I'll start another thread in firewood neighborhood ,How I burn wet frozen green unseasoned fire wood in my stove
No offense taken. We speak only from experience. You should see our woods, or should I say, what is left of our woods. We've been cutting dead ash for 13 years now. Plenty more to cut too.
Yikes. 3 pages of responses in just 4 days. Some added details for the curious. I am building a very open plan rancher that is about 2500 square feet. The part that is open to the new stove will be about 1200 square feet due to the stove's location. I expect the stove to be able to help a lot in the living room, dining room, kitchen, family room and connecting halls. None of the bedrooms or bathrooms will see much heat from it. My primary heat source will be my geothermal heat pump. I consider the stove as mostly an emergency heat source for power outages and as a supplement the rest of the time just to hold down the power bills. As far as wood gathering, it will need to wait until the house is closer to completion. I am doing a complete self build so my time is not close to being free. I have spotted enough down wood from the new house windows to satisfy my needs for next year and most of it is elevated so it is not getting wet and rotting in its present locations. Most of that is black walnut in logs 8 to 10 inches in diameter but there is some shagbark hickory there too. The rounds of ash that I have are about 20 to 24 inches long and the stove works best with 12 inch splits so I will cutting them in half. If some come out a little too long that is no big deal because I can load up to a 16 inch split E/W. For the roughly 1 face cord I have, I doubt that a jig will help me as much as it would take to build it but I appreciate the reference to jigs because I also have a local tree guy that is paying to drop his waste wood on the lot right next to where I am building. I need to talk to him about being willing to take anything he cuts can be left on my property. My present tools probably won't seem much to you guys. I own an old Stihl 026 with a 20 inch bar and a Fiskars super splitter. The Stihl goes to a local shop tomorrow for a tune up/preparation since I have not used it in over 20 years. It still looks brand new but I am sure that at least the carb needs to be cleaned. I pulled the plug and it just looks like a used 2 stroke plug. I also have a 30 HP small tractor with a cat 2 hitch that I have not used in years. I expect to be able to resurrect it with a new battery and air cleaner and cleaning out the fuel system. That should make hauling wood back to my home site easier once it is running. At present I am thinking of buying a Husqvarna 555 for firewood use. It would make a nice semi-pro level addition to my tools. I have also been encouraged by what I have read about the inertial splitters like the DR or the Super Splitter. When I am old and feeble I might want one of those but right now I am still a young and vigorous 67 years old and swinging that Fiskars is no big deal for me. Pictures are a problem for me because I don't have a working camera. Sorry guys, I know darned well how much they can add.
