Archive for the ‘Burning wood’ Category

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Getting ready

28 September 2009

Cut up and split some of the oak firewood that was too bit to fit in our stove, also some of the elm and maple from around the yard. Carried it with the wheelbarrow down to the greenhouse (aka solar kiln) and stacked it up high. It should finish drying there within the next couple of months.

Brought the sawbuck back into the greenhouse to dry it out so it doesn’t rot.

Our big white pine on the East side of the yard shed all its brown needles in the wind last night, so it’s looking all new and sparkling in today’s occasional sunshine. Raked up a bunch of the needles with help from G and D and dumped them in the garden. I’m not worried about occasional additions of pine needles making the soil too acid.

M picked a bunch of cherry tomatoes.

Yesterday, I cooked up a bunch of collards and kale in butter along with some ham and turkey spam and one of our red peppers in a frying pan on the stove. It was awesome. I’m finally figuring out how to cook and enjoy collards.

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Wood Stove Maintenance

18 September 2009

Today I partially disassembled the wood stove to clean and inspect the catalytic converter.

The good news is that the catalytic converter looks like it’s still in good shape. The bad news is that it was 60-70% blocked by a layer of ash sitting on top of it. Also, one of the retaining clips that holds the plate in the back of the stove was off, which was probably allowing smoke to bypass the cc. ALSO, the channels for smoke exiting the cc were at least half blocked with ash. So put all that together and we were getting very poor results from our stove when directing smoke through the cc, which was pretty clear when we tried to do that and the fire just died.

The longest the cc is supposed to last is 7 years, and we installed the stove in 2002. However, since it’s been blocked, it wasn’t really being used, so I’m reasoning that it might have some life left in it — at least another year.

That was the first time I took the stove apart and looked at the cc, so that was 7 years worth of ash that was built up in there. That’s something I should do every year, and will do so from now on.

Why anyone would make a stove with a cc in it, when designs exist that can meet EPA requirements without one, is beyond me. I suspect the profit motive, and a desire to continue the income stream by selling replacement catalytic converters. I would never buy a stove that used a cc again.

Also, swept the chimney.

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More firewood

12 April 2009

Cut up more elm today with the chainsaw, split it, and stacked it in the greenhouse. It should dry pretty good between now and late next winter in the hot greenhouse (assuming we don’t get flooded again). That will be on the bottom of the woodpile, so we’ll burn a lot of oak before we get to that.

There are people who will tell you that you can’t split elm. A friend of mine, when I told him I split up some elm, told me that if I split it, it couldn’t be elm. But I’ve found that if you cut it into 12″ to 15″ pieces, you can split it with a splitting maul. Not as easily as you can split oak, but it can be done.

Cutting it into short pieces of course means that you’re putting more time, personal energy, and fossil fuel into poor-quality firewood, but what am I going to do, just leave it on the ground and let it rot? That doesn’t seem right either. I do plan to cut the smaller-diameter pieces by hand as much as possible, which removes the additional fossil fuel from the equation.

I haven’t decided if we’re going to buy more firewood this summer or not. We have at least 1½ cords left over from last summer’s purchase, so we could probably get through next winter with what we’ve got. On the other hand, given the situation in the world, I hate to not have some extra stashed away.

I really need to keep my eye on Craig’s List for free or cheap firewood.

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Cutting Wood

22 March 2009

Both boys helped me cut up and load a small wheelbarrow full of wood today. Yippee!

Used the pruning saw, which worked quite well on this small, green elm and apple.

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Cutting Wood

17 March 2009

Today when I got home from work I dragged my sawbuck out of the greenhouse, set it up next to the stack of big branches I’d cut from the big elm I just cut down, and proceeded to cut some of the already-dead branches with my bow saw. (The bow saw came with the house and it’s hung on the wall of the garage for the last 13 years.) None of the branches I cut were more than 5″ diameter.

And it was slow! I cut maybe 3 hours worth of wood in 20 minutes.

One problem was that since they were smaller branches they wouldn’t stay still while I cut them, and I had to either hold them with one hand and cut with the other or put my foot on them. Either way, not easy. Maybe bigger logs would stay in place better, and next time I’ll try that.

But this little experiment did nothing but increase my respect for the people who used to heat with wood and did not have a chainsaw.

Here’s a pic of my sawbuck. Made it a couple of years ago, and it’s really handy for holding wood for chainsawing.

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