i like to keep all the bits and pieces and remnants from my splitter and use them as kindling, I’ve been using an old 55 gallon drum with a ton of holes drilled in it for storage but once it gets near the bottom the pieces are hard to get, do any of you guys collect these pieces and use them? How do you store them if so......
I dont save the wood shards anymore. Years back my mother would double up paper shopping bags. Ive used repurposed lawn and leaf bags. They are pretty tough and can burn them when almost empty.
I have a bunch of galvanized metal bushels that I fill and stick in the basement. They are not very space efficient, but very convenient to use by the stove.
I use food safe free plastic 5 gallon pails I get from a donut & sub shop shops. Mostly use them to store honey in but there free, I get green ones from a sub shop they held dill pickles and peppers. They are also food safe but I have never put honey in them because the pails hold that smell a long time. Stop in ask them to save you a few instead of throwing them in the dumpster. Girl at Mancinos calls me when she had 4 or 5 ready for me. Al
Probably not a high demand for pickle flavored honey. Great idea on finding pails. I always have several stacked in the garage ready for whatever I may need one for.
I toss them aside in a mound, collect them in a plastic garbage pail and use in the outdoor fire pit. Mound will have larger scraps too small for nugget bin, plus bark chunks too.
We still have a few plastic 32 gallon trash cans from pre-recycling days. Lightweight and easy to dump out but they are starting to crack from age/use. We had some steel drums, one was used as a rain barrel for a while but I guess I threw them out.
I have 2 bins in my wood shed that I use for kindling. You could say I am on the 2 year plan for kindling.
I use the 5 gallon plastic pails too. Fill up about 8 or 10 of them every tandem load of oak I split. Then they sit inside the old chicken coop until next year and they come in the basement pail by pail. The empty pails go back in the coop to be refilled next load.
I am getting ready for my third season of heating with wood. I started saving the bits and pieces from splitting last year. I filled one 44 gallon trash can with kindling. We used 2/3 of it this past heating season. "We" meaning my other half is still learning how to tend the fire. City girl but is learning. She initially didn't want anything to do with the wood stove but now tends to it while I am at work. I suspect she likes the wood heat. Started on my three year plan this winter and kept saving the bits and pieces from splitting. I now have three 44 gallon plastic trash cans full of kindling and I am not even halfway into my second year of wood. I think I will end up with more kindling than I might need. I will probably end up using some of it in the fire pit during Family get togethers. I kept the 44 gallon can outside the kitchen door under the eaves with a lid on. We would fill the empty ash can with kindling and kept that near the wood stove. We would pull the kindling from that in the morning to help "relight" the fire, although there was usually enough coals to start the splits without the kindling.
