Excellent point Jim. I think a lot of burners neglect this simple thing when and if, they inspect their stove.
Welcome to the forum RideNSlide. Good advice has been given and I think you will do fine. My only concern is for this coming winter; That is, where will you find good dry wood to burn and find enough to get you through the winter? I have learned a little bit about wood burning as that is all I knew in my youth and I started helping when I was around age 6. I will soon be 81 so have put a few sticks in the stove and have chopped down a few trees. We are not blessed with some of the great firewood you have but are able to stay warm in winter. Guys think I'm crazy (they are right) but I keep our home around 80 degrees all winter. I do not have a furnace so the wood stove is out sole heating source. Some time ago I put together a little Primer about heating with wood. It has helped several folks and I invite you to read it. You can even copy it if you wish. Just click on the link here and start reading; (3) Primer on Woodburning by Backwoods Savage | Firewood Hoarders Club
Folks around here won't burn anything but oak most of the time. I try to stock mostly high btu wood, because it takes upless space, but I do have some lower btu wood for shoulder season.
Welcome aboard RideNSlide Reading through this thread it looks like you're not lacking any good advice. I'll just toss in keep your safety gear on when you're cutting those trees in the woods. A turn of phrase I wound up appropriating is "when you're using your saw make sure you can see all your fingers and feet or you may never see them again." There's a little bit of a learning curve when you're using your stove, but not much margin for error when you're using your saw. Or axe, maul, splitter. Good luck! Keep us updated!
Welcome to the club! As others have said you're doing good, Can't wait to see your stock piles and hauls and jealous of the variety you have to choose from! Killing locust is like cutting the head off of a hydra (3 headed dragon) cut one several grow, it's the main reason my woods is covered in it, they die off and several grow, it's nice firewood but I like variety! What are you cutting and hauling with?
Having dry wood at or under 20% moisture content has been mentioned several times already...and very likely any wood species you have there will be at or under 20% if it is CSS'd (cut/split/stacked, with a top cover, but open on the sides) for 3 years...but until you get to that point, and/or have the experience to know when wood is ready to go without testing it, it is important to make sure you are using the moisture meter correctly. Do not test wood on the ends, or the outside...you must re-split the wood and immediately test it in the middle of a freshly exposed face...and for most accurate results, it should be on a room temp piece of wood, and the testers pins parallel with the grain of the wood. Welcome to FHC!
Welcome to the forum RideNSlide! This forum is the best resource on the net for all things firewood related. As far as burning black locust, it's at the top of my list for primo firewood and I consider myself to be living in the goldilocks zone of available species of trees. Nothing like finding a standing dead black locust for the stacks! I use our Lopi Rockport as our primary heat source here in PA. I do have an oil furnace but haven't bought oil in 5 years and that's living in a drafty 1840s farmhouse. Determine how much you will burn in a year and get on the 3 year plan. After that it's all downhill.
Wow- I don't want to add major drift to this thread but that's incredible. For folks that use oil and find the furnace not coming on, do you need to put any sort of a fuel stabilizer in the oil tank? Best of my understanding is that fuel is essentially just diesel.
That's just old timer folklore. I've burned upmteen cord of hedge and black locust in my old wood stove and never had a problem. The type of wood you burn doesn't cause chimney fires....dirty chimneys cause chimney fires. Dirty chimneys are caused by wet wood and/or lack of air (dirty smoke). If you are burning clean you have nothing to worry about and will enjoy extended burn times.
Funny how people tell you what not to burn happens to be the stuff you have access too. I’m not a pro like some of the folks on this booard but if I had a suggestion it would becto try to get some stuff like poplar or lower BTU wood for shoulder season. The stuff you have is either really fast burning or for the deep cold of winter. But that’s a bit nitpicky…sounds like you’re in goos shape
I thought of adding a fuel stabilizer but never followed through if needed. I do turn the furnace on in the fall to be sure it works. I also run it if it's just cool enough to need a quick warm up and Im feeling lazy and dont want to start a fire. But that usually doesn't last long when I think, you're member of FHC, get on it!!
He said he was trying to eradicate, the best species to burn in North America..... Now he looking at it with a wood burners eyes. That really changes your outlook on everything.
Yeah, same here. We had locust spring up about 10-15 years ago and we cut them all down. Now they are back and I wish we had left them alone.
Welcome to FHC RideNSlide One thing you probably noticed while reading any thread, it can go off the rails pretty quickly and down rabbit holes. Sometimes it can get to be hilarious. Please take it as it is meant to be - just joking around. There are some of the most kind hearted and generous people you will ever meet posting on this forum.
Thank you, Wolverine! I did use a moisture meter on the wood I burned in March, after we put the stove in. Some of it was like 7 percent, and all under 20. Except the one that came with the stove was cheap and now isn't working well, so I will get another one (or two, just in case!) before the season starts. I will post pics of some of my "forest" of hedge and locust but will do it in a separate post. The land is only 10 acres (my folks, and part is pasture) and our 5 acres, so there really isn't a "forest" involved at all......just a lot of very tall overgrowth! Also thank you for explaining the CSS - I hadn't figured that one out yet. I knew what it meant by context, just didn't know what the specific letters stood for. I cut about a cord and a half last winter, so am just starting on the 3 year plan. I will get a good start on it again once the weather cools somewhat - mid 90's isn't fun to cut wood in!
Thank you, JimBear! How do you tell if your stove is sealed up? Just if it doesn't leak smoke? I would assume (but I really don't assume anything anymore....) that our stove isn't leaky just because it is new but I wouldn't guarantee it. We did have a reputable company put it in for us, but who knows in the end?!
WoodWidow, I have already discovered the sense of humor and absolutely love it! I grew up in the country, with cowboys, cattle farmers, teachers, construction workers, and plain ole good people, so appreciate the work ethic, generosity and common sense! It is all good!
