Introduce yourself here !

Welcome to the club Dutch. Good to see people from all over the world signing on here.

 

Yes, I'm happy to have found this place and I'm surprised there are not many, many more nationalities on here.

 

Welcome aboard Dutch, looking forward to your ideas your stories in your pictures
What's the weather like over there right now?

 

It's 45 degrees, with a bit of wind, clear and with the odd shower. My main heating is natural gas, there is an infrastructure of pipes through the whole country since we have our own sources. But, I prefer the direct heat of my stove.

 

Exact same here. I have NG but it gets minimal use so long as I keep stuffing wood into my stove.

 

That's pretty close to here, right now it's 42 partly sunny

 

Welcome DutchFire glad you found our group here. Looking forward to hearing more about your country.

Gary

 

Welcome to the show ,my friend love to see some pics of your set up your home and beautiful country.

 

Thank you for the kind words guys!

It took me some time to figure it out but here we go:

This is a picture I made this morning of the back of our living room. We have a very small stove with respect to many standards. It's Dutch design, rated 6kW, not a smoke dragon but also not EPA-worthy. A simple connection with a single-walled flue pipe that becomes double walled and isolated at the first floor (kids room).

In our small garden I have multiple small wood stacks, with the largest in the back. I have little space and therefor found many "convenient"places such as: between my and the neighbours shed behind the shed

And even in the shed there is a small stack

And, as for my tools:
It's humble, but I have fun

 

Looks great Dutch

 

I'm Dave, and this is my first year burning wood. So far so good but it's a wakeup to see how quickly the wood disappears.
I've got a cord or two of wood left by the previous homeowner and I'm trying to get set up for upcoming winters. I have only a couple acres of woods an I'm debating on trying to get access to harvest from neighbors woods, or just ordering a truck of logs and doing the processing myself.

My current equipment:
- New Holland TC45DA tractor
- Stihl MS261 (18")
- Fiskars X27 splitting axe on the way

We bought the property last year to keep horses, of which we have 10 (6 are ours). It's be nice if I could train them to drag logs but not gonna happen.

That's all.

 

Welcome aboard Dave.
Yes wood has been disappearing quickly from the early "Polar Apocalypse"

You've got a tractor and a good saw, no reason to not attempt scrounging a neighbors property.

 

oh, I'm new here, but not new to chainsaw or wood world.. most know me from other places even though I've been MIA the last couple of years.

 

Welcome to the show Dave tons of good folks here to help you with any ?? you might have . I see you're from E- Town my daughter went to school there beautiful country

 

I'm Rod, friends call me RJ. Been burning and working up hardwood since I was little. I guess logging gets in the blood early on and stays.
Lived in W. Michigan all my 39 years. Thinking that I'm getting smarter as I age, but always keen to learn new tricks. Bunch of great people on this site, hope to contribute and learn.

 

A big welcome to the show also my friend

 

And a warm welcome goes out to Dave and RJ.

 

Welcome to the new (Dave and RJ) and the old (Stang)!

 

I've not officially introduced myself. My name is Jason and I am from Southern RI. About 1 mile as the crow flies from the ocean. Growing up in RI in the 70s I remember cold winters along with hot summers. In the early 90's we had a period of really mild winters followed by some colder ones. Of recent the winters have been in a similar cycle to the 70s.

The house I live in is the very house I grew up in. In the mid 90's, my soon to be wife at the time and I purchased my parents house. The original house was built around 1869 as a summer cottage with a granite foundation. Over time an addition was added for a garage and additional living space. Our guess is sometime around the 1920/30s for that addition. When my dad purchased the house in the late 1960's, he changed the house around. I still remember him telling me a story about my grandfather's comments. "Well you own it now, what the hell are you going to do with it?" The house is built into a hill that slopes up into the backyard. The now second floor is level with the backyard. My dad converted the basement/garage into the kitchen, dinning room and living room. In the living room he put a wood stove that shared the same flu as the oil burner furnace and the oil hot water heater. As a mason, he was cognizant of keeping the chimney clean by burning it off from time to time. The second floor includes 1 full bath and two bedrooms. The third floor which was three bedrooms originally was converted into two bedrooms. No basement, no attic.

In the late 1970s my dad added a garage and a "family room" to the house. As the foundation is granite, he was not able to bring the forced hot air over into the "family room." It would require it's own heat. The "family room" never came to be as a kid. My mom claimed the space for her seamstress business, and they added a propane furnace for that room. Heating that 24'X14' room with propane ran my mom between 800-1000 per year. Though she was able to write that off with her business.

When we took over the house, I pulled out the propane furnace as I could not justify the cost, and put a wood stove in the room. The first wood stove was a Jotul. It was a nice stove, but it would not last over night. As a result, I sold that stove and moved the old Soap Stone II wood stove from the living to the family room. That stove would provide 8 hour burn times along with two hours of additional heating from the stone. This cut my heating cost in the room down to 1-1/2 cord per season ($400/year). A great deal cheaper than the propane. As the stove aged, the amount of wood I needed started to grow. Eventually I was at 3 cord of wood. The Soap Stone II needed to be resealed. The local place which is about 45 minutes away that handles this told me that it would cost around $1000 for them to reseal the stove, and if parts broke they would not be able to replace them.

This started my search for a new heating solution for our family room. The one downside of a wood stove in this family room is early fall and late spring where temps are warmer during the day and cooler at night. A wood stove would drive you out of the room. I resorted to using electric heaters to supplement that time of year. Not the best or a permanent solution, but it works. I looked at putting in a propane furnace in the main part of the house in order to put a newer propane furnace in the family room. After extensive research I abandoned this idea. Next I looked at putting in radiant floor heating. This would require that I converted the main house from forced hot air to forced hot water. A radiant heated floor would probably be the most efficient way to heat this room supplemented with the wood stove. After receiving a handful of quotes, I abandoned this idea. Next was electric radiant floor heating. I didn't spend much time on this idea due to the sheer increase my electric bill would see. Finally I settled on just putting another wood stove in the room.

Now this family room is 24'X14' with two doors. One that goes outside, and the other that goes into the main body of the house. The door into the main body of the house originally served as the front door. However; even though it's larger than your average interior door, I don't get as much heat down the hallway as I'd like. My plan is eventually expand that opening up as much as possible. I would gain another three foot in the opening. Not much, but better than nothing.

As this is already a long winded thread, I'll save you from the details of my wood stove search. I settled on a Lennox Country Canyon wood stove. It provides the burn times I need for that room along with being able to take up to a 21" log sideways or an 18" log straight in. The secondary burn is pretty easy to achieve, and it warms up fast.

Since I was a kid, I've been splitting wood and helping collect it with my dad. He never purchased a cord of wood in his life. Over the past 16 years I've been purchasing "cut and seasoned wood" from a family friend. Last year I made the change to start purchasing a load of logs. This allows me to process the wood. Which I find to be soothing and relaxing. My first load of logs is just about fully processed, and my plan was to order another load. Fortunately, a friend of ours has a ton of land in the northern part of RI. National Grid, our electric provider, has a right of way on her land, and they are putting in a new line. They are taking down about 50 cord of wood. She sold the wood to a local company save 5-7 cord for myself. National grid is taking down the wood, and stacking it for her near the road. I'll be headed up there starting in December to start pressing the wood to bring home. Most likely this will be a family effort to include my three cousins, my dad, my uncle, one of my cousin's son, my son and I. Nothing like free wood. Well sort of free.


My newly purchased saw is a Stihl MS-291 with an 18" bar. It can take up to a 20" bar, and I might add that eventually. Though I've been considering getting a bigger saw to add to my new collection. Okay one saw is not a collection, but it's a start. The log splitter I use is my cousin's, and it's a Troy built. Plus I purchased a Fiskar X27 to help split wood.



Thanks for letting me join.



Jason from RI.