Hi, I’m Sean. Last season was my first time heating with wood. I didn’t die. Backing up a bit... My wife and I retired last year, sold our house on a cul-de-sac in the city and moved to a house on 80 acres of mature forest in the UP of Michigan. After replacing the fuel oil furnace in our new-to-us house with a high efficiency propane unit I discovered that even with a modern unit, propane is an expensive way to heat a large house. At least it is here. An old Vermont Castings Encore wood stove came with the house so I cleaned it up, had the chimney swept and put it into service. I thought that it was only going to help a little. Wrong. It helped a lot. The propane use was cut way back and the house was warm. I also learned that I like tending a fire. I think that was when I was hooked, but didn’t realizing it yet. Then I started researching tools (Hey, I’m a geek. We research.) Now I have my first: Chainsaw Pole saw Splitter Lift table Chipper Cant hook And I am about to buy a new wood stove to replace the VC that came with the house. Then I realized that I was hooked. Happily. I’ll be asking lots of questions so, thank you ahead of time.
Booyah.. Welcome aboard Helluva good start You'll find plenty of help and good advice here. I'm very thankful to be nearly independent on anything but wood heat.
Welcome to the club. Lots of great folks here sharing knowledge and humor. Look under the Resources tab, next to the forums tab, lot of good info there. Here is one good read, right here, written by FHC's own Backwoods Savage (Dennis) .Primer on Woodburning by Backwoods Savage We have quite a few members in MI, a few in the UP.
Welcome to the club, sounds like you will fit in around here. Propane is an expensive way to heat even a small house - at the best of times it is expensive around here too.
Welcome to FHC, Sean in the woods! Might I ask, what kind of wood did you burn last winter? Deadfall from your woods? How are you fixed with firewood for this winter?
Welcome to the forum from an old Yooper. It's been a long time since we moved but still always feel at home there as I'm sure you will understand. btw, what area are you from now? This sounds great that you took up wood heat. It will not only save you dollars buy will also allow you to keep your home comfortable. We like it so much that no matter the weather we keep our home around 80 all winter and love it. Not much I can add to your list of tools except a pickeroon and for sure some log tongs. The tongs are perhaps the biggest back saver available! There are several styles out there but by far the best is the Husky brand. The have 2 sizes but only the large are good. For a new stove I highly recommend the Woodstock stoves. www.woodstove.com Good luck!
Welcome Sean in the woods As other have said, this is a great site for learning all about wood burning and the fun it entails. Now we need pics
Welcome to FHC. You'll like it here. We like dogs, beer and pics. Lots of pics. There are a lot of great people with a lot of knowledge to share.
The house stood empty for 3 or so years and had about 2/3 of a cord of mixed hardwood split and stacked in a garage. It was very dry. Never having heated with wood before, I thought all wood burned quick and hot like that stuff. Then I bought an additional cord of what was supposed to be fully seasoned mixed hardwood from a cutter. About a third of it steamed and sizzled when put on an existing fire, and none of it started easily. I don't think the wood was seasoned as it should have been. Then I bought a face cord of kiln dried wood from someone else which, when combined with the damp stuff, got me through the season. This spring, I bought 3 cords of partially seasoned mixed hardwood from someone else that is now stacked in single layer rows til fall. It has about 20% of some very light wood in it that may be deciduous but is not hard or dense. I think the light stuff may only work for shoulder seasons. After a couple of months drying, it seemed that it wouldn't be seasoned in time so I bought 3 more cords of "fully seasoned hardwood, mostly oak". I am stacking this latest batch in the garage for the coming season. It is all heavy, dense wood but it too seems wet. From the middle of re-splits I read 23% to 27%. When I asked the cutter about it he said that the logs were cut 2 years ago and they were cut into rounds last year. He gages whether wood is seasoned by the bark. If it falls off, he calls it done. I don't think he uses a moisture meter. It is humid here so I don't know if the 20% or less target for seasoned wood that I read in the inter-webs is realistic or not. Lastly, I had some oak trees taken down that I will process into firewood. It should yield cord or so. In a couple three years.
Thanks! This looks like a great place to start my education. Reminds me of a Beatles song about a road...
Welcome Sean in the woods , You are off to a fine start! I imagine that heating a season with firewood already has given you some insights for the future. Lots of knowledge and experience here to draw from also. The best advice I can give right off is not "keep you powder dry" but rather "keep your firewood dry" but you have already had a good lesson there. Hope to see lots of your posts in the future!
Good that you have a moisture meter. There are a few things you can do to hurry along drying the wood that you must burn this winter. If you have it stacked in a garage, you can run fans on it, and if it's stacked in a basement, run a dehumidifier. As you experienced, you can mix kiln dried with your less dry wood. Compressed sawdust bricks work too.
We spent the last 25 years in northern Colorado on the plains at the foot of the Rockies. It got too crowded for us so now we are on the Keweenaw Peninsula. No crowds and more green. One of the tools I just bought in my gearing up phase (is it ever over?) is a LogOx 3-in-1 Forestry MultiTool. It has a pickeroon and what I think may do the same job as the long tongs you mentioned. I'll check the link you sent. Thanks. The Woodstock Progress is high on my list. I'll be starting forum threads asking many questions re what stove to buy for the coming season.
Sean in the woods I will second a Woodstock stove is a great stove throws out amazing heat. I don’t know what is native to the upper peninsula. But it can’t be all that much different than what I have here. Do not worry about the density of the wood per se, care more that the wood is dry. If I had to burn it in the next year, I would be looking for soft maple birch, poplar and ash. Most oak take at least 3 years due to the cell structure of the wood!
