COLD Nasty day Question

Adirondack case guy · Jan 5, 2018

For those of you who burn wood. How do you get your firewood from your stach/pile to your wood burner.
I have two wood burners that we use to heat the house and shop. We have a central fireplace on the main floor of our house that we use before we need to light the boiler for the heating season gets into full swing. Election day this year. Our wood supply for it is down in our walk-in cellar. I stripped down an old feed cart and use it to transport the wood from front of cellar to the center, where I built a dumbwaiter to host the wood up to the main floor next to the fireplace. I used overhead door track to guide it, made the frame work from Kubota a Kubota crate, and mounted a HF 120V winch up in the trusses to raise and lower it. It sure beats carrying up armloads of wood up cellar stairs.
My central boiler is in the shop. I built a 4 wheel wagon to transport wood from the wood shed into the shop. It is at most 35' trip from farthest corner of shed, to the boiler, but also saves a lot of steps with arms full of wood.
Today I sure am glad that I don't have to dig wood out of a snow bank or go out to stoke an OWB.
Loren

tim s · Jan 5, 2018

That is a great idea..

big tee · Jan 5, 2018

Slick--Loren-you never cease to amaze me!---Tee

Brent Zappe · Jan 5, 2018

wood burning stoves are really nice to have. Last year I bought a home that had a pellet burning stove in it. When I moved in to the house the pellet burning stove was taken with the last owner. So I bought a used wood burning stove which I can say is nice. the pellet burner needed electric to be use the wood burning stove does not.

PaGlenn · Jan 5, 2018

I thought about my wood supply. Going to Georgia for winter took care of my thinken'

JOCCO · Jan 5, 2018

Old fashion way I guess ACG put wood in cellar during fall and fill furnace as needed in winter!! Wood box for kitchen parlor stoves.

Bruce from Can. · Jan 5, 2018

-16 F outside I am working in the dairy barn today, right around 50 F, not real concerned about just how warm the house is , lol

2underage · Jan 5, 2018

Loren you are the wood man or as Larry on the Corner calls you, "the wood king" My wood is stored under a lean-to and when we need more in the house I just pile some in the bucket of my tractor loader and replenish the woodbox. A load can last up to 4 days and the time needed to refill is about 15 minutes. I do admire your setup though.

4520BW · Jan 5, 2018

We store ours in old corn cribs.

JimS · Jan 5, 2018

Those wood piles are so scary to me now. I cannot tell you how many houses I saw burn because of their wood pile here in Sonoma COunty. My local fire said any home that had one within 75 feet was a loss. Please, keep them away from important structures and covered.

Cory Schmidt · Jan 5, 2018

we have an outdoor boiler unit, then also a small furnace in the greenhouse.

To the left of the unit is a trailer, its either switched out or filled with blocks using the loader to bring blocks over from pile.
To the right is a chopper box filled with blocks. On either side are cribs that we cut full then bring over with the loader.

Here are a few loads ready to hook on and roll over to the furnace.

We skid boards ect and stack em out back till needed, then cut as needed.
we also have this chopper box piled full of wood cut to around 16inch (can also see a pile of boards to be cut and a crib half full for the big burner.)

Wood is taken into the greenhouse and can be rolled to with in ten feet of the furnace with shopping carts.

Before we got the outside one, we used to have a small furnace in the house and one in the shop.
The shop used the carts or wheel barrel like the greenhouse. The house we got a wheel barrel load out of the shed(building by the saw) and take it to the pile in the basement by the arm load.

Steamboat · Jan 5, 2018

Oh, do I remember the days of coming in from cold snowy day outside into cow barn. Those girls sure can pump out some heat!

deeretails · Jan 5, 2018

Please remember there is a difference between a hoist and a winch. Winches aren't built for overhead loads.

grandpa Love · Jan 5, 2018

Well....we still have 2 boys at home so we send them to the wood shed with a wheelbarrow! Now in a couple more years............

Brown Swiss · Jan 5, 2018

Years ago we made a dump trailer out of a feed mill frame, just back up to the house open the lid and dump it into the basement, have an old forced air furnace in the basement put in back in the early 1950s.

RLA · Jan 5, 2018

For me I try to keep it simple, Wood chute/window into my furnace room. I heat with a clayton forced air furnace. A wood wagon is back up outside to
the window. 1/2 load will heat my house for 2 + weeks unless it's weather like we are having now? When I load my wagons ( I have 10 of them ) the wood
will fit in the window chute & will fit in my furnace. If I don't burn all the wood I cut I leave it on the wagon for next season & burn those loads
1st. The wagons get parked out of sight in the off season & have very little spring clean up to do. In Feb. I start refilling the wagons that are
emptied. Try to burn Cherry, Beach, Ash, Shag bark & Pig Hickory, cut only the trees that are in the way or have gotten damaged. In my 35 years of
burning wood in my new house this is the easiest for me.

hadley · Jan 5, 2018

One of the above 2 ways. Even got the wife out there helping me last Saturday, that is her in the top picture. Soemtimes we pull the trailer with the atv or the garden tractor. House is uphill from woodpiles so if snow gets too deep have to either put on chains or get out bigger tractor. Have forced air wood furnace in basement and used to have to carry wood to basement by the armload. When I added onto house I added the entance in pictures with 42" wide door and did not put steps on inside so I can throw in approx. the equivalent of a pickup load of wood at a time. Makes it nice cause then I can bring in wood when the weather is fair. After it is in the basement I carry it about 15-20 ft to a rack by the furnace where I just keep enough for a day or two.

Ray IN · Jan 5, 2018

You have it down pat! We just have a indoor wood-burner for supplemental heat. I use pallet bins made of a pallet with woven fence wire for sides. Move the empty bins to where the wood is being cut or split, then store them in the shed. When time to burn, use tractor to move a pallet bin in the garage, and only have to carry a short distance into the house.

JD Farmer · Jan 5, 2018

My wood is stacked 3 rows wide with the top pieces sloped so as to direct water over the edge of the pile. So I fill a small trailer, tow it behind my Gator and park it in the shop where my OWB sets. Enough to last up to a week or about 4 days in cold weather like this. I heat my house, hot water, work shop and the residual heat off the boiler heats the 30x36 building it is in, keeps it above 50 degrees. In weather like this...high of 14 and overnight down to zero, I load it twice a day. In the fall and spring I may go out and cut up dead falls and bring them in as needed, avoiding having to stack them in the pile.
So I never have to be in the cold for very long, 100' walk to my heated buildings, 15 minutes to load the trailer and park it inside, once or twice a week. House is around 75 all winter long.

Adirondack case guy · Jan 5, 2018

A hoist pushes a load up!! A winch pulls it up.
Refer to Jon's joke of the day.

Loren

37chief · Jan 5, 2018

When I was 40 or so years old I thought it would be good idea to heat my house with wood. At 75, I know I should have done something different. I have a wood pile, I split the logs, and use a wash tub size plastic bin mounted on a cart. I pull it right into the house. Only a few days so far, here in California I have had a fire going all day. Usually just at night now. Stan

Bob Harvey · Jan 5, 2018

I have a 'lean to' woodshed outside my back door. Open door = laundry room and small 2'x2' cement wood box (lasts 1 1/2 days). Used to take 2 armfuls to fill (now 3 !). The heater is 3' away from the wood box. At this time of year I don't have to get rained/snowed on. Get my wood in, in May, so nice and dry. Takes 4-5 pieces of cedar kindling (avg. size 6" long and 1/2' thick, and a propane torch - et voila ! Slikker than deer guts on a doorknob.

Billy NY · Jan 5, 2018

You have a great set up all the way around from the wood lot to the final destination. I have shown the photos to friends, describing how you work in the woods to hauling to the shed. From stump to shed, you have all the necessary equipment and tools to make this a more enjoyable task then a laborious one. Sure, it's still work, but you get good production so overall, it's short in duration.

I kind of work in reverse of how you process yours. I like to bring the logs to the house, buck/block, stack to dry in block, then split there. It's just easier for me to move whole logs then loads of split wood by using the 3 pt forks. At the house, I like to use my timberjack, 3 pt forks, log gripper tools + I am close to the basement refrigerator, always cold water, beer, can take lunch without bringing it with me, & other tools are also nearby. On the cheap, I have found 3 old Jackson wheel barrows and 4 really nice gardenway carts. From my stack or pile of blocks, I split then load the wheel barrows and carts. From there it can go to a stack, to my small wood shed or directly into the garage to the stove if it's been blocked and stacked to dry. Just split when needed. The wheel barrow works well for hauling to the stove. Handling does not bother me, working off the ground does, so I use the wheel barrows and carts. The only low work is starting a stack.

I'm in a pickle right now, low on processed wood. I have a large pile of blocks in the driveway, plenty for the season,+ some small diameter log length and whatever else is in there, and what a neighbor added in blocks. Some of the blocks are 20" diameter or better and need to be split. With this bitter cold weather, not much fun, but anytime in the mid 20's and up, if no wind, I still like working outside, can warm up when I need to. Not sure I'll get any done this weekend, but in a couple of hours I have enough for a month. Weather sure seems to turn whenever I have time off. Will have to get a jump on next seasons to avoid this again.

SweetFeet · Jan 5, 2018

Loren,

"You're the man!"

Excellent idea and great job building it.

gtractorfan · Jan 5, 2018

Thanks for posting (all of you).. it's fun seeing what you're up to and I enjoy the topic. Been burning wood all my life. Be safe and understand your set ups. One thing that puzzles me for those who store wood where it's warm- what about bugs? My bin is outside an altered door, which is next to the stove.

big tee · Jan 5, 2018

You are supposed to put ear corn in them so the rats have a place to live!---Tee

Philip d · Jan 5, 2018

Now that's slick! We just have forced air heat. The furnace is in the basement and we stack all we can get down there neatly and safely.

jeffcat · Jan 5, 2018

You need a robot to load that up for you.

Ted in NE-OH · Jan 5, 2018

I have a wood burning airtight stove. When I split wood it goes into the bucket of the front end loader and then driven to the house porch and then I have a wood box in the house

coshoo · Jan 5, 2018

Wood shed beside the house. When the supply gets low in the house, I just yell "Hey, Ma! We need wood!" then dodge the skillet and go out and get an armload or 2.

JohnDeereJimOhio · Jan 6, 2018

Have a gravity wagon with 4 tons of coal in it right next to outdoor coal boiler, 2-3 buckets in morning 2-3 at night and it?s good to go. It?s next to my big shop that I currently do not park in. It?s about 250? from house definitely wakes you up when u walk out there at 4am before work lol.

Dan in Ohio · Jan 6, 2018

Biggest improvement for my wood burning life was this wood shed. No more digging wood out from under snow and ice and having to burn wet wood. I also use various tractors with loaders and tailers or wagon.

620 John · Jan 6, 2018

I burn wood using an old Wild Rose cook stove. I'm guessing it's about a 100 years old but I really like it. A cook stove/wood burner uses a fraction of the amount of wood a fire place does and produces the same amount of heat if not more. So feeding it is not a problem for me. I get the fire going, fill the small wood box and I'm good to go for all day.

olgentdc · Jan 10, 2018

My wood gets handled at lezst 3 times ,. cut ,split , loader to furnace . most the time i handle it more than that. i use carts on wheels similar to Lorens ,..stacked tite hauled in to the house with bale forks ,.. ,,..all that wood handling takes time and energy ,,and Most the time .it is all up to
Just the 3 of us... ,Me ,MYSELF and I ... just dont have the latter like i used to ,,.

COLD Nasty day Question

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