[Closed] Wood-ists - how much you use and what do you pay?

McMoonter to the forum please!!!

I got through this little lot since january, but is has been a bit nippy.

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At first glance, I thought it had its own skylights.

5kW stove here, lit evenings and loaded last thing to burn on slowly, about two and a half tons of hardwood last winter.

About to get first delivery from these people -

http://www.ed-knights-logs.co.uk/

Oh, and how do you take down that stack, and what stops the roof blowing away?

Our new funky stove goes through about a wheelbarrow load a day. Any more and its too hot,

edit, a day is about noon till midnight. As I process my wood myself I have no real world ideas of costs.

5kW stove here, lit evenings and loaded last thing to burn on slowly, about two and a half tons of hardwood last winter.

Ours is 6kw, so that gives me a good idea.

Do you operate any other heating (ours will heat living room + kitchen, with bedrooms using central heating (uber expensive LPG)

Our new funky stove goes through about a wheelbarrow load a day.

So, all I need to do is multiple number of full days of firing per season by wheelbarrow-loads, and order like that.... 😉

EDIT: I'd never have guessed you processed it all yourself. I mean, where's the evidence...! 😉 😉

£50 for a "load bag" round this way. Nice and dry, but quite light and burns very quickly. I light the fire when I get in from work around 6pm, get it going nice and hot then leave it idling. Last log goes on around 8.30 pm and the stove is still warm(ish) when we go to bed. Go through about 2/3rds of a basket per evening on average (basket is about 18" diameter and 20" tall). THat means we get through a load of wood in about 2 months.

edit: 4.5kw stove.

piece of string question Im afraid.

Function of:
alternative heating source and use (i.e. CH)
insulation
Comfort temp
size of house etc etc

But for the sake of argument... 🙂

From one way round, you can calculate use by guessing how long you will have the stove thrashing out heat, multiply by the rated output (i.e. 8kW x 3 hours = 24kWh) and divide by 5ish to get Kg of wood in a burn. So 5Kg a night of dry seasoned wood. Then add a Kg or two for a few hours slow burn comfort. If not dry and seasoned then its going to be up to 2-3 times as much wood by mass.

This lot might last me 2 weeks depending on conditions (i.e. in a cold snap, 3 weeks plus in normal winter) and how much I have the UFH running. 11kW stove. This is a bout a third of a £90Kg bought load. But from my latest source of fuel this should come down to about £40 a load.
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Cheers, chaps.

piece of string question Im afraid.

Was always going to be the case.

Just needed an approx idea of where I need to aim at for early ordering. I can store outdoors (will build a small* store), plus can have dry stuff in the garage, and then a bit in the house per evening.

nbt - I used to buy mainly coal from Pearsons in Marple together with string bagfuls, but that was for a small open fire in the old house. Most of the heat went up the chimney anyway....

*compared with the resident log-meisters

I use our 5kw just in the evenings and we get through roughly 3-4 cubic meters a year.

Or two of these full a year 😉

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Think of the amount of space you want to use to store your wood, then double it again*, then double that again for next year 😉

*unless your name is Stoner or McMoonter, then x50 or half of the rain forest 😉

Neat bit of building that, ski.

cheers for the volume info - I ought to be able to accommodate that and our usage will be similar.

I have something like this...

http://www.buyshedsdirect.co.uk/garden-storage/pure-garden-storage/pure-garden-storage-xtra-large-log-store

... which I think holds about half a ton. If you can, place the store for max sunlight. I use a store for drying then move the batch into a shed.

And YGM.

I made myself something like the image in that link above using some offcut decking, some solid oak flooring and a scrounged piece of roofing felt. I refused to pay circa. £100 for a badly thrown-together store.

I must take a picture of it sometime.

"badly thrown-together store" you say?

Couldnt agree more 🙂

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I wanted something that would fold down flat for easy storage, when not in use and could not find anything, so I started building these to order for people.

Simple to make and as long as you leave enough air gaps at the back, next to the fence, it seems to work well.

Not that costly to make either.

Stoner, that is a proper store, nice work.

I think theyre an excellent design ski.

EDIT post passing, was referring to yours.

And I meant this being the badly put together store - they sell the same one in Homebase and I looked at them there.

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If McMoonter puts any of his pictures up I WILL throw myself out of the window*

*Probably.

Is he about?

Not like him to miss a wood post on here 😉

Point taken, but I bought a flatpack and put it together myself, two coats creosote first then assembled with serious screws.

Here's my home built effort. Slightly cheated and bought some cedar tiles for the roof but cut, split and milled the rest myself.

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Is he about?

Not like him to miss a wood post on here

Sorry, I'm not ignoring this thread, I've been outside cutting a tree that came down in the January storm. I just came in for a cup of tea.

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I like the DIY wood shed route too.

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Gets ready to catch Mastilles FL

Came across this beauty on my cycle commute in today on a disused road, if its still there on my return, it will be gone by the morning 😉

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I'm still working my way through a very large load I got last year. Hard to say how heavy it was, 'cos I didn't weigh it, but it was around 8 tonnes of large chunks (up to 3 feet long, but mainly 1' discs), which I've had to chainsaw and split. Mostly dry, too; 6 months of seasoning when split and it's ready for burning.

Cost me the cube root of nothing (wood was basically free, just had to arrange transport with a grab hire bloke) and it's brilliant. Ash, oak, cedar...there's all sorts in The Pile Of Doom, which cost me a total of £200. I've been trying to hack my way through and I might have used a third in

If you have the space to store it, the desire to saw & split it, and the sheer determination to spend half a day a week in the summer grinding away at a Sisyphean task, I recommend buying a [i]huuuuge[/i] job-lot of unprocessed wood, a good maul (Fiskars X27 is the best I've used) and a hydraulic log-splitter. Your wife will think you're mad, your back will hurt, and you'll be shattered after a full day of wood-working, but you'll feel better for it, and it'll also be a new thing to impress your friends with.

Of course, this means that you'll be uber-niche; all you need to do now is grow a beard, ride a singlespeed and extol the virtues of a single malt in a bivvy, and you're away.

[sobsquietly]

Here's mine if I've managed this correctly!

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Just some heavy duty trellis and boards across the front that can be removed as we go down the pile.

My fire is pretty big 11Kw in total as it runs a back boiler with 9 radiators. We got through about 6m3 last winter running it from 5 till 11 every night.

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Another home made store,

6kw stove, Go through this much every 3 months. 6ish till early hours. all day on weekend if around the house.
Again own wood so no idea on cost.
That ^^ above was a wet load so went through it very quick.

Thanks for the wood store ideas, just chopped down my first tree (made the kitchen unusable without the lights on) and wasn't sure of the best storage.

Should be well seasoned by the time I get around to putting a stove in 😉

The only time I've ever bought wood was when we first got the burner installed about 2 years ago. Since then, I've got supplies from here and there, generally head out on my bike up the river after a windy spell. There is very often trees down on public paths, and as long as they are a manageable distance from the nearest car access point, I'll park up and take a wheel barrow, and load up the trailer.

I do a back shift week once a month, and I generally spend one morning on this week just going out and getting wood (ahem) through the winter. So in reality, about 4 mornings a year will get me about 3 or 4 cubes which will last me all winter. I only have the burner on from mid afternoon til around 8 or 9, as it's a secondary heating, and there's no point keeping the lounge hot all night when we're all tucked up in bed.

Also, when people at work find out you've got a chainsaw, you'll have endless offers of trees to tackle. Being out in the woods on a cold frosty winters morning, kept warm by hauling logs about is a great way to spend a morning as well, I love it.

Ski's log stores also double-up as dog agility ramps 😛

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Another DIY lash up, 5KW gets through 2 of these a year.
I have an unhealthy interest in the local area's loft conversions.

I have an unhealthy interest in the local area's loft conversions.

I like your style 8)

Oh goody my first chance of the year to show these, built about a month ago & stacked with half an oak tree I was given plus a few bits of silver birch. Tiles were from a reclaim yard to make them look a bit 'pretty'

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We have a 5kw stove and only burn wood, when stacked tidily at home our log piles work out at approx 7 cubic metres. We use all this over winter. Our fire is in all weekend and from 4pm till bed week days. Its on flat out I find the room to warm but the mrs loves it.
The wood is for free I can get wind fall from the woods at work and am able to stack it in a corner of one of our yards to dry before taking it home. Currently have wood for next 2 yrs 😉 I need to spend some time splitting. The family think i'm nuts because i'm always gathering, cutting, or splitting wood but they soon sit in front of the stove when it is lit.
Its a time consuming exercise doing your own firewood (v satisfying though) and can fully understand why bought in wood can be expensive

Do people PAY for wood?

7kW stove and we use about 8 cubic metres per year.
That's a real cubic metre of neatly stacked wood - not a builder's bag 🙂

I worked out that given how long it takes me to collect, cut and split the wood that it's cheaper for me to do some overtime and buy the wood 🙂

If you can rely on your supply of wood then you can probably get away with one store.

I started with that. I've just bought my third.

A lot of the wood I use has been collected rather than bought. So it's either feast or famine.

The store from Buy sheds direct is fine once you give it a coat of wood stain.

Try as I might, can't resist a 'wood' thread .. wanders off to join MF in the sobbing corner .. but quietly offers applause to Simwit's efforts... Good work there. 🙂

Pay for wood???!!!!
Never. Just keep a constant eye open.

Most kind ART, thank you. Forgot to say that we have a 4kw stove used for supplemental heating alongside the gas ch. We've only had it in since Feb so a bit early to say how much we'll use over a whole winter but we got through a £90 mixed load in about 3 months, although we were using it for novelty value at times so that should've lasted a bit longer.

Do people PAY for wood?

They pay me for seasoned or green wood too 😉

Last load we did, went to a mobile Pizza buisness, that do festivals, events etc, messing with wood and free pizza was a nice combo 😉

itstig - Member

Currently have wood for next 2 yrs

😆

this thread, er, mushroomed when I wasn;t looking yesterday.

Some really useful info, and some great store pics.

Simwit's wins, mainly because the space I have to build the store needs to be below a ground floor window, so that LH store is just the design I need. Thanks!

Interesting thread guys. Just asked for a quote for a wood burner from a local supplier. Hoping it's not too big a quote. 😕

Also told The Wife that I [u][i][b]MUST[/b][/i][/u] have a chain saw. She's not very impressed.

We used more than usual this "spring" so currently collecting for the 13/14 winter as it will only last half way. keep a bow saw in the landrover and it is surprising how much you can pick up.

keep a bow saw in the landrover and it is surprising how much you can pick up.

hitch-hikers?

😳