I got off work today, ran a butcher shop errand on the East side of town. In the interval, I see a newly posted ad for a store bundle of dry wood and then next to it was a different ad for a more significant load of green wood on the way home. Mostly alder and a little of what looks like silver maple, bit too dark to confirm at the moment. This was a scrounge that took some patience. Not much was popping up and whenever I got the chance to respond, it was already gone or pending pick-ups. I will definitely take this, love burning Alder.
Nice score! I hear you on wood being gone by the time you reply to an ad. I missed some primo looking ash a few weeks ago. I replied the day after ad was posted and was too late. The homeowner told me 15 others had replied before me! Can’t win em all I guess. I like the FHC decal on your truck. Hoard on!
This year has been mostly the early months so hopefully things are going to warm up not cool down and I mean that by wood and weather too. No worries but I keep checking the spots where wood is dumped and it’s been pretty much nothing since last June.
I get a LOT more wood scrounges in the summer, for sure. Less competition too, maybe because of the heat, or because there's enough to go around. Springtime cleanup season is pretty fruitful, too. I'm glad you got something!
Like the haul and the dedication. Had to check, we do have Alder here in Ohio never run across any though.
Yup me too! Thank you! It usually does pick up around now or closer to April, I should have rephrased that most wood I was finding were costing $. Thing is we did have storms so I was expecting some blown down trees. But nothing was really popping up. Quite a bit of rain has fallen though in the last month so likely spring and any wind to come might bring that on. Best get my saws in for updated tune up
I like it because it’s a medium heat burner, I’d be more than Happy to use it all day and it won’t overheat a house on a full load. Unless the house is super tiny though!
The red alder we have out here is the biggest alder species and very different than alder in other parts of the country.
It's also very easy to split and relatively clean. The bark doesn't flake off or leave a mess in the house.
I guess you could compare that to are black cherry here, it is a medium heat. Splits easy very common. We have European black alder here. In the birch family according to what I've read.
Thanks for the info blacktail. One of my favorites here is American beech. I have had mixed results splitting it. It is really clean to process though, has real smooth bark. Tree is very popular for carving into by teens. From what my buddy in Seattle claims. Madrone is right up there with some of the best hardwoods on the planet.
Madrone is awesome, absolutely. It too has a similar qualities like Alder being clean and easy to split. Wood turners enjoy both but madrone(madrona)is much more dense. More BTU’s, closer to black locust end of the list in that regard. Really cool wood because it’s exclusive to PNW. Once it’s very dry, whew make sure it’s a cold and wet day out so cracking a window open is sufficient in balancing the warmth.
How do you acquire your wood? Is it all scrounged, do you cut on your own land, friends/relatives land etc? It is nice precut...when its the correct length. I just bucked a bunch of one year seasoned red maple splits to 16". They were 18-24". Still have more. I didnt want to mess with the small nuggets so gave them to landlord for his stove, and have plenty of firepit wood.
Glad you asked buZZsaw BRAD, I have some places that haven’t quite changed but drive by often enough to keep an eye out once in awhile. Others, more random. Usually I have some stops where I will check in the Tacoma and slightly outside areas. One is a dump area that a tree service works in tandem with the power company drops their days work in a lot right outside the station. It’s everything from big logs that are cut up into rounds or noodled rounds. I think they cut the logs the length size of the truck storage and the trucks have their own crane arms. Looks like they save time doing the cuts to basic length, load the truck and wait until they reach the lot to cut to rounds at the end of the day as they see fit. The other half of pickups are ads I see on apps in the area from work and home. Then there is the odd scrounge where it’s left outside a house or street. I had times where I saw the logs outside on my way to work hoping to ask the owner about them only to see that they had been picked up while I was at work. Oh well. The wood around here is plentiful and I had some tree service contacts in the past but when they contacted me about wood, I was in a different situation not feasible for collecting the wood at the time. I don’t often get outside the area since the wood comes and goes pretty easily when people start calling tree services to cut the wood down. The wind and rain will soak the area often in the spring and some species of trees here don’t grow deep roots like western Red Cedar so they are prone to tip over easily. I have worked for friends in the Summer time and they have had to cut trees down as the trees just grow more than their property has room for, happy to get rid of the wood since tree services charge a bit for that. I will haul limbs some 4-8 feet in length, any diameter home to process, more so when the wood species is good like black locust. The stuff I’m finding more often and people can’t get rid of it easily as the suckers sprout back up. Having that experience isn’t fun so I feel for the owners of the property but happy to have that wood for later.
All my wood is scrounged, if I see trees down I stop and ask. Do a good job, clean up and don’t do any damage and they tell their friends and pretty soon you have steady wood. All these wood pics are scrounged wood.
