That first year of using the boiler was a learning experience. Loading the boiler house went great. Stacked the wood in there and didn't have to end rick anything. I used one of those cheap lawn carts and would load it up from the back of the truck, then unload to the stack. Meant double handling but with cutting out all the steps it was faster. Figured in time I'd have to replace it as it was really a lot of weight for it but use it as long as it would last. Dad. Mom and grandma were here as I said early to take care of her. After firing it up and making sure everything was working okay dad was handling the feeding of the boiler. House was warmer than ever but the upstairs was still very cold. The house was always cold before as the windows were bad and grandma said they had just a few downstairs rooms insulated. You could see your breathe upstairs in the closed off rooms to give an example. It became QUICKLY apparent that it was going to use a lot of wood. Dad was feeding it twice a day. Long story short, first year it used 28 cord. Yes TWENTY - EIGHT cord. It's a hard pill to swallow and it's something that isn't said very much by dealers and such but here it is. IF YOUR HOME IS AN ENERGY HOG BEFORE A BOILER, IT WILL BE AN ENERGY HOG AFTER A BOILER. I had to do something fast as I did not want to waste that much wood again. A house redo was something that had to be done. In about March I rented a insulation blower and put about 14 - 18 inches in the attic and waited for warmer weather to start the outside. My plan was to completely strip everything off, one side at a time down to the studs. True up the sides, put in new windows, insulate and such. I started at one of the closed in porches. It wasn't built very well so it was easier just to rip it all out and start anew. House had asbestos shingles, then 2 layers(totalling 1/2") of thick tar paper like squares, and then original lap siding. Re framed it up true and changed some window layout. I replaced with insulation, OSB house wrap, then siding. I paid real close attention to the windows, sealing an insulating everything overboard. Done here and ready to move on. FRont porch was next. Wanted the house to look like it was original than added to so the windows needed to be changed. BIG gaps everywhere on this and built pretty bad as well. All new and will be loads better. Once that was done the real fun began. Used some industrial shelving for scaffolds and work great. Had a good, safe platform to work off of and made it go a lot faster. When I pulled off the siding their was NO insulation anywhere. I straightedged the sides and shaved them where needed to get everything straight.
Exposed inner walls you can see full 3 x 10 studs on 1 st floor, 3 x 8 on the second floor Hand hewn main beams. plate was 12 x 16! Nice to get it all back on. I was working full time on second shift 7 days a week so I worked in the mornings on it. Vast improvement looks wise and heat wise. On the front porch was closed in on both stories with rows of windows. Always looked odd to me. Here it is all finished. Went all the way around and got it all done before Winter came. Worked my tail off doing it but had to be done. The year before I kept the garage at a bare minimum heat wise as I just didn't want the floor heat to freeze. We were using so much wood I wanted to save as much as possible. At the end of the second year, WITH the garage heated to 60 degrees I used right at 13 cord. 36'X 50' story house with full basement, 36' x 50' attached garage with radiant floor heat and my domestic hot water. I have averaged around 14 cord/year for 10 years now. Insulation and windows do make a difference. Huge difference now as upstairs is as close to warm as lower level.
This year I decided it was time to clean up the small woods behind my house so I could get all the dead ash out that EAB has knocked out. Let it grow up which was a mistake and honeysuckle took over, chocking out any new growth and ground cover. Thought the ash would be there for a long time and didn't need in there but that has all changed now. It needed to be done and the one good thing is it is here at home so no travel time to work on it. These are the before pics. For those of you lucky enough not to have this stuff it is a nasty plant. Grows fast, shades out the undergrowth and I've been told it releases a toxin from the root system that kills of other plants Basically nothing green under it, just bare soil. After a while you can walk under the canopy as it competes against other honeysuckle plants for light. First step was to make a few driveways around the perimeter of the section I want to clear out. Not a huge area as it takes some work to get done. Probably just over a couple acres. Doesn't sound like much till you try it. I root out the honeysuckle with the backhoe and then cut the straights/smalls for firewood. Not much heat value but it works okay for the shop stove. I cut all the stumps off and throw them on the burn pile. Mostly ash with a few black locust, hackberry, mulberry and walnut. Looking better allready Able to get to the stuff that fell on the ground now. No need to split if I can lift them by hand so off to the boiler stack. No roads to travel as it's here at home which makes it nice. The mighty 1/2 ton earning her keep!
Normally back up to the big door and unload but it is full as I normally fill it. Door won't clear to shut so I'll go in the walk in door for all this. I'm also stacking to the ceiling this year. I have never done this before but want to cut out and extra handling(stack/restack) as there is so much down so close. Load after load they come. Chunked the bigger stuff so I can lift them. To stack to the ceiling I basically made a tapered ramp to walk up. Takes more time to pack it in but worth it to me to save the double stack. Getting full and it's going to be close.
Can't get much more in here now. Measures out at just under 18 cord by my estimate. After rooting out one of the center sections I went through and cut all the wood out. Then wind rowed all the brush, laying it in one direction. That way I can back the chipper up and get rid of the brush and haul it away, Borrowed a buddies dump trailer who wanted a few loads and started in. the driveways make it easier to work. dad helps when I chip as it keeps things moving along nicely. The chipper works best with 2 people feeding it.[/img] One sections brush out of the way. Just need to clear the wood and stump piles out. Makes it look smaller when you can see as this is up a hillside Still a good bit of standing dead left. Digging out the next section. We let this stuff go way too long. Here's a scale pic for you. That is a 14 inch bar.
12 inches of solid on a 4 cluster. They probably average 4 -6 on most of them. Here's our old IH backhoe. Not much to look at but gets the job done. Notice the branch is laying on the truck. Some of them get 30 ft long as they hang on each other growing out and up. Got the next section all chipped and stuffed hauled out. I then took the box grader and leveled all the ground out from the stump digs. I'll let it settle in and rehit it this spring and reseed it in grass. Get the standing dead out before planting any trees. Here is a couple pics of What EAB damage is like. They don't miss anything. I'll probably cut more of the standing stuff once I burn up what is in the furnace house. Won't stack it to the ceiling again, just what I can reach from the ground, about 8 1/2 ft. Sure is nice wood to burn but I wish these things didn't exist. You can't imagine how much ash is around here that is just going to rot up and go to COMPLETE waste.
Great story kevin! My grandpa was also a homelite dealer here back in the 50's. I still have some of his old saws and tools. That 4-20 looks just like my grandpa's old 7-21. It still has his dealer tag on it (gold sticker on the tank)
Dad called up and asked if I'd help him take down a tree in his front yard. EAB got his ash which was a nice tree. Not very big as it was right at 2 ft in diameter about 3 ft up but any chance to play with the saws and be with Dad is a good day. Here is the tree. Close enough to the house it could hit it so dad went the extra mile and cabled it just to be safe. he had it ready to go when I got there. Could have just used the truck but we have done anchors like this for years on bigger trees. Never failed and your cable doesn't have to be so long. Don't have to worry about landing on anything important either! Brought the whole family out for the occasion. Dad had 4 out to as you can see in his truck to the right. Way overkill for sure but you have to have fun sometimes. Dropped like a dream. about a 1/2 hour later we started loading a half load for his wood chute. He's just going to load as needed to save a second handling. Yeah, I didn't get a perfect stump. Dad's party crashers. Newer Homey, xl12, xl autmatic and super 2. I had him run the 028WB I just got fixed for him and it did great. He used the little guys to trim with. Neighbor asked if we'd help him with this one next year. It's right at 4 ft in diameter 3 ft up. It's completely dead as well he just has enough wood right now and wants it in air storage for now.
Here is a close up of the anchor point. This is a real handy way of doing it if your not familiar with it. Dead simple and fast if your in a tight spot. Dad's wood chute. Laid stone walls with poured bottom. Holds close to 3/4's of a cord All full Simple angled lid to run the water away. Here's a view from inside the house, in the basement. Dad's homebuilt stove that has been is use for over 35 years now. Keeps the bugs and dirt out of the house which makes Mom happy. Close to the stove so very little walking involved with it.
Pulled the splitter out and we got it all worked up in a hurry. Sorry no action pics as I forgot the camera. Wanted to beat the forecasted rain/snow and got to rushing around. Went back after we were done to get these. Not a lot of wood but the location is hard to beat!
Was down in "one" of Dad's shops and he had some of his saws all over the floor taking up space. I mentioned that I had seen, maybe on here, where someone made a chainsaw tree. He didn't say much as usual but went in there today and found this; Pretty neat but he needs about 4 more of them! I still need to get a pic of everything and will do here someday. Yeah, dad likes his little homeys but there's a Poulan and Mac in there for you guys as well. Who says chainsaws don't grow on trees!
Started cutting the standing dead ash to refill the furnace house. I'll packed to the roof again. I still had about 4 1/2 cord left so I used 13 cord last year. I started earlier and ran a little later with the stove this year. I can work at this at my own pace by myself. Was a real wet spring here so I put off till it was fit. Started cutting and when it was finally dry enough, I started hauling. Load 1 Load 2 Not going to be much left when I get all the dead out. My plan is to cut the stumps flush, burn the brush and then relevel the ground. I'll then rent a seeder and drill grass seed in. I'll spray a few times to kill the hunysuckle shoots and plant some trees eventually. I just want all the dead out so there will be no chance of messing a planted tree up. Sure makes for easy pickens with all the brush and huneysuckle gone. It had most of the ground to bare as it blocked all the sunlight to the ground. Stumps flush to the ground so I can bush hog once or twice a year if needed. I have always liked working up ash and it's such a shame that they will be no more. These trees were like telephone poles. Nice, tall and straight. Load 3
Load 4 Load 5 Getting tight in here. Up to the cathedral trusses. I make basically stirs to walk up to stack that high. Stove gives some scale to it. Load 6. That is about it for unloading through the big door. The rest will have to be walk in through the walk in door. Load 7 Load 8.
Yeah, I don't watch a lot of TV! Stay cooped up at work enough that I enjoy the outside work whenever I get the chance. No children or Misses. Not had much luck in that department. It is so bad around here as we have quite a large percentage of ash trees. Most of it will go to total waste as land owners will just let it rot up. You can drive around and just see dead trees everywhere. Price is down too because tree companies give it away as they have so many jobs to do. Not a lot of burners around here either so it's everywhere.
Been raining here so I had an idea for something I've wanted to do for quite a while. When going to cut and you put the saws in the back of the truck they wanted to slide around. Really bad with a bed liner so I wanted to cure that. Some of the woods we have are hilly too so they want to slide then as well. Wanted something that would fold up and be out of the way so I started tossing ideas in my head around and this is what I came up with. Bought a Pressure treated 2 x 8 some bungee cords and 2 packs of screw on D rings. If you have bigger bars a bigger board would be in order as this is close on some of mine. I want it to hook in between the gap of the bed and tailgate, thus not allowing it to slide forward. Got a scrap of thin steel and bent a pattern. Then to the steel pile and got some 1/8" strap stainless and cut them to length after cutting the board to bed width and laying it all out. Transferred the bend lines to the 2 straps and bent them both in the press at once. Makes them the same and used a square to make sure they were straight. 2 simple bends and I'm good to go. Nice matched set this way Here you can see how the hook in. The 45 degree bend is needed to clear the tailgate. It just barely hits it when closed and locks it into position. Basically trapping it with no straps or bolting down, Quick and easy. Put the saws in position allowing some space between. Slot positions can be added where ever needed down the road too. I just plunge cut them with a chainsaw and made them twice the width of the bar. Hit them real quick with a rounding router blade to get rid of the splintered edges. Not too worried about perfection here, it's a used tool. All the slots done and rounded over. Now I'm ready to attach the straps. Went to the outer edge and checked to see if everything cleared. After doing so I drilled a 3/8" hole in the ends of both straps and A pilot hole in the 2 x 8. I used 3/8" lag bolts 3 inches long.
