that awkward moment stacking firewood

You chop your wood better than I do. I rented a splitter with my neighbor, (we split a splitter) and my many of my pieces are too big, I fear.

Oh, well. I will have time to hand split them later. I have nearly four cords of wood right now, about 1/3 of which is ready to burn, and last winter I burned about 1/2 cord.

zn wrote:

Zooey wrote:

You chop your wood better than I do. I rented a splitter with my neighbor, (we split a splitter) and my many of my pieces are too big, I fear.

Oh, well. I will have time to hand split them later. I have nearly four cords of wood right now, about 1/3 of which is ready to burn, and last winter I burned about 1/2 cord.

I’ll burn most of 2 cords. That’s partly, of course, Maine v. California.

But it’s also a luxury I like. We have 2 wood stoves. We don’t need 2 wood stoves (the furnace is fine obviously)…I just really genuinely prefer wood stove heat. To me it’s the very definition of cozy.

I heated a house I used to own exclusively with wood (except when I was out of wood…my back-up heat was electric). I went through 2 cords a month.

We burn about 2 to 3 cords a year – it’s mostly elm because that’s the most readily available hardwood in our area which is just about tree less. It’s about time for me to start getting, hauling, chopping some wood for winter of 2017-2018. We get a bit of ash and locust and as much cottonwood as we want to haul – oak is nonexistent here. I have about 4 cords of a mix of everything in the wood pile.

The wood burner in the basement and our fireplace upstairs is really an additional heat source to our geothermal heat pump. Installing this was the smartest decision we made when we built the house 10 years ago. Beside constant energy savings, the heating bill is approximately 60% cheaper than the propane or regular heat pump\electric furnace equivalent and the air conditioning bill is 90% cheaper. I thought it would break even in a 4 year span when we put it in but it was actually just over 2 years. Our climate is extreme in that it’s quite hot and windy for a large part of the summer and quite cold and windy in the winter.

I’ve been thinking about a solar panel setup for heating the garage and perhaps helping in the house. My son is an electrician and states he could get me a really good deal. But to me the break even for that takes much longer and so I don’t think I’d ever see a big financial return – but, it would save marginally on energy usage.

Yeah, California is milder. And often nobody is home until the afternoon, so we tend to burn only from late afternoon until bedtime, then forget it. It is cold in the morning, but everybody is out of the house within 1/2 hour of getting up, and it isn’t bitter cold, so we just don’t bother. If it’s bad in the morning, we bump on the central heat because it spreads the heat faster than starting up a wood fire.

We trimmed up our American Elms this summer, and got about 1/3 cord out of it. I’ve never burned Elm before, but supposedly it’s okay. I will have to wait until next year to find out. I still have a lot of manzanita, about half a cord of cedar (which is also new to me this year), and a lot of oak and pine that has to wait until next year.

I agree that wood heat is better than gas or electric. Cozier. I do still get a lot a mornings when the smoke comes blasting into the room instead of going up the flue. Any tips? The best thing I’ve found there is to load up the kindling and use a gas torch to get the flames burning as quickly as possible.

Zooey, I’d be real careful burning pine or cedar in your fireplace or stove for anything other than kindling. The creosote will build up in your chimney and in extreme cases can catch fire and burn your roof off.

American Elm? Didn’t they all get wiped out by Dutch Elm Disease, or was that just an East Coast thing (and if you’re burning American Chestnut, I don’t want to hear about it…)?

TSRF wrote:

Zooey, I’d be real careful burning pine or cedar in your fireplace or stove for anything other than kindling. The creosote will build up in your chimney and in extreme cases can catch fire and burn your roof off.

American Elm? Didn’t they all get wiped out by Dutch Elm Disease, or was that just an East Coast thing (and if you’re burning American Chestnut, I don’t want to hear about it…)?

Pine and cedar are fine to burn once the stove pipe is hot and a good fire is in the stove. The problem is when the fire goes out and the hot coals begin to cool the hot gases are not hot enough to exit the stove pipe carrying the creosote compound and soot and both collect towards the upper half of the stove pipe. The effect is much worse in those set ups where the stove pipe just extends above the flue in a chimney. Burning those woods in a good fire is no problem but choking the stove down over night with those woods can lead to a faster buildup compared to most other hardwoods.

American elms are still around though do better outside their natural range (with less exposure to DED) so a CA tree of size is possible. Two varieties are now doing well with DED resistance, the Valley Forge and New Harmony. I remember the amazingly tall and pure shade thrown by the elm lined streets throughout St. Louis and so many other towns in the midwest. They are missed. Good info at http://www.elmpost.org.

Clean splitting elm by hand is epic, as in impossible. Always fun to stick in a piece when a noob is swinging a maul.

• This reply was modified 7 years, 8 months ago by bnw.

I’ve some trees cut from my property and my neighbor’s that I need to split. I will wait until year to do so. I’ll have to rent a splitter. So, how much is a cord. I know nothing about this stuff.

Zooey wrote:

I think part of my problem is the stovepipe exits the house on the ground floor, and runs up the side above the 2nd floor roofline. That’s a lot of exterior pipe to get nice and cold.

Here are my elms.

Most likely that is most of the problem. Maintaining heat in the stove pipe is essential.

Your elms look beautiful. I’ve seen gorgeous American Chestnut trees out west too. Isolation can be good.

zn wrote:

Zooey wrote:

Any tips? The best thing I’ve found there is to load up the kindling and use a gas torch to get the flames burning as quickly as possible.

One of my stoves is easy to light. Zoom–it just lights. The other is trickier. If I am not careful it will back smoke into the room. On that one, if I can, I burn candles in the stove for a while before trying to light er up. I always start slow with that one…doing bits of kindling first and then building up from there.

I have maple, ash, walnut, and oak.

I love oak. It burns slow and hot and burns down to nothing.

Cats, I find, burn too fast and don’t give off much heat. I prefer otters.

Candles, huh?

I got about 20′ of exterior stovepipe. I think I could put ten candles in there for an hour and it wouldn’t make any difference. I wonder about some kind of portable heater, though. Somebody must make a small propane heater for camping that would produce a bit of heat quickly.

I prefer oak, too, and imagine that’s what I will buy when I actually start buying wood. For now, I’m just burning the clean-up from my yard and my rental property. And the pine I got from the side of the road. The highway department, or somebody, dumps trees just off the freeway, and sometimes they cut them into rounds. Multiple sources tell me it’s all free for the gathering, and it was sitting there all summer, so I picked up a couple of trailer loads when my neighbor asked if I wanted to share a splitter. (I already needed one because of all the oak and elm on my properties). So I got nearly 2 cords of free pine. Apparently pine is not much in demand around here. Pine trees are practically weeds in this part of the country. The only firewood I see for sale is oak.

we have about 1/4 of a cord left (we bought our last cord about 2 years ago) This year, I will only buy 1/2 cord..

tough to burn firewood in San Jose, even in my Country Flame wood stove. we had 23 spare the air days last year from Nov through Feb…. 30 the year before where it’s illegal to burn firewood in San Jose.

URL = spare the air daze url = http://www.sparetheair.org/stay-informed/particulate-matter/pm-box-scores

Article below on rebates offered to convert wood stoves to to gas….. rebates got snapped up in one day in San Josie…..

BTW, our wood of choice has always been almond……

link: http://www.mercurynews.com/2016/08/29/bay-area-fireplace-replacement-rebates-snapped-up-in-a-day/

SAN FRANCISCO — Bay Area homeowners took only hours Friday to snap up $3 million in rebates to replace wood burning fireplaces with cleaner heating devices.

The region’s air pollution agency starting taking applications for the rebates at 10 a.m. Friday, and all the money was spoken for by the end of the day as more than 2,000 people applied.

Bay Area homeowners are eligible to seek rebates from $750 to $12,000 per home to replace wood-burning fireplaces and stoves with gas or electric heating devices such as fireplace inserts, heat pumps, or gas stoves.

“We had quite a rush,” said Tom Flannigan, spokesman for the Bay Area Air Quality Management District. “This was the first time we have offered this much money for (fireplace) change outs.”

Flannigan said the air quality agency continues to take applications for a waiting list because it’s expected that not all those who signed up for rebates will go through all the required steps to get them. To get on the list, apply online at http://www.baaqmd.gov/WoodSmokeGrant or call 415-749-5195.

Homeowners must submit plans on what will replace their fireplace or stove, wait for the air district to approve the plan, install the new device, and then submit verification that the work was done.

Glenn Stewart, a Livermore resident with a home inspection business, said he is impressed but not surprised by the demand for rebates because gas fireplace inserts are a cleaner, more efficient way to heat homes than old-fashioned fireplaces.

“Some families want the ambiance of burning wood, but most of the heat goes out the chimney,” Stewart said, “and then you then have the work of finding wood to burn and getting rid of the ashes.”

Stewart said he spent about $3,500 four years ago to replace his fireplace with a gas fireplace insert, and he’s been happy with the heat it generates .

He is ineligible for a rebate, which is not offered for fireplace conversions already done.

Air quality officials said the rebates are aimed at reducing public exposure to smoke in winter when cold stagnant air traps pollution near the ground. Tiny soot particles can lodge deep in the lungs and trigger asthma and emphysema attacks, and higher risks of strokes.

Denis Cuff covers the environment, air pollution and outdoor recreation. Contact him at 925-943-8267. Follow him at Twitter.com/deniscuff or facebook.com/denis.cuff.

I’d guess that 3500 is maybe for demo and installation – not sure on that. Too many wood burners in the SF bay area – an inversion issue in the atmosphere. I remember reading about London in the 1800’s where coal was the main fuel source.

More efficiently designed wood burners would help in my opinion. The efficiency of wood burners hasn’t changed much since the 70’s that I’m aware of. There are a few models that are a tad more efficient than others but nothing is great. I searched high and low about 10 years ago when I was installing the fireplace and wood burner that we still have. Maybe there’s something better now?

My understanding is that wood stoves are now around 80-85% efficient because they are now designed to pipe the smoke and gasses back into the fire where they re-ignite. I thought it was that way since the mid-80s. There are times when I burn and you go outside and look at the chimney and there’s no smoke at all.

correct, unfortunately, folks just shove a wood burning stove into the fireplace without proper exhaust….., or worse, most folks in the SF bay area most do not have a stove and just burn in the fireplace.

Mine is installed correctly, with a stainless steel exhaust……. with seasoned firewood it burns efficiently….

burning seasoned wood (Oak, Almond, etc) is the key……