Logsplitters. Any of you heat with wood?

[Aaron D.]

Isn't a face cord like a henway?

[rss29]

Isn't a face cord like a henway?

A face cord is a third of a bush cord. I sure don't miss heating with wood. 15+ cords each year, all split by hand. I liked felling though- that part is fun. Wood is very cost effective but requires such a huge amount of effort.

[craigclu]

Years ago, a good friend was developing what became the "Power Maul" brand.  It was high end unit with top grade hydraulics and Honda power.  I was given the chance to do some destruction testing, searching out the weak spots in the design.  We couldn't seem to break anything and eventually tried some gnarly elm, sideways.  We thought it was finally going to fail by the sounds of things but there was a sudden violent explosion and the stump blew up like a grenade, throwing spears of elm through the siding on a friend's house and luckily missing us.  Don't try this at home as I've already done it for you!

They were quite successful selling to the upper levels of the market and the rental businesses.  That is what eventually had him leave the business as the number of incredibly stupid things that people would do was quite hard to imagine.  Hand pinches, splitting hands with the wood were happening.  If I recall, it was something like 7 of 8 hand damages were women, out of synch with their men folk.  The product liability costs eventually made it unfeasible to make business sense of the product.

[Aaron D.]

Having two people working with a splitter sounds like a good idea. It generally isn't.

[Chuck in Indiana]

I can tell you an easy way to clean out creosote. When we lived in the old log cabin, I heated exclusively with wood. The house had a home made (naturally) plate covering the fireplace opening with a wood stove sitting in front. I was out in the shop when I heard a jet coming over the house. I thought. Looked outside, and I had a chimney fire of epic proportions. Balls of fire shooting out. Ran into the house and that plate was literally bowing inward from the draft. Fortunately, the roof didn't catch on fire (heavy snow on it may have helped) but I had the cleanest chimney in town when it went out..

[kirb]

Oh man... memories of splitting wood as a kid. Our house burnt a semi-truck load of fire wood every year. That is how we would buy it...WAY easier to buy it that way. You pick what you want, wood hauler unloads it in a pile, cut and split. We had a bunch of paper mills in the area, so a load of wood was 'cheap'

The best year of 'making wood' was the year we purchased cores from the vernier factory. Oak logs, perfectly round, about 5-8" dia, no bark, all the same length. Oak is a PITA to split, but it was worth it just for the lack of mess and tight/neat piles. Not sure why we didn't do that every year.

[brider]

The best year of 'making wood' was the year we purchased cores from the vernier factory.  Not sure why we didn't do that every year.

A couple of years I bought "slab" wood, the semi-circular slabs that are cut off the original logs to make them square for further dimensional lumber. The bark was off, and the thin slabs seasoned very quickly. The truck dropped off a single steel-banded bunk that was waaay more than a cord in volume. The hard part was creating a jig to be able to take a chainsaw to buzz down thru a stack of slabs to cut them to the 18" length I preferred.

Ultimately it turned out to take too much "touch labor". I've learned to be efficient in my logsplitting, and VERY selective of what wood I scrounge for free or accept from friends. I used to jump when a friend said "I'm dropping a tree, want the wood?". Now I make sure it's accessible, and small enough size that I can handle without risking a hernia.

[Aaron D.]

My father told me how my maternal grandmother cleaned her chimney/wood range.

She would throw a tire (remember this was late '40s rural Maritime Canada so they were not so big) into the thing, go outside and prayed the rosary.