Work full time. Average 50hrs wk Burn 8-10 cord (heating 4000 sqft home) with outside boiler. Also have wood stove and fireplace both used as novelty items more than for heat sources. But we do use them. I cut about 5 cord off my place (15 acres mostly mature maples and edge of woods poplar and cotton. At parents farm I cut about 3 cord. (They have 40 acres and it's only 5 miles away) mostly oak, ash, hickory, walnut. Couple times a year I get with some friends and cut at a buddy's farm (400 acres) we cut and harvest a lot of wood. But honestly it's more work than what you get when by yourself. I can cut 2 cord buck and split myself in a day vs cutting with 3 of us. But then its 3 of us feeding off it and usually get 1.5 cut and hauled home for each of us. When get home I split. It's more for the fun of hanging with friends. I cut 90% myself, I split 100% myself, I load & tend 100% myself. The wife usually makes me a nice dinner on days I'm harvesting. I love her beef stew and she knows it. Perfect after a long day in the woods.
Around 4 give or take. Wood primarily from family, friends, tree services, Craigslist. I think I’ve bought one cord since 2009. Still work and will be for another 20 years or so. It’s pretty much all me making firewood, wife and kids help on occasion. It’s becoming more common as they get older. My wife does help bring split wood in to the garage rack from the shed and runs the stove like a pro.
Never measured before this year but looks like 3cords or a touch more will do it. Work at it alone mostly, css & hauling. 10 year old granddaughter has become a good helper when we can get together. constantly scanning and scouting for a score then get permission to get it. Permission is usually easier to get than finding good scores! Have a full time job. We heat the shop at work with wood & oftentimes have help with wood gathering for that. this is a great thread idea
X2 , we sleep safe in our beds at night because the Marines are protecting us day and night, as well as as all the other services, including the USCG . God bless them them.
In our 40 years here we burn about 4 to 5 cords a winter depending on the year. I've never paid a penny for wood. I get it here and there, and cut my own wood as a last resort. I am am 3 or 4 years from retirement, that being said, my wife is a full time homesteader. She grows and and pickles, cans, freezes, and dries (herbs) our food. She keeps the fires going for 6 months of the year. She is master stacker and crib end specialist, and I would bet against anyone to beat her. "Live Free or Die"
We burn around 3 cord a season. Most of our wood comes off of our 19 acres. On occasion I cut on our neighbors land but only if it’s really good wood. I’m working full time. My wife helped before we had little ones, 14 months and 4.5. As for now I do it all my self but the oldest is getting close to helping. I really enjoy threads like this. Everyone’s situation is different.
We burn 5-6 cord per year. I’ve scrounged many cord from the roadsides over the years and am more and more harvesting off our property. Have not yet had to go the route of presplit or delivered logs. As we grow our family and more and more time is devoted to work, we will see what the future holds. I do most all of the harvesting/hauling, cutting and splitting. My wife helps stack in the wood shed and she will happily bring in cartloads of wood, start the stove and/or keep it going and she helps with cleanup, too.
I realized I never answered my own questions. I burn between 7-8 full cords a year. I harvest 100 percent of my own wood, often including downing the trees. Ive worked full time since graduating high school. Currently work a regular 40 hour a week job, but it’s about an hour each way from my house. Before that I worked a 40 hour a week job and a 15 hour a week job simultaneously. Many years til I can retire. I do 98 percent of the css myself. Occasionally my son, daughter, and wife will help. As others said I kind of enjoy the alone time, but at other times I wish I had 3 or 4 sons to help.
All of the above. Hahaha almost. Never bought any wood. Guestimate 12 cord a year between three houses. Could be less. I just keep bringing it till they say enough. Down from previous years thanks to efficient stoves. Always harvested off our own property. Last year was the first the scrounging bug really bit. There’s just something cool about grabbing unwanted wood destined for the dump. Easier too. Usually easy access. Log loading dump trailer makes it a breeze. Pull it on board, bring it home and dump it. No more loading and unloading rounds. Time to head back onto our property and start in there. Doesn’t take long for Mother Nature to add to the piles. Retired. Do the firewood by myself. Sister and mother are woods cleaningholics. Piles of branches everywhere. That’s good because I didn’t get the forest cleaning gene.
3to5 cord a year Scrounge all my wood and process and stack all on my own with a little help from the family Full time dad and husband and son brother ect lol Work full time weather permitting.
2 and maybe 3 cord in a cold year. I have about 11 cord c. s. s. now, not including what I plan to, and have burned this year. 98% of my wood comes from my 6 acres of EAB killed white ash. There is about a cord of white oak, from a tree that a FHC member Brandon Scott gave me, and some red oak from a tree service. I do it all for the most part; felling, splitting stacking, fire building and ash dumping. My wife? She enjoys the 'free' heat but wouldn't move a piece of firewood if she was about to trip over it.
Steep access to get in/out with wheelbarrow. Yup, rocks and hills off a main trail. Spied a couple storm fallen ashes in there couple weeks ago. Decent wood. Upcoming Winter project.
Welcome to the forum DB. First off, thank you for your service to our country. Second, perhaps we are not too far apart and I hope not. We are 50+ miles from Lansing and about the same from Flint. 35 from Saginaw. Perhaps some time we might get together. And speaking of getting together, we have what we call a get-together (GTG) in the spring of the year. Several GTG's happen around the country besides ours. We plan on having a GTG the first weekend of May next spring and you can consider yourself invited. Just keep watch on the forum as we get closer to the date for more information. If you'd like to know a bit about what happens, you might go the "Everything Else" forum to see a thread about last spring's gtg. Better yet, here is a link to that thread. It is a long one but a good one. Live from the May 2019 Michigan GTG at Backwood Savage’s
I burn between 8 and 10 cord every year. I buy a log length load approx. 7 cord, I cut and split that and gather the rest from my property. Retired but went back to work all this past summer and fall just got laid off and am looking forward to getting back at the firewood. I do most of it by myself, sometimes get a hand from my son and sometimes I help him with his firewood he burns about 5 cord.
I burn 3-5 cords every year in an old Fisher. Currently have around 25 cords give or take on hand. I teach so getting wood is a weekend or evening thing for me. Used to do a lot of the work in the summer but as I’ve gotten years ahead I don’t have to do that anymore. Used to be just me but my son is old enough to help now. I give him a few bucks to help me cut a load or split for an hour. We both win and so does my back. I have a permit to cut dead or down wood on National Forest land.
