has to be a typo . ;)

25' x 25' I think Al. I wish I knew Cfarm's FIL so I could josh Cfarm real hard. :D

[thecfarm]

Probably more like 24,even measuments. Don't have to josh him any,I've gotten up from his table a few times and told the wife we are leaving and as he was telling me about how he could do it  quicker,faster,better,cheaper than me.

[SwampDonkey]

No, I only heat 25 x 10 x 7', but the building has a hip roof and well over 20 feet to the peak. I only heat a third the floor space in there.

Natural gas is way too high up here to even think about. Those on it are not happy with the gas bills. It's the distribution costs, through the roof.

Naw, Cfarm I don't like to see relatives fight at the dinner table. My grandmother would put ya both outdoors. ;)

[Al_Smith]

Well 25 by 25 is 625 Sq Ft ,still small .You could heat it with a bunch of light bulbs or one large cigar I'd imagine .

[thecfarm]

Or 3 cord of wood.

[SwampDonkey]

Yes, and I just dingle in there. If a man was using his shop for a living, than size and heat required can be scaled up. ;D

[Al_Smith]

Natural gas is way too high up here to even think about. Those on it are not happy with the gas bills. It's the distribution costs, through the roof./end quote .

That's why I have it turned off .Zero usage and just nonsense charges such as metering costs and other bull pucky they toss in was around 45 bucks a month .

Like I've said before in the winter any more I'm like a bear ,I hybernate ,drink beer ,stay warm by the fire and argue with some Canadian over the internet .It really isn't all that bad  ;D

[SwampDonkey]

Not bad at all Al, when you can do whatever the $%$% you want. You only got one life, live it well, eh? ;)

[Al_Smith]

 :D  yeah buddy indeed I do .If it all ended tomorrow it's been a 'ell of a party . :D

[SwampDonkey]

Years ago father cut wood to heat around the doors of the potato sheds. It was supplemental because potatoes make heat since they respire like any living thing. I just can't remember how much wood because I was a lot younger back then and firewood was not yet one of my chores, too young or just spoiled maybe. :D I can only foggingly remember 5 or 6 cords by the sheds though and only used a small stove. In fact one of them is the stove in my shop. But anyway them buildings back then (expanded the other later) were 80 to 100 feet long, 20 foot side walls and in a hillside to except for the loading sheds where you processed the potatoes, they had 3 outside walls no earth banks. Later dad put in oil furnaces, but rarely needed and no flues required. Nope none. Had a propane out by a couple over head doors on a 150 foot long building. You didn't heat that place to 90 degrees, you kept it in the 40's. Big difference. But when your sacking taters all day, you don't want it hot anyway. About like handling 4 foot pulp out doors all day in the fall. ;D Later, the largest shed was remodeled and expanded  to roughly 160,000 cuft of storage volume (just divide by 20 for floor area) . But of course you don't fill to the ceiling or out to and up the doors. But the volume is still there just the same and needs heat. ;D

[Al_Smith]

Coincidently my maternal grandfather was also a potatoe farmer as well as a small scale sawyer with a circle mill .According to my mother they shipped them by the box car load .As I recall from what she said they kept a certain amount for their own use as well as seed potatoes for the next crop .

The home usage was stored in the celler but the seed potatoes in a shed with two layers of straw bales to act as insulation to prevent freezing .It must have worked because there was no heat other wise .

[SwampDonkey]

I'm not that old, and I have loaded box cars. We were glad to see the tractor trailers back up to the doors though. A lot less work and you didn't have to worry about frozen potatoes because father would have to check on the spuds as long as they sat at the RR siding. No wonder the rails went out of here, lack of service. ;)

If the fall isn't too wet a potato will even winter in the ground. A fellow up the road puts a bunch in a styrofoam lined box in an unheated garage. He heats it once in awhile, but not a constant thing, can be cold in there.

[Al_Smith]

When I was real young my dad would store spuds and carrots in bins in the celler under dry sand .He also had a huge gravity furnace or at least huge to me he burned slab wood in from a saw mill .Had a front mounted buzz saw on an F-14 Farmall .I remember it well .

Remember huge to a 4 year old probabley isn't huge to a grown man .As I got older the door knobs didn't seem so high .

[petefrom bearswamp]

cfarm, re your FIL
Ask him if you are so smart why ain't you rich?
don't you just love know it alls?

[thecfarm]

My FIL is a very smart man. And that is true, he can fix just about anything. Be it electrical of a gas motor. But if it's not done his way,it is not right. Or if he don't do it,why would anyone else do it. He told me more than once he thinks it's a waste ot time digging rocks around here. He just has no idea about taking pride in land. I built the wife a building. He told me more then once he could of had it done in less than half the time it took me. He thought I should of used 2X6 for walls.  I went with a look of post and beams. And it goes on and on. What ever he owns is better than what I have. He even tried to tell me once how to market my logs.  :  This is coming from a man that has never owned more than an acre of land and have more than 6 trees on the acre.

[SwampDonkey]

.He also had a huge gravity furnace or at least huge to me he burned slab wood in from a saw mill .

As a kid I would head down in the morning and plant myself right on one we had, and still be cold. :D This was before such things as insulating houses, and still used the out house off the end of the woodshed. All that stuff I experienced in less than a lifetime, certainly not 100 years ago.  ;D

Cfarm, my dad at times had lots to complain about and never did and he had his own ways, but he never run anyone down, especially relatives. Some of them were worst than neighbors. Coming to borrow and return it broken. :D

[thecfarm]

My FIL is that way to everyone.  :

[OneWithWood]

So I thought I would get ahead of the firewood situation this coming week as forecast was for nice warm sunny days.  No-o-o-o-o, the weatherman now say we can expect a bunch of snow, ice, freezing rain tomorrow and the water pump in my tractor went south this morning  >:(

It would be ok if I could get a pump tomorrow and spend the nasty weather time in a heated workshop fixing the tractor.  Not likely to happen, the dealer will need to order the pump and I will spend the nice days inside fixing the tractor - and so it goes....

[Al_Smith]

As a kid I would head down in the morning and plant myself right on one we had, and still be cold. :D This was before such things as insulating houses, and still used the out house off the end of the woodshed. All that stuff I experienced in less than a lifetime, certainly not 100 years ago.  ;D

   

Now Swampish I'm old but it wasn't 100 years ago .More like 60 but I guess that was before your time .

I know all about outhouses too so don't think you're all alone .I also know what a belly full of Swiss chard does to a little kids bowels and where the word the "trots" come from .

[r.man]

I grew up in a house with so so insulation, single pane windows and a five foot firebox gravity wood furnace with one large grate into the living room. Most mornings in the winter the windows would have ice on the inside and the bedrooms were cold by the time you got up. Wasn't unusual to get up, take your clothes out to the living room and throw them on the grate to warm up and stand there to get dressed. There was a clothes bar above it for drying things and if your back was cold it was a great place to lie down.