Buying firewood

[Delirium]

WTG on the change over to wood

Sadly, Connecticut is/was debating limiting the amount of wood a business can burn to limit the pollutants in the air. You know as soon as that happens, they'll start looking at home owners as well.

I'm not sure it would be cost effective for me to cut the wood myself, I'm very lucky and extra hours at work are for the taking.

[Flench]

Been my only source of heat for 30 year's . Buy a skil chain saw about a 21 will do fine for you ..The guy's told you Oak and that's right but make sure it's RED OAK ! not POST OAK there is a difference ,,, Post oak will not burn .
Red Oak mixed with a little hickory . Don't use all Hickory or i will burn your insert up .
This is what I do for a living now along with a few other thing's ..I am a BRICK and Stone Mason ...by trade ..
This is one subject I do know ....lol . When you get your saw if you got any question's on it I can answer them too ...
As far as cleaning your chimney , I have never cleaned mine . I have had it to burn the suit out a few time's but you don't want to do that unless you know your chimney . I built mine and I know it can take the heat or all the ones I built will take the heat ...When the suit Burns out it will sound like a jet taking off ...sucking air up the chimney ...It will crack the liner's in the chimney from the heat ..but if it's built well it will not hert it ..so I would not worry about cleaning it ..If it catches on fire inside the chimney take a water hose and try and keep the out side where the chimney runs out the top or back of the house cool by wetted it down . No big deal . I had people call me when there's caught on fire inside thinking there house was on fire , lol ...no big deal ...just looks that way . Be out in a few minute's ..

[Ripsnort]

Today's pellet stoves are much more efficient, cost less to heat a house than a wood stove, and is certainly less messy, or so I've been told.

[Flench]

Today's pellet stoves are much more efficient, cost less to heat a house than a wood stove, and is certainly less messy, or so I've been told.

Then you have tto buy the pellet's . If I was going to do that I would just burn gas ..

[uptown]

Alot of folks out here use corn stoves. But they usually have to buy a cornfield too 

[Ripsnort]

Then you have tto buy the pellet's . If I was going to do that I would just burn gas ..

Well, unless you have an unlimited supply of wood growing on your acreage, you'd have to buy wood too.

Incidently, I've either lived in or owned a house that had one of 4 types of heating: Radiant, wood, gas, electric baseboard.  Gas was the most cost efficient, and electric the worst.

[Flench]

This is true . I live back in the wood's you see , woman and kid's and dog and me ..and free wood ..

[dkff49]

Del I just remembered another great source of firewood. Call any local sawmills, alot of them still sell slab wood and it is usually (around here anyway) 1/2 the price of chunk wood. Though this is usually something you do during the summer months so it has plenty of time to dry out you can use it right away if your in a pinch. I have done this many times since my uncle owns the sawmill I usually purchase from, I get priority over others  .

The only drawbacks are you might get larger pieces one time and smaller ones the next, you just need to plan out what you burn when (smaller pieces during the day and bigger ones at night. You also will need to stack it yourself because most of the time the dump it off the back of a truck into a huge pile. The plus side is none of it ever has to be split, you won't need to search for/split off kindling (lots of small pieces already present), and there is usually nice flat sides that you can stack together when putting in the stove (helping to make it burn longer.

[1Boner]

Kinda like burning coal myself.

All the benefits of pellets(extremely long burn time) but a coal stove will run without electricity.(a pellet stove won't)

In the spring and fall when you don't need 24\7 heat, you can burn some wood to take the chill off.

And for the people who say coal is dirty, I say that people are dirty , coal isn't.

I find wood to be very messy and alot more work than coal.

If you look up a fuel cost comparison chart, I think you will also find that coal is the cheapest fuel you can buy.

[JunkyII]

Del,
Sry I didnt read any of the comments, but you should just find some way to cut your own. My family will go through almost 3 to 4 cord a winter because, like you, my dad dont like using his oil. The amount of money saved is incredible and my dad bought a brand new chevy with the money he saved just to carry wood back from WV.

There is nothing like cleaniong your chimney with your pops swaping "party" stories 

[smedddd]

Delerious,

I can't sell you any of my seasoned firewood because I'm trying to limit my oil purchases just like you are; and I only have about 2.5 cords remaining for the rest of the winter.
Sorry.

I do have about 1/2 cord of logs behind the barn. You can have them for free. I won't be rotating them into my next winter's pile. They're not cut or split; but are off the ground on pallets and under a tarp. They've been sitting there for about 2 years so they should burn fine. I'll run the saw, you can run my splitter. If you want me to haul it up to your house in my trailer I'll ask you to pay for the gas. (I'm in New London, CT)

Seperate topic :..........After I'm done harvesting the rest of the maples I mentioned above, I'll let you have a free cord for next winter if you help me split up all six cords ( I'm estimating/eyeballing the 6 maples to equal about 6 cords of product). I could be wrong as I've never had a great eye for tree size vs. product size. Two men working goes much more than twice as fast. The trunk of the largest tree was 40 inches across...the largest tree was about 80 ft high...now it's sitting in a pile of "rounds" on my front lawn.....should split up into lots of wood this spring!

If you're dead set on buying; craigslist has people selling in the "general", "household", or "farm and garden" areas. In this economy many people are earning their living selling firewood in the middle of winter. Just do a search for "firewood". Watch out though. Craigslist is a cespool of scammers. A pickup truck load is probably way less than a cord unless you drive a F-450 monster truck or something. A proper cord should be a 8 Ft long  X  4 Ft high  X  4 Ft wide rectangle after its split + stacked (= 128 cubic ft ). Randomely throwing a bunch of wood into the back of a standard pick up truck is definitely not going to equal a cord. I'd say you could get a decent seasoned cord (not delivered) for around $200 here in CT. Delivered will be more $; some guys will stack it at your house too if you pay them even more $ still.

Let me know if interested; I'm in town until at least May 2012 (active duty Navy)


V/R and <S> , LTARjink

[Sonicblu]

ah we use mesquite wood here in AZ. I dont think you have that where you are though. So I would go with Oak.

Mostly mesquite stumps they  burn long time.

For some reason i dont think my post will be as helpful as i first thought srry.

[Babalonian]

Today's pellet stoves are much more efficient, cost less to heat a house than a wood stove, and is certainly less messy, or so I've been told.

    

Well, unless you have an unlimited supply of wood growing on your acreage, you'd have to buy wood too.

Incidently, I've either lived in or owned a house that had one of 4 types of heating: Radiant, wood, gas, electric baseboard.  Gas was the most cost efficient, and electric the worst.

Now I just pity you for living nowhere near any forests or trees.  Not saying one should just go out into the woods and cut down some firewood illegaly, but there is plenty of wood out there in the woods already cut down and essentialy there for the taking.  Also as others have posted here, when ya live in/near the woods, need some firewood, and have the right tools on hand, people often are more than thrilled for you to come over to their land, use your tools to cleanup some trees that have fallen over and then help yourself to the spoils.

[smedddd]

OK  all you heating  theorist's:

Now hear this.........the real purpose of home heating systems is for personnel comfort.
Can we agree on this?

I can easily afford to pay the oil truck man as much money as he wants to charge me.....but I choose not to do so.
The reason has nothing to do with me being green.
The reason has nothing to do with the inefficiency's of my three other heating systems in my house.

The real reason why I prefer to toss parts of flaming tree's into a metal box is very simple.
After that stove gets "rollin", it's very apparant to me that the entire family gathers towards the room;
the family game boards come out;
the horse toejam TV shows dissappear; and my children laugh much more readily.
The look on my wifes face says it all.

I'll run a big chain saw all year long to keep "this ball rollin".

If you don't know what I'm talking about; I wish you the best of luck in finding it.

V/R and <S>, LTARjink

[Delirium]

That is exactly it, my wife is much happier with the stove going than without. Heck, she is the one insisting I go buy some wood right away.

I'd much rather give $200 to some guy in my local area for wood than give $650 to the oil man to send overseas.