Whos all cutting wood?

5 cord gets us through winter, here in New York. We usually suffer with the cutting in summer and save the splitting for September. Logging outfits up here clear cut for farm land or (unfortunately)housing developments. Very few people, I know, cut a section of their woodlots and replant then in a few years cut a different section.(unfortunately again)

Jesse and Judy
www.homesteadarticles.com

Oh my! Come to Ontario and take a look around. I would hazard a guess that billions, probably trillions of cords of wood rot into the ground in southern ontario alone every year.

Our city has a wood dump area of probably 5 acres piled twenty feet high with logs. They won't allow chainsaws on the property because of past liability claims, but with a dump truck they will load you with all the logs you want. All of these are trees that are being cut down anyways.

Firewood isn't worth the energy it takes to turn it from logs into firewood unless it is being done on a massive scale. Burning wood is doing the environment a favor, google "carbon cycle" for more information.

Long live the planet!

Pete

i know about all that i was just curious who replants, lots of places dont have many trees or people wont let u cut off theier property. and im not driving to canada for firewood. lol

Depends on who all is home during that particular year--this is the first winter season I will be home all by my lonesome--well--me and the dogs and cat-probably use 3 cords. I like it pretty warm during the evening---and I am in the rainy part of Washington State--so need a good fire to take the damp and chill out of the place!!

If you're doing any kind of a decent job managing your woodlot, you have to keep cutting trees down to get enough room to let the smaller trees grow up and keep your woodlot healthy. I wouldn't have room to plant anything in my woodlot, it would be shaded out.

are that I cut the biggest tres closest to the front edge of where im cutting and go inward into the woods. I only have around 2 acres of woods, but that will be way more than ill ever use here in NE Okla. I cut the dead, of which there seldome is any, but I did notice one Sat and took it down, the extremly large, of which I might have a doz I dont replant because I want the area for goats and to grow back in buck brush, black berries, and grass.Also, as was posted below, I have a thousand sprouts waiting to take the trees place that I cut. I AM opening a spot that I might fence off with cattle panels and grow fruit trees, but I doubt it, By myself I doubt if I ever grow any fruit trees unless sombody gives them to me and i have to plant thedm to do somthing with them. And then likly they will go into a fence row

Each year, over the past 25, I've cut and split 30 face cords, (about 10 pulp cords). The boiler uses 22 cord and I figure about 8 face cord for the kitchen range, year 'round. All cut with a chainsaw and split with a splitting maul.
There is a local guy that harvests logs for lumber and veneer. Smaller, crooked or rotten centerd logs are sold in 8' lengths for Firewood. Some years I simply buy from him, some comes out of my wood lot. I don't replant. Mostly cut trees that are too close to other trees or damaged trees.

I have no idea about cords and ricks and all that good stuff. But last year we went through 6 rows that were about 25 feet long and 5 feet high. The pieces were about 18 inches long. This year, however, our wood has been seasoned longer, the insert is working more efficiently, and we're using much less wood. Hubby was done cutting this year's wood last March and has been cutting next year's wood since mid-October.

I've been a cutting fool over the last two weeks and have gained a few rules of thumb for myself. I can cut, split (with a maul), and stack up to 1/2 cord a day under ideal conditions (i.e., sharp chain, don't have to haul the wood very far to the truck, not splitting a lot of gnarly elm, etc.). One third of a cord (a face cord) is more realistic. Also, I can safely fit between 25-30% of a cord in the back of my Toyota Tacoma, which breaks down to not quite two pickup-fulls a day.

We've used our propane furnace for about 3 days in the last month, generally on days that are just too warm to use the stove and too cool not to have some sort of heat. We live in NE Kansas, have little solar gain (North-facing house), are protected from the wind, and have R-30 in all exterior walls and ceiling, and I'm anticipating using about 3 cords for the heating season- DW likes the main living area to be 72-76 degrees.

I have cut and stacked plenty of wood in the Kansas summer (no choice, under the circumstances), but plan on cutting a little bit every weekend this winter to be able to let it sit over the summer. Right now I'm only cutting standing (or leaning!) deadwood, and would never have to cut a live tree if I didn't want to. However, I'm going to move on to culling live trees in an effort to better manage the forest. I won't be planting many new trees, merely helping along the saplings that need a leg up.

cheers,

thebugguy

I've got about 6 cords ready for this season which I cut and split last winter. I have 3 cords towards next year's down and lengthed, but it's not split yet. I use mostly oak and maple, so I have to have it down and split well ahead of time.

-rj

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I use sbout 6 cord/year.We get wood when ever we are in the bush and thats all summer long and haul it home.I have a heavy wood splitter and split in the fall.We are always one year supply ahead so the wood seasons.We
have a Blaze King and a Pacific Energy stoves.We just heat with wood here in
S.E British Columbia.Use pine,spruce,popular,fir and larch what ever is handy.
Barry

Mammabooh, that's about 1 1/2 cords you burned. I have no idea what they mean by a rick either. It must be a southern thing and I'm a New Englander.

Dan

This is my first week with wood heat only. Where I live is spruce bark beetle kill area. The Whole area has been Zoned by the forestry dept. as a tinder box waiting to explode. So there is plenty of dead trees aroung to the point that the forestry dept is demanding and setting up large tracks of land to be deforested. I even work as a vol. at a collection site and sort the wood as it comes in. Slash is what we want to burn the logs are put in another area and calls are made to people to come and get wood. We Allow chain saws there during daylight hours = this is Alaska so the saw hours are limited right now. Any and all wood even great firewood will be burned next saterday. there is well over 100 cords of wood unclaimed it will be a reall waste but we need more vol to truck the wood to people in need of it. I only have a car but a few of the vol have claimed that our family will not be forgotten so I might be in luck. It is just the limited number of trucks and so many elderly in need. I would feel bad if some one in need got it before me. I own one of the largest tracks of land (not bragging) some of the elderly have no land for which to cut on as they cut up there lots for income to live on.

I use about 3 cords a year. I try to stay about 1/2 to one cord ahead so that I can cut on the cold clear days. A couple of times I have ended up cutting in the rain, but that's all. I pack up what I clear our during the summer, but that isn't a lot. I would rather cut it when the sap is down.
I do usually cut a strip of bark about a foot tall in the spring on the trees that I want to drop the next fall or winter, and I try to have them cut two years ahead.
They die and dryout standing there IMO, alot better than on the ground or stacked up either.
I call it solar drying.

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keep kicking the ball
it won't stop rolling

Dennis

The 'rick' is tricky. Even in the same area it'll mean more than one thing. When I ask a few people around here it means about a 1/4 cord of wood. I've also been told it means a face cord and also a half cord. Of the three, I think the 1/4 cord definition is the one most mean that I've spoken to.

this is our first year with this new wood stove. It is brand new and it will be our main source of heat. We live in North Idaho so it gets pretty cold here. I anticipate we will use about 6-7 cords of wood this winter. We had 7-8 cords of wood split and stacked by the end of July this year. I think we got it late. So in the spring I would like to get all of our wood so we can let it dry and cure for at least 6 months. It burns better that way.
I will say that dh and my son cut/split all 7 cords by hand. Dh ended up with a bad elbow and had to go get a cortisone shot in his elbow. So we found a friend who is selling their wood splitter that is only a year old and worth 1500 dollars for $500. So I am excited to be able to split it that way.
There is nothing like wood heat!
Blessings,
Jennifer

New camera. First successful pic uploaded.

The sawbucks were made a few years ago of salvage lumber from a collapsed barn, and are designed to just lay in as much slabwood (limbwood) as desired, and cut between the X's for 16" wood. If done right, most of the cut pieces stay balanced in the X's and can be grabbed by the armfull.

I got the slabs from some Mennonites who were logging and milling (in the woods) just east of here - they were glad to be rid of it, otherwise they'd have to move it to the burn piles and burn it in the woods themselves. What is visable in the background is about a third of what I got in all. The retired farmer who let me borrow tractor (Ford 6600 on 38" rice tires) and trailer (old NH spreader) to get into the woods up there in exchange for helping him get slabs, ended up with about 15 times what you see here. He still has about 8 full cord worth yet to cut up, and we didn't get but a fraction of what we could have if I'd had all day to keep at it.

The 039 Stihl is my 'hundred dollar special": it was found as a "basket case" in the maintenance shop of an old industrial building with just about everything possible disassembled (except the motor itself), and scattered across a workbench amid a few hundred pounds of other parts and stuff. It didn't appear to be much used even, but somehow, the oiler pump had gotten broken. I managed to contact the absentee owner, who ended up giving it to me a few weeks ago in exchange for a little technical advice on another project. It took three trips to the bench to find as many parts as possible (once after getting most of it home and seeing what more might be missing, again after checking the exploded views and parts list at the saw shop). About $100 in replacement parts later (including a new chain) plus a few hours to get it together, and it runs (and cuts) like a dream. New Stihl 390 saw? nearly 5 C notes (plus 8.25% tax).

I'm grinning

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