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vargis14
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Advise for wood purchasers who get cords of wood

Wed Oct 23, 2013 5:39 pm

Ok I have a wood stove in the basement that saves me a ton of money in the winter so I buy cords of seasoned wood if I do not get enough on my own and i built 2 7ft wide by 6ft high by 3ft wide boxes that hold 126 cubic ft of wood.....a cord is 128 cubic ft.

I have bought from 3 different wood providers and every time I purchase the wood I have a 126cubic ft box empty. This way when a cord of wood is delivered I stack it right away to make sure I received a complete cord of wood.

Needless to say the last 3 deliveries were only 2/3 to 3/4 or a cord of wood :evil: So I have to call them and have them deliver me the rest of my wood or get ripped off. I had one guy say I hid the wood in my house OMG I was furious.

So If you do by wood by the cord I highly suggest you build a box or 2 that holds a cord or 2ft short of a cord like I did this way when the wood get delivered you can measure the box and show the delivery guy that if it is not full you will be returning or refunding me the $ amount of you shorted me.

So I had one cord delivered this week and I told the guy I have a 6x7x3 126CF box so make sure you bring enough wood to fill the box or you will be making 2 trips....needless to say I received a tiny bit over a cord. A pile of unstacked wood may look like alot but once its stacked correctly it shrinks up a ton!

I say this cause I know wood suppliers think most customers do not know how to measure a cord of wood so they short most everybody unless you let them know you have a container that holds a stacked cord of wood. Careful stacking will get you more wood also....the less air pockets in between the pieces of wood the more you can fit in 128cubic ft/cord space.
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Re: Advise for wood purchasers who get cords of wood

Wed Oct 23, 2013 5:43 pm

I just have a couple of Pentium IVs to keep my feet warm.
 
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Re: Advise for wood purchasers who get cords of wood

Wed Oct 23, 2013 5:49 pm

Ugh, we used to have a wood burning stove. It was cool and all but man, I don't miss those trips to the military base to cut our own wood and haul it back a bit at a time in the back of a Toyota hatchback and the trunk and back seat of a Volvo 240 (sedan, not a station wagon) (beige, too). Plus, SPIDERS. Good times. We had some cord holding units built in our back yard against our fence. Unfortunately, the back yard sloped down and one year we had a week of snow and freezing rain alternating. Literally could not bust through the 2" of ice covering the wood and kept sliding down the back yard because it was one giant ice slide.

...actually, it was kinda fun!
 
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Re: Advise for wood purchasers who get cords of wood

Wed Oct 23, 2013 6:05 pm

UberGerbil wrote:
I just have a couple of Pentium IVs to keep my feet warm.


A lot of my systems are ivy bridge cores now. They don't do so well as space heaters anymore...
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bthylafh
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Re: Advise for wood purchasers who get cords of wood

Wed Oct 23, 2013 6:31 pm

Ugh. Reminds me of summers cutting wood at my grandparents' farm, piling it into my dad's truck, and making a big pile in the driveway. Then in winter I got to go to school smelling of woodsmoke because filling the stove (outside unit that heated the house via water lines and forced induction) before school was my job.

I'm sure it's not as bad as I remember (and sometimes it could even be fun), but I sure got sick of cutting wood and being eaten alive by bugs.
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DPete27
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Re: Advise for wood purchasers who get cords of wood

Wed Oct 23, 2013 6:46 pm

Better advice to wood purchasers: Make friends with someone that lives on a farm or owns land....FREE WOOD!!

That's what my parents have done my whole life. Every fall, I had to help move wood into our wood shed (filling a 1 car garage behind the house, roughly 4 cord) and then cut and split wood constantly to fill the hole we made in the wood pile along the fence (about 12 cord in total). Even now that I live 3 hours away, I still get roped into helping make wood from time to time when I visit.

bthylafh wrote:
smelling of woodsmoke

I like the smell of woodsmoke
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bthylafh
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Re: Advise for wood purchasers who get cords of wood

Wed Oct 23, 2013 8:00 pm

The smell is OK, but smelling of it strongly in high school is not so good, especially on days when I had to wear my uniform.
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Re: Advise for wood purchasers who get cords of wood

Wed Oct 23, 2013 10:04 pm

i'm happy i don't have to pay for hydro, all the heat i want in winter and 2x 12000 btu A/C's in summer full blast :D

i'd pay through the nose at my old house

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Re: Advise for wood purchasers who get cords of wood

Thu Oct 24, 2013 1:04 am

Growing up, we had a wood stove and I hated it. The stove was right beside the door, but there was a wall separating it that extended half the width of the house. So each trip I'd have to walk 1/2 the width of the house, then navigate a 180 degree turn and walk back to where the stove was.

Then rather have a nice fire that would take the chill off, my mom would get this rip roaring thing going so hot that I'd be walking around the house in shorts with no shirt. This of course meant we consumed wood faster so more trips for me. And the bugs. And creepy crawly things. And squeamish things. The fire place was in the tv room, so we'd be watching tv only to see some nasty insect crawl across the floor that was hiding in the wood.

My current house has natural gas. Ahhhh....turn on the thermostat and get that nice, CLEAN bug free no labor warmth.
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Re: Advise for wood purchasers who get cords of wood

Thu Oct 24, 2013 1:05 am

This seems like a thing that shouldn't be a thing for those that live in first world countries. Last time I saw someone use a wood-burning stove was an Acadian historical village, it worked and they made real food but everyone in that town has either and electric or gas-powered stove, they were just trying to be authentic.
 
vargis14
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Re: Advise for wood purchasers who get cords of wood

Thu Oct 24, 2013 3:12 am

I have always liked bugs and creepy crawlies....heck I brought a 12" copperhead home when i was 9 and my dad beat my ass screaming that thing is poisonous....he quicky stopped when i sniveled I know it is dad! I saw it on Nova! Shocked the **** outta him. Heck I was constantly freaking my mom out.

Do not get me wrong if I am sleeping and a BIG bug crawls on me i will jump up and swat it away but if I can see it 1st I am a ok with that stuff, snakes....even caught a full grown red tailed hawk on thanksgiving 3 yrs ago with my wood stove gloves on....he ignored me taking his picture from 2 ft away eating a mole. So I put on the old Burnt up gloves grabbed it on its shoulders/wings and set it on its side grabbed his feet and was walking back to my house holding a hawk ans his talon went trough the glove and stuck me good in the meast of my thumb so I let it go/ he got away B4 I had picture taken :(
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Re: Advise for wood purchasers who get cords of wood

Thu Oct 24, 2013 3:47 am

Bauxite wrote:
UberGerbil wrote:
I just have a couple of Pentium IVs to keep my feet warm.

A lot of my systems are ivy bridge cores now. They don't do so well as space heaters anymore...

You need to run the Folding@home client in the winter then, to at least keep 'em up near their TDP limits. :wink:

DPete27 wrote:
I like the smell of woodsmoke

Me too. Even better if it is the aroma of wood-smoked beer. Schlenkerla is one of my "desert island" beers for sure. Though I imagine it wouldn't keep terribly well on an actual desert island! :lol:

zzz wrote:
This seems like a thing that shouldn't be a thing for those that live in first world countries. Last time I saw someone use a wood-burning stove was an Acadian historical village, it worked and they made real food but everyone in that town has either and electric or gas-powered stove, they were just trying to be authentic.

Well... yes and no. There's a potential upside to wood-burning stoves aside from historical authenticity -- they're effectively carbon-neutral, since all of the CO2 emitted contains carbon which has been recently (in relative terms) been captured from the atmosphere.
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Re: Advise for wood purchasers who get cords of wood

Thu Oct 24, 2013 4:02 am

I live in BC on Vancouver Island. Nearly everyone here burns wood and there is a wood supply industry. A cord is 4'x4'x8' split and stacked tight. As everyone knows this the transactions are fairly honest.

I used to burn wood. It's why I am good with a chain saw. My record is 58 min to go get, and bring back a cord, of Arbutus yet. It was not cut to length, 8' pieces, but that did not take long.
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Re: Advise for wood purchasers who get cords of wood

Thu Oct 24, 2013 6:30 am

zzz wrote:
This seems like a thing that shouldn't be a thing for those that live in first world countries. Last time I saw someone use a wood-burning stove was an Acadian historical village, it worked and they made real food but everyone in that town has either and electric or gas-powered stove, they were just trying to be authentic.


People here are talking about stoves for heating, not for cooking. A wood stove is insane to use for cooking in a single family house.
 
vargis14
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Re: Advise for wood purchasers who get cords of wood

Thu Oct 24, 2013 6:41 am

My chain saw would make short work of nice 8 ft sections in quick fashion also. My stove will hold up to 24" logs but I like then around 18"
I save the long ones for the 4-8hr bedtime burn...since I sleep on the 2nd floor with the stove in basement if I get up for a wizz I allways go down and check, add and stoke the stove to heat up the chimney if needed.

My stove has a catalytic converter like a car and I use that as the damper besides limiting air intake. It also has a fan and 2 heat exhaust ports on the top right and left hand sides. The basement breaks 95f sometimes but regardless I have a powerful but quiet dual squirrel cage fan blower at the bottom of the basement steps that blows the hot air up the stairs very well. and since I have gas hot air heat the vents act like a cold air return to the basement since all the vents are wall/floor mounted.

It makes my heater run 1/8 as much as it would without the stove. That's dramatic savings. Sure my second floor is chilly getting as low as 58f. But that is fine with me the wife and especially my gaming rig, we both love covers and spooning each other, plus there is always one 100+ degree female great dane in the california king size bed. My male Dane runs and kicks like a mule in his sleep...so hard its like getting punched in the stomach when your not looking. So the dreamer sleeps on the spare room single bed and we can still hear him kicking the wall or headboard while he sleeps.

With our older stove we ran a gas line to it with the fake logs with the glass fibers so it did look like a real fire. But running that was worse then no stove at all $ wise.
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bthylafh
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Re: Advise for wood purchasers who get cords of wood

Thu Oct 24, 2013 7:09 am

zzz wrote:
This seems like a thing that shouldn't be a thing for those that live in first world countries. Last time I saw someone use a wood-burning stove was an Acadian historical village, it worked and they made real food but everyone in that town has either and electric or gas-powered stove, they were just trying to be authentic.


My father grew up on a farm and his parents survived the Depression. Besides that I'm not entirely sure of my parents' financial situation back then; maybe burning wood was cheaper long-term with our drafty old house.
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Pagey
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Re: Advise for wood purchasers who get cords of wood

Thu Oct 24, 2013 7:39 am

I live on the Cumberland Plateau in Middle TN, and we use a modern, EPA-certified wood burning stove made my Travis Industries out of Washington state. It's a very clean-burning appliance, taking advantage of modern combustion design which make use of 'secondary combustion' to burn most of the volatile organic compounds (smoke, tars, etc.) released by the combustion of cord wood. We still have electric heat (and some of the lowest rates around), but there is no substitute for the penetrating, radiant heat of a wood burning stove. Yes, it is work to keep at least one to two year's ahead on good, seasoned fuel, but I enjoy the work. After riding a desk 50-60 hrs a week, some time spent in the barn working for our heat is actually a welcomed retreat from phones, computers, and users.
 
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Re: Advise for wood purchasers who get cords of wood

Thu Oct 24, 2013 8:07 am

Switched from a wood burning to a Baker coal burning stove back in my younger days. The coal heated the house better, it also would go about 9+ hours between stocking it, which the wood only gave us maybe 7 hours tops. As an added bonus, we could use the burned coal ash to line the steep driveway if we had snow so that any FWD car could make it up the driveway. Only downside was coal dust, but that was better than the bugs you inevitably got with the wood.

That Baker situated in the basement would heat the whole house. In my older years, I truly miss either a coal or wood burning stove.
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Re: Advise for wood purchasers who get cords of wood

Thu Oct 24, 2013 8:19 am

I should emphasize that we are in a rural area. I think the county population is around 6 or 7K, and the county seat is about 2K. My mom and dad live on a 165ish acre cattle farm that her brother owns, and my dad cuts a lot of our wood there. Additionally, his mother has a 75 acre cattle farm on the other side of the county that provides as well. Dad fells and bucks it, then I help load/unload it and process in an ole pole barn that my late grandfather used for hay storage back in the day.

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Scrotos
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Re: Advise for wood purchasers who get cords of wood

Thu Oct 24, 2013 8:45 am

bthylafh wrote:
Ugh. Reminds me of summers cutting wood at my grandparents' farm, piling it into my dad's truck, and making a big pile in the driveway. Then in winter I got to go to school smelling of woodsmoke because filling the stove (outside unit that heated the house via water lines and forced induction) before school was my job.

I'm sure it's not as bad as I remember (and sometimes it could even be fun), but I sure got sick of cutting wood and being eaten alive by bugs.


Oh yeah, I remember using a maul with great fondness. ::cough::

And until you got that draft going ok, lighting the stove would just fill the house with smoke. I like burning wood smell, but maaaan.

zzz wrote:
This seems like a thing that shouldn't be a thing for those that live in first world countries. Last time I saw someone use a wood-burning stove was an Acadian historical village, it worked and they made real food but everyone in that town has either and electric or gas-powered stove, they were just trying to be authentic.


My parents live in an area that has fiber deployed, so it's not even farmtown, USA. It made economic sense in the 80's for us to have a wood stove as natural gas wasn't available and using whatever heating was built in the house was both expensive and ineffective. But yeah, like others pointed out, this is for heat, not cookin'. I mean, we roasted chestnuts on the top of it but that's about it.

Ash all over the place, emptying the ash collecting bin, we had a catalytic converter too and some vents to direct the hot air but no blowers. Once natural gas became available, they were the first in the neighborhood to get it and shouldered some of the cost to get a main line run out. Other neighbors later on followed suit once it was available. Heck, we had a heat-exchange solar system for hot water too. They only recently were able sucker someone into buying the 400 lb or 800 lb monster (the 800 lb might be the metal lathe, I forget) and moving it out after having it sit unused for a few years.
 
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Re: Advise for wood purchasers who get cords of wood

Thu Oct 24, 2013 10:09 am

just brew it! wrote:
Schlenkerla is one of my "desert island" beers for sure. Though I imagine it wouldn't keep terribly well on an actual desert island! :lol:


You really aren't an engineer at heart, are you? Just use the materials at hand! Sand plus free and easy water supply = dig a pit and get evaporative cooling. Might have to dig a few test pits first, to get the balance right, but soon you'll have a nice hole in the ground that stays much cooler than most of your island. Heck, with a bit of piping as a chimney and a cooperative breeze, it might even be *cold* in that hole! :P

Oh, you just meant it as an expression.... right.
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Re: Advise for wood purchasers who get cords of wood

Thu Oct 24, 2013 10:35 am

Natural Gas FTW!!!!!!!!!!!!

Not sure if you can do anything about the amount of wood now though, kind of a bummer.
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Re: Advise for wood purchasers who get cords of wood

Thu Oct 24, 2013 11:23 am

Ever hear of a rocket mass heater? It lets you stretch that cord way more.
 
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Re: Advise for wood purchasers who get cords of wood

Thu Oct 24, 2013 2:15 pm

Bauxite wrote:
UberGerbil wrote:
I just have a couple of Pentium IVs to keep my feet warm.


A lot of my systems are ivy bridge cores now. They don't do so well as space heaters anymore...


Switch to AMD then. :)
 
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Re: Advise for wood purchasers who get cords of wood

Fri Oct 25, 2013 7:42 am

We had some work done in the basement and they moved my wood stove, but didn't replace it because the concrete needed 24 hours to dry. I eventually moved it back into place with a motorcycle lift. And it was still heavy as all get out.

My wood stove is a 30 year-old Fisher, who went out of business years ago. It doesn't have a fan, ash tray, air channels or any of that modern stuff. Just a lot of mass and a big exhaust vent out the top. It's easy to get it started, but it's rough trying to get a consistent level of heat and harder still to get a decent amount of air warmed up with it.

But if I'm diligent about using it, it drops my electric bill from the $340/month range down to $120/range. The fuel is free if I put in the work.
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Re: Advise for wood purchasers who get cords of wood

Sat Oct 26, 2013 8:46 pm

Bauxite wrote:
A lot of my systems are ivy bridge cores now. They don't do so well as space heaters anymore...
Yeah, I was kidding. I have to say, when I built my Sandy Bridge system a couple of winters ago and retired the last of my old machines I was a little annoyed I needed to actually turn up the heat.
Darkmage wrote:
The fuel is free if I put in the work.
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Re: Advise for wood purchasers who get cords of wood

Sat Oct 26, 2013 9:00 pm

UberGerbil wrote:
Bauxite wrote:
A lot of my systems are ivy bridge cores now. They don't do so well as space heaters anymore...
Yeah, I was kidding. I have to say, when I built my Sandy Bridge system a couple of winters ago and retired the last of my old machines I was a little annoyed I needed to actually turn up the heat.
Darkmage wrote:
The fuel is free if I put in the work.
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Cute. Consider this. A big strong saw, a 36" bar and a pile of wood. I just cut up the pile. Much faster than that thing. As well we have some serious wood where I live and that would only work on the pencils.

The splitter is nice though. I have used various kinds including one a buddy made. It was electric and you just picked it up and put it over the wood lying on the ground you had cut up and hit the button. It clamped down with a splitting maul head and worked like a charm. For the, ahem, BC sized wood you need an 8lb maul and a 10lb sledge. A round 6' across needs special treatment.
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