I need em.

We’ve taken the plunge and are having a wood burning stove installed in a coupe of months.
I’m aware that wood fuel ideally needs to be stockpiled for at least a year to dry out before burning – unless you are ready to spend a small fortune on pre-prepared wood from a supplier.

However, I can find precious little info on where to legally source a wood supply for yourself.
Which kind of woods should I go for? Which should I avoid at all cost? (presumably sappy pines?)
How much room should I cleasr in my garage for a steady supply to last through a winter?

Its a 7w max stove heating a 3 bed semi.

Depending on where you live, I’m afraid it’s a case of ‘join the queue’. A lot of people are getting wood burners and suppliers are charging accordingly whilst legally sourced wood supplies don’t come free for this reason.

Hard woods like Ash and Oak are best and as you say sappy Pines less so. Have a look on many of the Self Sufficiency sites for a run down of what works best. As you seem to be heating the whole house with it, it’s going to take a substantial stockpile to get you through Winter. I’d personally set aside a whole garage full but we don’t run the heating off ours so someone else may be able to answer this more exactly.

How disappointing. I was expecting….

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5RO_RyKH438[/video]

Its a 7w max stove heating a 3 bed semi.

7kw! hope its a double garage 😉

Ask is king if you can find it.

>However, I can find precious little info on where to legally source a wood supply for yourself.
<

Pff do you think this stuff just grows on trees?

No shortage of folk selling firewood – it’s a commodity just like anything else. Find a competitive source and pay for it I guess

😉

Im currently turning this

and this

into this

The large slabs of poplar were taken from my dad’s garden when he had it removed. Its a git to split and Im working through it with the maul, but it’s breaking my body 🙂

The willow came from some mates who sell firewood. Big Chris is a farmer and he pollards his field willows but normally they dont sell it as people wont buy spitting wood. I on the other hand have a log burner and a furnace so dont care. They brought that lot over from the farm on a couple of tractors and trailers for a few hundred quid and will last me a long time. Admittedly I have to log and chop it.

By the time Im done I should have around 3-4years worth of wood seasoned which will provide the bulk of my heating and hot water in the barn (qv furnace) for about £100 a year. Bargin.

not heating the whole house, just living room, with a bit of permiation. hopefully.

so where do I stand walking into my local woodland and nabbing fallen wood?

mind if I come and pick the roses from your garden? 😉

How much room should I cleasr in my garage for a steady supply to last through a winter?

I don’t think I would store wood in a garage. You need airflow to get it to dry efficiently. No airflow equals rot. A wood shed doesn’t need to be fancy. This was created from an old water tank.

Here is a link to a simple shed I built on my own over a weekend.
https://picasaweb.google.com/113038090087066024057/20120126NewWoodShed#

so where do I stand walking into my local woodland and nabbing fallen wood?

A no-no all ends up, unless you have the owners permission and you are not compromising the ecology plan for the woodland (fallen wood is very important). Even so, the amount you can carry out is going to amount to a short evenings burning (even if it’s not partially rotten anyway, in which case it’ll go up like cotton-wool).

Out 5kW stove, in all the time from ~October to about now, used over 15m^3 of dry wood last winter when it was cold – about 8 or 10m^3 this year.

TBH, if you haven’t sorted out your supply, or accept you’ll have to pay the going rate (i.e. – pricey) then I wouldn’t bother – it will definitely not be cast-neutral and may approach ‘folly’ status (but is the best thing in our house when going) 😉

Have you really thought this through?

Can you still cancel the install?

well, kinda…

I realise I may need to source the bulk, but would like to try and gather a percentage of my own.

TBH, I havent properly costed the 15m3 of wood.. Im guessing I wont like the net result

TBH, I havent properly costed the 15m3 of wood.. Im guessing I wont like the net result

No, no you won’t….. That was for someone in the house all day for most of the winter – I think the central heating came on for a couple of hours overnight when it was really cold, but that was it – gas bill less than ~£12 per month over the year for a 3-bed-semi.

If you just light up in the evening, then you’ll use a lot less, but the costs of wood will still be…. um…. 😉

I was told by some sustainability consultants once that wood burning for commercial heat and power had seen such a massive explosion in use that the cost of recycled / chipped wood has rocketed over the last 5 years and we now import wood from Scandinavia, via road / ferry. A bit daft really but you cant beat a real fire!.

crisis of confindence now guys. the word ‘folly’ above is reverberating in my head..

You really can’t beat a fire in the living room. But this is a £3000 fire.
Anyone care to hazard a guess at how much it would cost to fuel for a couple of hours per night, through the coldest months? (provided I don’t source any free fuel)

Ive seen approx 1.5m3 for £150, but not much cheaper.

OK, we’ve got a 8Kw Clearview that we use from October(ish) to the end of March(ish) in the weekdayss from about 4pm – 11pm and over the Christmas holidays.
I’ve bought wood in at £70/pickup full and we’ll go through 3 of these this winter plus a bit of smokeless coal (makes a huge difference and well worth it).
So say £240 all in.

….ish 🙂

Your woodburner installer should be able to give details of a local source for wood.

If you bulk buy it usually comes in cheaper, we’ve been sharing a large delivery with neighbours.

Ours is multi fuel stove, so when we need to run it all day (only at very cold times) the coal comes in handy. Have you considered multi fuel?

Where in the country are you?

Stoner’s post is spot on. In order to get cost-effective wood-powered heating, you need to source cord wood (or big rings of it) and split it yourself.

This is what I’ve done as well; I’ve got a mixture of softwood and (mainly) hardwood, much of which needs chainsawing then splitting. My wood pile was around 10 tonnes at its peak (maybe 18 cubic metres?), but I’ve burned a fair bit this winter. That amount (mostly bought in, but maybe 20% was scavenged) cost £180, which was a bargain. The guy selling it manages a golf course and just wanted the wood gone; most of the cost was transport, but since it only had to come 10 miles, that wasn’t prohibitive.

Obviously the savings you make through processing your own wood are offset to some extent by the fact that you need a chainsaw, a maul or two, maybe a log splitter, a lot of space, and the application of a good deal of time. If the weather’s good I’ll go out and split logs at a weekend for a couple of hours. That’s every week; to make a proper inroad into the big stuff I’ll need to put aside a couple of full weekends. Then I’ll need to build some more wood stores….the work’s never ending, it seems.

Just found out that our Council sells wood from managing the forest bits in its parts.

£65 a cubic meter IIRC.

Not sure how that compares but i think its less than the local fuel merchants.

Maybe worth an inquiry.

90 nights of burning should need more than about £200 pounds worth of wood.

bristolbiker is scaremongering with his 15m3 figure! 😉

Even I use probably 10m3 a year thats in my biomass fuelled barn.

Another good source of wood is from a sawmill, but I doubt they’d deliver, so youd need to arrange that, and you’d need to process it yourself. My local sawmill used to give it away, now they charge me £20 a bundle which can be 1.5 – 1.75T. Demand is now outstripping supply so it’s starting to cost a bit. My sawmill works mostly with Oak and other hardwoods so all things considered its still good value.

Give your local tree surgeons a shout, they ALWAYS have more wood than they can chip. If you have a trailor and can sort a deal you may strike it lucky. And keep In mind that ash (the king of wood) can be burnt green.
Cheers

Personally, I’d also give softwoods a chance – split easier, season much quicker, and they have the same calorific content by weight. So long as you don’t pay the same price per cube………

Another good source of wood is from a sawmill, but I doubt they’d deliver

my one does – they generate a small mountain of wedge shaped offcuts from making fence posts. A heaped tipper-truck full costs me £80, its delivered pretty wet though – my workshop is a former sawmill itself and has a building designed for drying wood, so I get it delivered there in the summer to have it dry enough to use in the winter.

I’ll echo whats mentioned above – if woodlands has fallen wood lying about then the chances are its there for a reason. The estate I live on has swathes of woodland and the big house is fuelled by solid fuel only it gets through mcmoonteresque volumes of wood, but the woodland is a specific managed ecology not a fuel source and leaving fallen wood and dead trees is a big part of that, so unless wood falls across paths or roads its deliberately left where it falls

Forgot to say – post up on Arbtalk and you may get someone local who can provide large quantities of wood for you to process.

7kw to heat one room, is the local church hall?

We have an average size semi 3bedrooms, with our 6kw it heats the house. Including temperature as low as -15c last year.

We use to source our own wood but after my Dad took ill we don’t really anymore. I’ve been buying dumping bags for £95 delivered for hardwood. Lasts about 8 weeks with 2 bags of coal which cost £34, although todays delivery they’ve gone down to £32.

Thanks for the advice guys.
I was starting to think it was a £3k extravagance (including lots of remedial work to fireplace etc) that we’d really regret but im now thinking that we should stick with it (its not too late as we haven’t handed over the deposit yet).

I should have mentioned that im more than happy to do the graft of splitting the wood, and have earmarked a nice chunk of garden (or garage) to store the wood.
I guess its all a question of how much I can source locally, but your tips regarding where to search are useful.

Oh, and the stove is up to 7kw, I think it ranges upwards of 3kw.

I’m a smaller user than the serious guys above. I have a 5kW fire used in winter evenings and filled last thing to burn part-way through the night. Two tons of logs (about) fits in a 8′ x 6′ shed. They get dried first, variously in a lean-to woodstore, against a sunny house wall, in the greenhouse. When dry they move into the shed, as a double deep line around sides and back. Right now that quantity is a bit less than half gone.

That’s two deliveries each one tonne of (mixed) hardwood, spring and summer, total about £250. You learn to judge how dry wood is by weight, cracking at the ends and by feel. It helps to recognise the common species.

There’s a lovely sense of security when your woodshed is full for the winter. Plus adding freebies occasionally is a bonus.

mcmoonter – those snowdrops really are gorgeous.

always a grrrrlll has to come in with the the “snowdrops” thing when the men are talking fire, axes, mauls and other primal stuff 🙄

😉

You want big logs? We have 24 of them….

always a grrrrlll has to come in with the the “snowdrops” thing when the men are talking fire, axes, mauls and other primal stuff

I think you’ll find Stoner, that I am a Lady 🙂

Dunno where you are, but we buy wood from Forestry Commission – speak to you local office. Bought a load early Dec – about 7-8m3 for £105. This is fresh though so will be next winter before we can burn it. Comes in big 3m lengths so you need to be able to collect, transport, cut, split, store and dry it. Not a quick fix!

Can also get a scavenging licence for £50 to go in and collect your own after they’ve been felling. But that’s a pain in the hoop for sure – not allowed to use chainsaw on FC land unless you are qualified to do so and carry £1m public liability cover.

As above, my folks have two large multifuel stoves in their house, and also have three self catering cottages each of which has its own small miltifuel stove. They get all their wood delivered in huge logs from the FC. It gets chainsawed into manageable lengths, sawed into roundels and then split with a hydraulic splitter (essential for speedy splitting!).

Price really varies on where you are and what you’re buying.

Our customers in a similar situation probably take two 12 foot trailer loads off us each year. Those using it as a central heat source, about 5. Big pubs have a trailer fortnightly.

We sell mixed, split, dried wood – exactly the same as we all take home ourselves, the key thing is dry. Mixed because we work all sorts of woodlands and can’t be bothered to stack seperate sheds, just sling it all in. Mixed works well too, softwood gets the heat up quickly so that you can burn your hardwoods efficiently, a single oak log that burns all night won’t be heating you. Main reason for build up in chimneys is because of stuff being left on slow burns all the time, far smokier = more tar.

We know we are quite cheap, but we are clearing material the sawmills won’t take and firewood isn’t our main work, just making the most of the resource.

Do not go helping yourself to timber in woods. Despite appearances it has a use and most notably, an owner. If we find the person who’s been helping themself to the ends of our timber stacked for sale into fencing we’ll be making sure their fingers won’t operate a saw. This is our work and income.

hydraulic splitter (essential for speedy splitting!).

+1

hydraulic splitter (essential for speedy splitting!).

+1

+2. I cant believe I split so much by hand before.

Bunnyhop – Member
mcmoonter – those snowdrops really are gorgeous.

Here are a few from this year.

hydraulic splitter (essential for speedy splitting!).
+1
+2. I cant believe I split so much by hand before.

+3

I am a bit late to the party. We have a 5kw stove that runs pretty much open all the time to heat our open plan downstairs living area.

We get our wood from the local saw mill, its green wood (sometimes has been around for a while) £60 per load split and delivered its about 50% more than a standard pickup by volume and quite a bit cheeper than seasoned hardwood.

We get through between 1 and 2 loads in a normal winter burning from mid afternoon through the evening.

I have built a wood store down the side of the house that will take 2 years supply. Its approx 3m x 2.5m high and enough for 2 logs deep.

One thing I didn’t consider when installing my 4.5kw burner is just how much wood I’d need.

I remember the first cubic metre hardwood I bought for £60 about a week before christmas. The guy said.. ‘Are you sure you dont want more as I wont be able to deliver between xmas/new year’ I laughed thinking he was joking!!

I’d say burning just evenings I’ll use about £200-300 each winter (at current prices).

Just planted 100 ash trees, so hopefully in a few years 🙂