Could you possibly shovel chips in your burner like this and let it rage? I’m not one for wasting wood but this gets wet and it just becomes a danged old soggy mess and all you think about is how you could at least get rid of it by burning it somehow usefully. Even if it might be a bit green?
I probably could but then I’m dealing with another method to store and keep chips dry. I’ll just find more to cut and split. Locust is fairly common here.
The problem with people is that they are people. I know people mean well, and probably WANT to follow through with what they say, but most of the time they don't. I have offered the "margins"around my farm to be cut off by people, and this is quality firewood that would last them years and years, yet I have yet to have anyone return. If they did, I am sure it would be a situation where they only took the best and left the rest. I understand that, and I understand not having time, and truly meaning to follow through, but at the same time no one wants to wait on a project either. That is the difference; perspective. I am NOT a logger, I am a farmer, so even though I log in order to get rid of my wood, I am building fields so the wood just happens to be in my way. The fact that I can cut the wood off and sell it for money is great, but if I couldn't, the wood would still have to be removed. That is how the city or town looks at these situations; trees are in the way, how do we get rid of it? Granted they could get rid of it through the tax payers, but then this person complains that this person got more, that person took the best,or when they are done there is a big mess. Like everything in life, sometimes it is just best to do things yourself. That is the mindset the government has.
I posted a version of this story on another forum a few years ago - this was my own experience with "you can't have it" slash-and-burn projects: I stopped in to a local construction site on a Monday morning, after seeing a job starting a week or so earlier. There was a company about to clearcut about 8-10 acres of land behind our local Walmart, in order to build a brand new Walmart of twice the size. This land was untouched for at least 50 years and is flat floodplain adjacent to a river. I noticed over the weekend that there was already a large pile of wood chips, a big grinder and several pieces of equipment already in use. There's a lot of trees down and ready to be fed into the grinder (whole). So I stopped at dawn, as the crew was warming up their equipment, and spoke to the foreman (a really nice guy, anyway). The minute I got out of my truck he said "I know what you're gonna ask, and I can't do it". I said "what was I gonna ask?" and he said "firewood". Actually, I said, I'm looking for sawlogs, not firewood, and I noticed that there's some cherry and locust in there. He said, you're about the sixth guy to stop and ask about the wood. He told me that it's about 90% locust but he had already pulled out a bunch of 30"+ diameter cherry trees AND RUN THEM THROUGH THE CHIPPER. Apparently the market for pulp is so big that there was no financial benefit to separating out any of the sawlogs, even a few here and there, or keeping the locust for lumber or fence posts. He said it's all being trucked from here (southwestern Vermont) to Boston (!) for use as biomass, it's part of his contract, and there's nothing he could do, he has to refuse everyone that asks. Heck, I would have paid for a truckload of that stuff - never mind getting it for free. Load a log truck up with 30" cherry butt logs and a bunch of locust and I'll stop eating for a month just to afford it.
Yep...he is right, now get ready to barf.... Maine has some of the last land left where the Emerald Ash Borer has NOT hit, yet because of this lucrative trade overseas, our ash logs have more value being chipped up and sent overseas, then be turned into usable ash lumber here.
I don't really know, to be honest. I'd sure give it a try though if the opportunity presented itself (ie, delivered chips, as I don't think I'd expend the effort required to pick them up). Around here I never see big chipping operations - wood tends to go away quickly when it's left roadside, and I'm sure that the crews doing the cutting know this and forego the investment in a big chipper. The biggest I've seen chipped is maybe 3-4".
Had to ask but most of the time the splitter chaff is something that is like the chipper. It will spout down just about any kind of sizes. When I went to burn my chaff collection pile, they just blanketed the fire snuffing it down. (Yes it got wet before I could burn it due to the fire hazard in the summer)....
Did you let it sit out for a while first? We burn splitter trash in the chiminea outside the back door, and use it for kindling. I guess it getting wet didn't help your burn there too much. I know if I leave the cover off my kindling box during snow or rain it's useless for its intended purpose for a while.
Oh it was out in the sun some 12 hours a day for 3 months and most of the wood I was splitting was ok for burning outside but not the woodstove. True about the intended purpose but maybe I can get it dried up at times for a few bon fires.
That's a load of hogwash! The ash log export market is the hottest it's ever been. We box ash sawlogs destined for China daily ,, to the tune of 10 containers a week. Ash log export is stupid crazy hot right now. Chip market is a loss. Probably the worst I've seen it in 10 years . That guy on that job site is blowing smoke to make people disappear !
Respectfully, I think you may be right where you are from, but here it might be different. Our chip market is subsidized by the State of Maine taxpayers because of the low value of chips, but from what I understand, these chips are being sent over to Finland on some sort of trade deal. It has something to do with them getting x amount of wood and taking some off the national debt that we owe them. But I also heard on here that the pellet market over there is crazy, so maybe they are being made into pellets for power generation. There are a few things I know about the wood market in the 43 years I have moved wood across it... 1. There is more than one outlet. I have no doubt that the Ash Log Market may be great for you and China, but if it is hot there, it will inevitably make the Ash market rise on another front...it simply is the law of supply and demand. Put another way, Hemlock Logs cannot be sold at one sawmill for say $240 and then another sawmill buys Hemlock for only $160. If that happened, one sawmill would get all the wood and the other wood get none. The price of wood rises and falls together. 2. There are so many back door deals that people are not aware of. Why do mills do certain things? Follow the money and it usually is traced to back door deals. I am not say they are all illegal, nor is everything a conspiracy, there are just behind closed doors deal that make things work the way they do. 3. Not everything is a conspiracy. Loggers, truckers, middleman...all tend to use the same mills and outlets repeatedly. To that end not everything is a conspiracy. Even as a logger I will let some of my wood go to one mill and not another just because I distrust this guy or that.
No way or anywhere on gods green earth will an equal amount of ash chips command the same price as a box of ash sawlogs ! NOWHERE ! There are low grade higher BTU species that can be shipped export at 3% of the cost of saw logs !!!! And for the record the ash market is probably +/- 10% same grade/quality up and down the entire east coast . It's a global market ,,,, not regional .
That is what I initially thought as well, but here they are taking Ash logs and turning them into ships and exporting them. You can believe me or not, but that is what they are doing. What are the Ash prices where you live?
Yeah the market going west to china from the west cost is different than that going east from the east coast China has banned logging domestically so it's not surprising to see so many logs leaving the west coast. As long as the price supports the manpower and equipment costs the log ships will pull up to the piers. Europe wants chips for biomass to burn in coal generators until they finalize designs on coal carbon sequestration or "clean coal".
Next to my home where building site is gonna be . I reported them for cutting in nesting season . They left so I took the felled wood that was for the chipper.
