Finished splitting and stacking the last of my loose wood. Now have 5 holz hauzens, the first two are two year old and the last three are a combination of wood cut last spring to wood cut at the end of this summer. There is at least two years worth of wood there and probably more. I am shooting for the three- year plan but frankly am not willing to pay as much, or close to as much, for firewood as I would for heating oil. If the prices of wood do not drop and the supply does not improve next spring, I will have most of my remaining silver maples taken down- not the best firewood but usable and they are a terrible tree when standing IMO. Brian
There is nothing wrong with maple, I'm a sucker for maple. Don't need locust and mulberry cooking us out of the house in the fall/spring or warmer winter days.
Done, huh? There are two more months left so you will turn away all the easiest stuff if it comes your way? (I think not!) Don't put your saw away just yet!!!
I agree- and my wife did it 100% of it! Seriously. We cut and split together and then she stacks it all from a loose pile into those holz hausens. I will pass along the compliments to her. Brian
Sweet looking hausens. I don't have unlimited room but I did show some pictures of your hausens to the wife and she loved the way they look, so i guess thats the green light? Maybe next year I'll build one, I gotta get your secret on how to get the wife to stack it though.
I actually buy my wood, and always in the springtime. Besides, the prices are ridiculous right now and it seems to be a hoarder's market so I am going to leave it alone for as long as I have to or as long as I can stand it. I have been heating with wood since 1990 and have seen supply problem before but never anything like the price spikes in the last couple of years. And the price of oil dropping to less than half of what it was a year ago just rubs salt in the wound.... Brian
Well, no- I cut alone of course (she has never used a chainsaw and has no plans on starting) but we split together; we pick up bucked logs much larger than I could lift alone. While splitting, I run the splitter and position the wood (Easy Boys!) while she usually takes care of the 'other' piece(s) of log that are waiting to be split- the holds them on the shelf and moves them into the splitter. But you are absolutely right about being lucky that she stacks- I am not fond of it either but she actually likes it. Go figure? Brian
Like the old French Knight said in that Indiana Jones movie.... 'you must chose wisely'. ROFLMAO Holz hausens are the most compact way of storing firewood that I know of, at least the most compact without using any type of structure or building. Those in the photo are about 7 1/2' X 9', kind of oval due to the size and shape of the pallets we had. Once stacked, they take up little room, seem to be really, really rugged (my wife climbs up on them to stack them- they are between 7' and 8' tall) and extremely easy to cover, un- cover and unload onto the trailer. The wood seems to dry well stacked that way, even all the way in the center / bottom. We used to stack the first two rows of wood inside vertically but gave up doing that and now just throw the wood into a pile, then she moves the center of the pile to the outer edge and stacks it all pitched toward the center. That is what holds them up- the outer ring is 'falling' inward, and the inner pile is 'falling' outward; they really kind of interlock and become quite robust. The thing we learned this year was to stack them closer together- I used to leave enough room to get the mower behind and in- between them but that turned out to be a waste 'cause the deck cannot get all the grass anyway and they always needed trimming or they looked terrible. Now we just leave a small gap to walk through and let the plastic overlap and keep any grass from growing at all; it is easier, the wood stacks in a smaller space and requires no attention in the summer. Brian
