Log burner log advice required...
- Thread starter Will_
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Hey Guest, Early bird pricing on the Summer Moot (29th July - 10th August) available until April 6th, we'd love you to come. PLEASE CLICK HERE to early bird price and get more information.
http://www.logsforsale.co.uk/
These guys sell 'sampler bags' for £10 so you can try before you buy. I'm not sure what's considered good/bad in terms of firewood, but I thought the sampler was a nice touch!
These guys sell 'sampler bags' for £10 so you can try before you buy. I'm not sure what's considered good/bad in terms of firewood, but I thought the sampler was a nice touch!
All wood gives the same heat by weight when seasoned properly. Hardwood burns longer because it is more dense, softwood more quickly because it is less dense (and before any book read smart alec chimes in, yes, . balsa is a hardwood, I know, I am using the terms used by people who sell firewood).
So volume for volume (e.g by the builders bag) hardwood gives more heat but usually costs more. You are unlikely to be given a choice of tree, but ash and oak are great.
Best choice is to get a wagon, chainsaws and training and go cut up a load of trees and season it yourself
Second best choice is to buy in lorry loads of random trees from tree surgeons and the forestry commission and process them yourself.
The most economic way to run a multfuel burner if you have to pay for seasoned wood is to buy smokeless fuel by the tonne.
If you must buy builders bags of logs, shop around for a local bloke who delivers. £50-£60 for a builders bag (nearly 1m3) is normal. The price for ash wood on that logs for sale site above is beyond stupid. You could buy half a tonne of smokeless for the price of a crate of logs. Thats just daft.
So volume for volume (e.g by the builders bag) hardwood gives more heat but usually costs more. You are unlikely to be given a choice of tree, but ash and oak are great.
Best choice is to get a wagon, chainsaws and training and go cut up a load of trees and season it yourself
Second best choice is to buy in lorry loads of random trees from tree surgeons and the forestry commission and process them yourself.
The most economic way to run a multfuel burner if you have to pay for seasoned wood is to buy smokeless fuel by the tonne.
If you must buy builders bags of logs, shop around for a local bloke who delivers. £50-£60 for a builders bag (nearly 1m3) is normal. The price for ash wood on that logs for sale site above is beyond stupid. You could buy half a tonne of smokeless for the price of a crate of logs. Thats just daft.
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Are wood pellet stoves available in the UK? Canada sells boatloads of the stuff to the Scandinavian countries.
It's a smokeless fire, operating in much the same, forced-air, situation as a blacksmith's forge but enclosed.
A ton (2000lbs) of pellets might produce 5-7 pounds of ash. No carbon, nothing left.
I wasn't prepared to invest the time and energy to bust up a truckload of round wood. Smart local people
all run hydraulic splitters = they do their own then split wood for poor & old folks who can't do any better.
It's a smokeless fire, operating in much the same, forced-air, situation as a blacksmith's forge but enclosed.
A ton (2000lbs) of pellets might produce 5-7 pounds of ash. No carbon, nothing left.
I wasn't prepared to invest the time and energy to bust up a truckload of round wood. Smart local people
all run hydraulic splitters = they do their own then split wood for poor & old folks who can't do any better.
We use a lot of softwood in ours, but only because I have access to it... and to be fair we use a lot of smokeless fuel simply because you load it up every few hours and leave it be. It knocks some decent heat out as well.
Oh and BR... Balsa is a hardwood
*runs*
Oh and BR... Balsa is a hardwood
*runs*
Watch out on the size of a builders bag. At 800 mm it's nowhere near a cubic meter. Firewood sellers often use a 1m bag which is a cube. Gumtree or Ebay is helpful or a friendly joiners business for freebies. That burns the best😃
We have about 18,000,000ha (36 mega-acres, more or less) standing dead bug wood from the Mountain Pine Beetle epidemic.
Ground up and super-compressed, I'm doing by best to burn my way through it.
I'm heating 2 x 1200 sqft down to -30F, mostly -10 to +20F and snowfalls up to 36" overnight.
Don't yet know this winter's price but it was steady at $240/ton for 6(?) years. I burn 4-5 tons/winter.
Much denser than round wood, a ton is about a m^3 as it arrives as pellets.
I have a central heating system with an oil-fired furnace. By contrast, it costs 2X what the pellet stove costs.
Ground up and super-compressed, I'm doing by best to burn my way through it.
I'm heating 2 x 1200 sqft down to -30F, mostly -10 to +20F and snowfalls up to 36" overnight.
Don't yet know this winter's price but it was steady at $240/ton for 6(?) years. I burn 4-5 tons/winter.
Much denser than round wood, a ton is about a m^3 as it arrives as pellets.
I have a central heating system with an oil-fired furnace. By contrast, it costs 2X what the pellet stove costs.
Whatever wood you get, make sure it's DRY.
Not only is wet wood more expensive per ton (you're buying the water as well) it doesn't give out as much heat as dry wood (you're boiling that water, and sending the steam, uselessly, up the flue).
Not only is wet wood more expensive per ton (you're buying the water as well) it doesn't give out as much heat as dry wood (you're boiling that water, and sending the steam, uselessly, up the flue).
You could also top up your supply by making your own papier mache ( spelling ) logs great way of upcycling papier, there's a free YouTube vids out there
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Sent from my SM-G900F using Tapatalk
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Just for comparison i get my wood from longleat forestry as its about £112 a ton and so i can fill my trailer boot and back seat for about £60 which looks to be about 3-4 cubic metres
and by picking your own and doing by weight you get to choose the best bits
needs a bit of chopping afterwards but thats just a bit of exercise.
and after all a wood shed looks better than an oli tank.
They are doing heatlogs from Aldi from today for £3 a box which is 30p a kilo, as its like the wood pellets at 5% moisture i might get some...
and by picking your own and doing by weight you get to choose the best bits
needs a bit of chopping afterwards but thats just a bit of exercise.
and after all a wood shed looks better than an oli tank.
They are doing heatlogs from Aldi from today for £3 a box which is 30p a kilo, as its like the wood pellets at 5% moisture i might get some...
Also as ged pointed out, dry out wet wood till its less than 20% moisture, get a moisture meter.
Why dont you get one for the caravan then? Flash it out the window and have a warm caravan?
That would be illegal, and I'm willing to bet they have rules forbidding it on the site anyway. Wood burners in caravans can be very dangerous.
We remove trees (with permission) from friends gardens, they're happy enough for us to take it for burning (after storing for a year or so). The moisture meter is a good idea and worth it for checking..
I ask at the hospital I work at for any logs/branches at the estates dept. The first year we had the burner we tried several local places seeing what kind of logs they provided. Oddly enough Edinburgh Zoo had the best deal from their estates dept so it pays to ask around some of the less likely places..
I ask at the hospital I work at for any logs/branches at the estates dept. The first year we had the burner we tried several local places seeing what kind of logs they provided. Oddly enough Edinburgh Zoo had the best deal from their estates dept so it pays to ask around some of the less likely places..
Many, many, moons ago I used to buy cord's of wood from Charbrough Park Estate. Don't know if they still do it or where in Dorset you're based but maybe worth checking if you're in that neck of the woods.
i find smokeless doesnt burn as hot as wood but burns far longer. i pay bout 300 a tonne. We have a hawthorn forest on our land so every year i process hawthorn to burn next year (a week of chopping and a week of recovering from blood loss).
we also buy seasoned wood from the farm opposite but by the trailer load. bout 130 for a trailer. maybe bout 100 cubic feet. not sure that in meters
i burn smokeless when were not there and smokeless and wood when we are (wood burns with a flame. we use our burner for central heating and water too. we love it but its a pain when you have no hot water or come back from holiday as from cold it takes a fair few hours to start warming teh house (it has to heat the water tank first).
we also buy seasoned wood from the farm opposite but by the trailer load. bout 130 for a trailer. maybe bout 100 cubic feet. not sure that in meters
i burn smokeless when were not there and smokeless and wood when we are (wood burns with a flame. we use our burner for central heating and water too. we love it but its a pain when you have no hot water or come back from holiday as from cold it takes a fair few hours to start warming teh house (it has to heat the water tank first).
Individual sites might ban them, but wood burners in caravans are very definitely not illegal, any more than they are illegal in canal boats.
It is important to ensure you have sufficient ventilation - but the same applies in any circumstances where you have flame (whether it is a gas cooker, a solid fuel stove or paraffin lanterns).
