Fire fuel for heating - what do you use?

[Joel_BC]

Interesting thread, sumi.

Most of the terrain around here—up from the river, lake and creeks—is covered with conifers: cedar, hemlock, larch, and various types of fir, pine, and spruce. Around the water we have poplar-family trees, birch, some cedar, and here and there aspen, alder, or yew.

We use cedar for kindling and the preferred firewood is birch (hottest fire), larch, and Douglas fir. Our house is about 960 sq ft in the basement and first (main) floor, and 600 sq ft on the second floor. We mostly don't heat the basement in winter, though it gets some benefit from the fact that we deliberately heat the main floor.

We have an efficient woodburning furnace (with a plenum/ducting system) in our basement. But we have a far more efficient woodburning insert in the old brick fireplace on the main floor, which is what we usually rely on. We only use the furnace if we get a real cold snap and need the forced air from the ducting to warm the house's furthest corners.

 

[treerooted]

Nothing special in my house. Just wood.

We have our own forest so we harvest ourselves and rent a log splitter. Wood we use is mostly red maple. Sometimes elm or oak and could be a few other hardwoods as well. We've only been here a year, so we've only gone through this process once. We didn't haul enough trees out last winter so we'll probably have to buy a cord or two again this year. But we'll get better and more efficient as the years go by.

Unfortunately, the location of the wood stove is such that the upstairs doesn't really get heated. So in our bedrooms we have space heaters for nighttime. We also have propane, but it also doesn't heat the house efficiently .

 

[Beekissed]

We use cedar and douglas fir. It's the wood available here. Burns just fine and we haven't had any real buildup. The chimney sweep has asked if we even burn very much each year.

Most folks don't realize that, if the evergreen is very dry when used, it leaves very little residue. Burns hot and fast. We've been using it for years and never get creosote buildup in the stove pipe.

 

[frustratedearthmother]

Hope you get all the wood you need! Does coal last longer than wood when it burns? I know nothing about heating with wood. How's your arm???

 

[frustratedearthmother]

Glad you've got some improvement! Hoping you heal fully and quickly.

 

[NH Homesteader]

Oh I wish that were feasible for us. We go through 5-6 tons of wood pellets a winter. If we switched to wood it would still be aboutm 5-6 cords... Collecting that much wood sounds like a nightmare!

The turf sounds really interesting, never heard of such a thing!

 

[Mini Horses]

Well, we don't have bogs like Ireland anywhere that I am aware of over here. For my area, we often can get free wood from companies who hire out to clear right of ways for utilities, roadways, etc. It requires you to go to a location where they can load your trailer. At home you process a needed.

You also have to consider the method of burn for your stove. Here we have many with pellet stoves. I no longer have a wood burner of any kind. But daughter has a fireplace that is a unit with blower, etc. (a Heatilator) We collect downed trees & limbs from the wooded areas around us, neighbors who have such down & no burning stove, etc. Often that is enough. I pull large pieces out with tractor, or we cut & carry to area we can get to with. LOT of work.

Last year a co-worker had a tree come down and she gave it to DD. Huge tree. Luckily, a neighbor had cut it into more manageable pieces and I went with truck & trailer to help her get & load....then unload. she has a splitter and it was enough to carry thru end of last yr and probably all of this year. Our chainsaws are smaller but worked will after the man with big saw had cut tree trunk originally.

Do you have anyone with trees down that would give them to you? Do you have a way to cut/carry them? These issues are always a consideration. With so many stretches of housing with only a fireplace here, sales of cut & delivered wood is huge. Expensive, too.

 

[Beekissed]

If you have local ads, Sumi, I'd place an ad for free wood....folks in town who have had trees cut down or that went down in a storm usually don't have a way to dispose of them and have to pay to do so. Many would LOVE for someone to haul it all away for free.

We have trees down here we cut and split, my Uncle Jim had a big oak cut down last year and gave it to us...we gathered workers, went over and split that big mammoth, bringing it home for winter wood. He had another two oak fall down this season and has cut them up for us, so it's waiting over there to be split and hauled.

Sometimes we pay for a double load of seasoned oak to be delivered ($300) so we can mix it with the soft woods we cut and split here. It varies from year to year....last year the wood guy we had used that was reliable cheated us on the delivery and never delivered the second load, even though Mom paid him $50 more than he asked for. They didn't answer our calls, one time I got through to the wife and she said they'd been busy and would get to it. Never happened.

Won't use him again.

Mostly we gather our own. We heat exclusively with wood for the winter.

 

[Chic Rustler]

We have electric heat. I really need a wood burning stove!

 

[sumi]

Trees worth of wood for free would be hard to come by here! I have a friend that deals in timber (for building) and knows everyone that has anything to do with wood in a few counties it seems. I plan to bug him soon to find out what he suggests I do

Beekissed, you are well organised with trees you can cut yourself for wood

Chic Rustler, you do! Those things are great.