Well this summers slabwood from sawing out the mill building has accumulated and I'm cleaning up the woodyard area for some winter firewood processing, that means snow plowing this area. I had stuff strewn all over the place from just concentrating on building the sawmill building. The slabwood is all hemlock and I've been asking people if they wanted it or some of it. Of course I don't want it, it's hemlock is what the firewood snob in me was thinking. My time is not worth this low BTU stuff! I brought this load over to a buddies for his evaporator (maple). It made a good dent in the pile but then I got to thinking.... wait a minute, getting the wood out of my woods is about 75% of the work, it's basically already "split", sitting in the yard and all I have to do is cut it to length. Suddenly I climbed down off of my high horse. I'm burning hemlock, at least for the shoulder seasons. I might have enough for a 3rd rack, that should be about 2 1/2 cord. I'll see how it goes this winter. For the curious, here's the building that created
Heck yeah, I’d be burning every single piece of mill scrap. Heat is heat and like you said, most of the work is done.
You could drag all those scraps inside the building and build a couple hundred birdhouses this winter while you’re snowed in. Or burn it.
I'd buy a few birdhouses. if the birds like Hemlock. Good way to thin the piles, especially if those extend your hardwood supply. We've had some SS type days here, even though we're about out of shoulder season wood. Next year we'll keep a better supply handy.
Nothing wrong with slabwood, or hemlock..... as long as it's dry. Being sawmill people, we've burnt a whole lot of slab wood.
You live out west here where I am, and you learn really quick not to be so picky about what wood you are burning. Very nice building you put up. Nice job.
Hard to say no when it's like that. I've done the pickups of that. Even thought the cuts would make some good shelves even if they are off shaped but now people want $ for em. That there is BTU central. Warms us all.
Not real slab wood, but in the past few years I started popping the sap wood and minimal heart wood off my oaks and locust when it has bark. I was stock piling it for my maple evaporator, but that ship has sailed because I am too busy in the spring to do maple as a hobby anymore. I have started burning all that "slab wood" as shoulder wood this year, and its been perfect for the short burns to just get the chill out. I actually started stacking this years slabs out in the stacks with the shoulder wood.
fuelrod I know what you mean about the slabs. Gopher wood for sure but..... This past summer, I needed some wood for interior walls of a shack. I almost got some pine from a bandsaw mill operator; ended up getting white cedar from another guy with a circular saw mill. Anyway, that first guy (bandsaw mill) had a bunch of pine/spruce slabs that had been piled for a couple of years. I think he wanted 35 for whatever you could load onto a pickup. Not too bad considering the condition it was in but was a bit too far at 60 miles one way. That and you'd also have to contend with all the chimney fires from burning pine..........
1999 7.3 6 sp. with 72k! It doesn't see the road in winter, ever! Yesterday processing the slabwood the "snob" in me started to sneak back out when I ran into a few slabs where the bark pulled-fell right off. There wasn't much meat left making me wonder the btu value of bark? A large part of my snobbienes is that I can. My normal firewood is Beech from thinning porcupine or other damage and most of it (up to about 7"-8" dosen't need to be split. Beech is a champion on the BTU chart and dries nicely once in a single row rack. It just takes a LOT of these poles to make a cord! I'm burning the slabwood don't worry and in the future I'll treat it a little better as it comes off the mill keeping it off the ground and a lot less sawdust with maybe a little sorting too.
They are starting to get at mine. Are moth balls an effective deterrent or how about pieces of red cedar?
