Welcome Rolf! I have lineage ties to Germany, very glad to have you as a member here, great first post too! Glad to have a perspective of wood burning from your part of the world!
Welcome Sound like you season your wood a bit different & in the end, burn dry wood . What types of wood ?
Just touching base welcome to FHC, will read the rest of the thread later. Top covered only, will not induce wet wood on top
Wow. That's what I call one nice welcome. Thanks to you all. I am almost speechless for your friendly an curious posts. schlot // I live in the almost geographical center of germany. The region is called "Westerwald" placed between Frankfurt and Cologne. It's about 40 minutes from here to the river rhine. @grizzly // 90% of our splitters here are constructed for meter-wood. Mostly designed in vertical work direction. So you dont' have to lift the whole round up on a table by hand. More professional and expensive splitters have hydraulic lifting. But these ones you find more in automatic processing lines for commercial use. You see also winches for handling meter rounds up to the splitters. Spreading of the "new -old business" of making firewood is a "trend" that came back in the last decades. As oil / gas prices keept on rising and the use of renewable fuels like wood becomes trendy, a new generation remembers what they experienced with their fathers and grandfathers earlier. In regions, where farmers mostly own their own forest land, making f.w. never came out of style. Nowadays you find a huge group of guys that loves their – i call it: wood -motor sports in caring about their tractors, splitters, saws and swarming in the woods on weekends. What you see there has nothing to do with saving money by using an cheaper fuel. Because of the value of all the equipment in relation to the savings for me the whole thing is more a sport than anything else. And for me it's the same. A motor sport combined with a touch of being more autonomic about the heating fuel. Blue Vomit // Hi, you are right sir, beer is a topic thats never out of style here. And with german beer you will never see blue vomit as a result . I am happy to have two small regional and independent brewers around. They offer classical lager (Pilsener) One has been founded in 1676. NYCountry // I do not want to be suspected in doing markting here. The material is HDPE Plastic. You can see it on the product website www.brennholzabdeckung.de (means: firewood covering) unfortunately just in german language. @shawncurry // Hi shawn. I dont' know the meaning of the word "holzhausen" although it sounds german. May be it's the same as what we call a "holzmiete" – a cylindrical stack of firewood. (http://images.fotocommunity.de/bild...beit-0b20ffd8-c759-48bf-9ee0-d0bb3c840dcc.jpg) ?? "Meterholz" is different in piece length an stack form. Compare with my pics. @todd2 // Hey todd. Gasifier // Hi, I try to stay decent sir. basod // You are right - The idea of sustainability in forestry is a saxonian development of the 18th century. Trying to keep the forests in good quality and stable quantity over generations. It was a revolutionary rethinking after periods of plundering natural ressources. @ raybonz // Great, you have some own impressions from germany. My father has been on service in Wilhelmshaven at the Deutsche Marine (german navy) in the 60ies. @ boiler74 // Hi boiler. So you have seen a central part of the german firewood homeland, great. I've been to a forestry fair in munich in late summer. I lived in a hotel in the landscape south of the city and enjoyed the visible dedication to woodwork and farming in the countryside in bavaria. @ well seasoned // Your nick name is my obsession. I promise to show some pics later. Weather is still to warm for november here. high 40ies- 50ies. Stove burns anyway. Forecast says colder is on its way. @ rottiman // Hi – It seems you have a good, brave dog. A Rottweiler. PullinMyPoulan // Thank you - I will bigbarf48 // Hello. No, that's wrong. Because you have less to cut in the first step. And when you cut seasoned wood to final dimension you have done the same work in total. One advantage is in having better construction parts for stacking with one meter length. You can built self-supporting stacks wherever you want. And when it is seasoned you process the now much lighter weight pieces through the saw. One maybe not so comfortable point is, that you need two storage places. Traditionally you have the Meterholz stack somewhere in a windy open place and the ready-to burn storage near the house. You prefer the one-for-all version. It is also a question of available spaces around the house in which I assume that americans have greater in average. @ Hello to all the others, I have not answered jet - sorry for that. I'm sure we'll find the time to share all our ideas. Pict. shows what a customer made out of his firewood stack supported by our covering. This one is a real hoarder i guess.
Well I'm a little late but welcome , do you have any hobbies like hunting or fishing ? The stacks look good , is that how much you go through in a season or are you like us where you HOARD a little.
Welcome to FHC Corvus. Your initial post was most welcome, it describes a different way of doing things for the same result. My only concern right now is your firewood processing steps and that you leave out a step that us westerners would include in the initial processing. You recut the length of your firewood splits again at the end of seasoning. Is the reason for this only for better stacking methods?
Hi - Hello to you es332, The stack you see in the picture is not one of mine. It belongs to a customer who has purchased my product - the covering you see on top of the stack. I post a pict with some of my stacks in winter. Please see below. Hobbies. I'm no hunter or fisherman. I go running (and even some biking) and went mountaineering and climbing in the past. Have had good times in the Alpes and the Norwegian Mountains then. I didn't found the time to continue in the last years. I would have had to invest much time in training. My climbing buddy moved to south germany, he works there as a forest ranger. So, you see I have many excuses but maybe the biggest one is my family. They don't sleep very well while I hang around in some mountain faces. But the time will come to show my little boy Friedrich (2 1/2 y) the gorgeousnesses of high mountains in future.
Welcome! I'll admit that the whole cutting to size after stacking has me intrigued. I bet those German stacks don't tip over like our American stacks do when you stack them after too many beers What does wood cost over there? US currency please...too early here to be doing math And how could I almost forget to ask...what kind of saw are you running? German engineering in orange and white I hope?!?!
That's right the stability of these stacks are good. You can built them up to 6 feet+ and it's still self-supporting – especially while you do that with fresh wood. I have done so with the smaller pieces and one day the whole stack falls down because of the immense shrinking. For the pricing I have to do some calculations too. I'll get to that later.
Welcome Corvus. Its quite a friendly & informative place here,I think you'll like it. I've been to Germany twice,first with parents as a young teen in '78 when older brother was stationed with the US Army at Wertheim,last time in 1997 when I went on a 10 day tour that included Switzerland,Austria & Liechtenstein. Oktoberfest at Munchen was amazing,cant wait to go back some day.
Maybe better stacking is the main reason. I can imagine like this: In the older days, when nobody had chainsaws, cutting was the hardest work. So they cut as little as possible in the woods. On the other hand, splitting of fresh wood is a breeze. A circular saw was more widespread on farmes and available at the time and for that reason the workflow made this way.
Great range of countries - so similar in mentality! Maybe it's unconceivable for you in US but I have never been to Oktoberfest so far and have no impulse to go there in the future. I like it more to spend time and money to increase my distance to those crowds (of krauts) .
Never thought if it like that, but that certainly makes sense. Funny how old habits and ways of doing things can stick around, even in the days of badazz chainsaws
Meterholz stack with weather-beaten covers made of PE. UV protected – almost indestructible. My long term testing stack. As you can see, we built crosswise "towers" at the ends of the stack and fill the space between. This is quick and good for seasoning too. We turn the narrow side of the stack into the main wind direction.
Skipping Octoberfest is ok with me. I'd be in Cologne drinking Kolsch or Dusseldorf having some Alt at Uerige. And I'll never pass up on a hefeweisen.
