[chrismahon]

Landlord here needs 24 cubic metres a year to heat his big uninsulated house. He uses a huge dumper truck to move the wood (3 cubic metre bucket) but one half the size would be perfectly adequate.


We need 8 cubic metres and drag it down to the roadside in 4 metre lengths and take it up in the back of the van. It is cut with an electric chainsaw outside the house as that is far cheaper to run -and quiet. I've started trimming all the rot and bark off with a billhook to reduce the storage area and speed the drying.


Our problem is drying it in the house. The place is so damp the wood gets wet unless stacked around the fire. Outside we have slung a tarp between trees. But even though it is tinder dry at the end of Summer it collects moisture from the air during Winter and gets damp again. That lowers the burning temperature and soots the chimney. We are seasoning some wood in the greenhouse as an experiment at the moment. It gets over 50 degrees in there which is supposed to be enough to split the cellular water entrapment (25% water content in green wood). So far it is working fine but time consuming. Thought about wrapping it in industrial cling film.

[Still playing with tractors]

We buy an artic load of softwood at a time, main heating in the house! it all goes through a palax processor and the hardwood i get via blowdowns and surgery work. 

[Chicken George 1]

We have just read Chris Mahon's comments re. the dumper truck. Our friends who we know very well, need the dumper to collect the many fallen trees that they have on their property of about 60 acres.  As you can imagine the fallen trees are spread about in different areas. It is not a 3 cubic metre dumper, but a 3 ton with a 1 1/2 cubic meter bucket, so it is exactly the size he suggests they should have.