First off, can't thank the members here enough for the information you all provide for a new home owner and wood burner like myself. Here's where we're at so far. Sold the pellet stove and bought a relatively cheap wood stove with that money. We have about a 20' outdoor masonry chimney so I figured we should put the money in that first and update the stove later if we want to. I suspect we will end up with an insulated ss liner when we get the stove hooked up. The stove is small but a friend of mine has one and really likes it. I started accumulating wood back in March and we have about 1.5 cords right now for 15/16 and 16/17 which will grow a lot. My father in law has about 2 cords of 4 year css that we have for this upcoming winter since he quit burning wood back in 2010. The stuff under the tarp is kinda punky so we'll use it outside or in a pinch. Here's some pics of where I'm at so far. Nothing compared to the members here but I'm aspiring. My wife says I start talking fast and get wild eyes when wood and wood burning come up. The only area I'm 100% is the wood hauler but she's getting rear air bags in a few days.
Any questions about CTCs, feel free to ask. Nice start on the firewood......now, go get more. What stove is that?
It's just a little 1800 pleasant hearth. Nothing great but a friend of mine has one that he likes and I got it scratch and dent.
Welcome to the clan. Nice job on setting yourself up. Sounds like your wood situation is well under control. Enjoy and good luck
"My wife says I start talking fast and get wild eyes when wood and wood burning come up." ... paramedics are trained now to look for these symptoms and no longer take patients to the hospital... they give them this forum's link and take them out in the woods and drop them off with a saw... Welcome home D4W.
Your winter will be more enjoyable. We started with a zero clearance bis nova that I installed when I ripped out the zero clearance fireplace POS. This winter we will be heating the whole house and making hot water with a gasification boiler. This is just the start for you!
Stay at it shipmate! you know your there when the neighbors call you the crazy guy who has piles of wood in the driveway
I really like the way you built up the area and are now stacking wood there. Nice use of the space. Not sure what size that stove is but the firebox looks a bit small. It will be interesting how this works out for you. Yes, a liner in that chimney will be dollars very well spent else the performance of the stove will suffer a lot. Good luck. On that punky stuff, burn it in the fall when you want some heat but not a lot. So long as it is dry, it will burn. If it gets wet.....that's another story.
Thanks everyone. Yeah backwoods, the firebox is very small. Hopefully it does the job but if not, we'll upgrade it next year. I'm getting some pallets this week to use on the bottom of the stacks so I'm not using all the treated lumber for runners. One thing that's aggravating me is the moisture meter. I split a piece of ash that was CSS two summers ago and it read 26 which was very surprising. It came from my father in laws old stack. It was 92 and humid when I repslit the wood and am wondering if that could have anything to do with it? Anyway, thanks everyone and I'm sure I'll have a million questions. One thing you've all taught me already is I will never have enough and I won't burn wet wood.
If it wasn't or isn't currently covered and rain got on it then that is probably your answer. I assume the weather in PA is similar to what we had in here in NJ last week, several wet days and no sun. Put your test pieces in the sun and see if they go back down under 20% in a few days. If so the moisture was most likely reabsorbed from rain. Re splitting limits the number of tests you can do. The effect of rain is real easy to see if you have an appropriate scale.
Get a baseline from your MM by using a piece of KD scrap or the palm of your hand. Depending on where the KD was should be like 11%+/- a couple and the palm of your hand in the 30's. I've given up on mine and just keep hoarding so I never need to use it again!
