How much Firewood is too much Firewood?

Cascade Failure · #21 06/26/12, 09:17 PM

I try to stay at least three years ahead now.

There is no such thing as too much firewood. Money in the bank...

demeter · #22 06/26/12, 09:30 PM

I think we have about 7-8 cord. Mostly oak. A really bad storm knocked down some fine old oaks our neighbor had and he gave them to us about 3 years ago. We have pretty mild winters so this should last quite awhile. Money in the bank to us.

Demeter

jessimeredith · #23 06/26/12, 10:04 PM

Right now, we've got nada! The new place has propane "backup" but since we aren't there yet, there's no wood cut. There are a couple of dead trees in the back that need to come down, so there's the start but looks like this winter is going to be a propane heat winter mainly.

Tons of folks are listing free firewood on craigslist around the area but with no where to store it yet (we refuse to put anything out on the property until we're there full time) we haven't jumped on any.

texican · #24 06/26/12, 10:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cabin Fever

Our firewood for this coming heating season was cut and split during the fall of 2009. We allow the oak we burn to season a minimum of two full years.

The photo shows two long row of stacked firewood that are each about 50 feet long, 3 logs wide, and 4 to 4.5 feet high. A third row is being started in the foreground.

How much Firewood is too much Firewood? - Survival & Emergency Preparedness

How much Firewood is too much Firewood? - Survival & Emergency Preparedness

How many years do you get out of the indentured servants you have processing firewood, before you have to replace em?

Reckon everyone knows what you get to do in your 'spare time'!

meanwhile · #25 06/27/12, 03:27 PM

Thanks everyone. We better get busy here. We only have about 4 cords split and dry. We just received a huge load of green, just cut poplar and we are going to split it but, of course, it will be green.

A neighbor just told the boys they can have a dead standing white oak if they cut and haul it off. That will be more wood that is dry.

We have four huge dead trees that need to come down on our own land but all are in dangerous places (one would hit a well head / one would hit a cement water cistern / two are plain ole dangerous) and so we are going to have to get help getting them down since we just need to be safe. I have enough challenges around here without someone getting hurt.

Nice photos. I have Wood Shed envy!

tarbe · #26 06/27/12, 08:27 PM

Firewood is like ammo.

The only time you have too much is when your place is on fire.

Tim

ovsfarm · #27 06/27/12, 10:45 PM

I think you have too much firewood when;

-you have so much that much of it is rotting away and becoming unuseable
-you are losing the use of the rest of your property because you have taken up all the available space with firewood
-you are neglecting other equally important things in order to hoard firewood
-you gleefully rush to beat others to sources of free wood even though you have enough for 10 - 15 years and others have little to none for this coming winter.

I feel that like most things, firewood can become a commodity instead of a useful tool for keeping one's home warm. When that happens, it can lead to the same problems as any commodity; hoarding, selfishness, greed, fixation. An elderly man I knew when I was a child went kind of crazy with the firewood after his wife died. He began to fill his one acre yard to the point where he could no longer have a garden, had to park his car on the edge of the road, couldn't walk around his property and enjoy the views (as he and his wife had loved to do). He was reduced to one narrow trail from the road to the porch, and there was precious little room there. Just enough to hold his wood splitter. I know the wood was just a symptom of mental illness, but it was very sad to see how he became so greedy about it and would block others from getting any free wood available, even though he didn't have room for any more and had quite a bit that was starting to rot.

pumpkin · #28 06/27/12, 11:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ovsfarm

I think you have too much firewood when;

-you have so much that much of it is rotting away and becoming unuseable
-you are losing the use of the rest of your property because you have taken up all the available space with firewood
-you are neglecting other equally important things in order to hoard firewood
-you gleefully rush to beat others to sources of free wood even though you have enough for 10 - 15 years and others have little to none for this coming winter.

I feel that like most things, firewood can become a commodity instead of a useful tool for keeping one's home warm. When that happens, it can lead to the same problems as any commodity; hoarding, selfishness, greed, fixation. An elderly man I knew when I was a child went kind of crazy with the firewood after his wife died. He began to fill his one acre yard to the point where he could no longer have a garden, had to park his car on the edge of the road, couldn't walk around his property and enjoy the views (as he and his wife had loved to do). He was reduced to one narrow trail from the road to the porch, and there was precious little room there. Just enough to hold his wood splitter. I know the wood was just a symptom of mental illness, but it was very sad to see how he became so greedy about it and would block others from getting any free wood available, even though he didn't have room for any more and had quite a bit that was starting to rot.

I would imagine that this sort of wood mania only affects a small part of the population. The rest would have the common sense to sell cords of split or unsplit wood and make a nice bit of money before the wood rotted or you had to have goat paths through your entire property.

meanwhile · #29 06/28/12, 10:33 AM

Good points ovsfarm - good points about greed and going nuts over it. We are not anywhere near that point here! We still do not have enough firewood for this winter. But, good points to keep in mind about firewood and other things too. I probably have too much fabric.

My sons are out splitting firewood now. It is only green poplar - which is not great firewood but it is better than none. They are going to leave it in bigger chunks since we might not have to use it this winter and can let it dry. Also, poplar is easy to split and they can split it smaller later if need be. They hope to fetch the white oak given to use in exchange for cleaning it up - next week. It is going to be too hot here this weekend to do much of anything outside.

JohnL751 · #30 06/28/12, 11:08 AM

A friend of mine cuts and sells wood. Any extra time he has, he cuts wood. Looks to me like he has 3-4 hundred cords in his seasoned wood section and another another 60 cords in the green section which is always growing.

TheMartianChick · #31 06/28/12, 02:54 PM

We only have about two cords right now. The winter was so mild that we burned more wood than planned and tried not to use the furnace much at all. Most of those two cords were picked up at the curb in early spring.

We will probably order another 8-10 this summer and put it away. I don't like running out of wood and like to have at least enough wood to get through two years. That way, if money is tight, we still have enough put away to get us through next winter.

Once we move to a farm, I think we'll aspire to be somewhere between Cabin Fever and Tn Andy as far as having a long term supply. (I do envy those gorgeous sheds!)

**GREENCOUNTYPETE** · #32 06/28/12, 03:13 PM

same as everything else , when it goes bad before you get a chance to rotate it in

or if you become a slave to it

or run out of room for it.

**GREENCOUNTYPETE** · #33 06/28/12, 03:23 PM

i cut mostly standing dead wood , but i found that putting a hard roof over my wood made a read difference in dryness and dry time

after years of tarps , i built an 8x12 wood shed , when stacked to the rafters holds right about 4 cord what a difference it makes in the ease of starting fires and the efficiency of the fire to finally have dry dry wood , the tarps seemed to hold some moisture under them and always leaked a little , rain on the sides of the pile , snow blowing in them melting , just never had wood as dry as in the shed

meanwhile · #34 07/01/12, 07:53 AM

My sons posted photos of the "before" and "after" - they split all the poplar a neighbor gave them. It made almost a cord once it was stacked.

I could not get the photo to post here in the message but the photos are here:
Meanwhile, Back in Saluda | Facebook

We still have to cut down one dead oak another neighbor said we can have. That will be about another cord.