Fire wood: Tips on how to Turn Trees from your Forestry Garden into a Valuable Heat Source
There is a lot of fire wood on your country acreage
that you are converting into a forestry garden.
There are normally trees that are dead or dying or some you just want to remove.
These can be converted into a valuable resource.
This will be the wood that you burn in your wood stove to provide you with heat.
This is a very good source of heat to keep you toasty warm on the chilly days and nights.
I like the wood heat because you can get close to it and get the chill off.
If you have or will have a wood stove installed correctly, and if used properly, this is a safe and economical
way to heat your home and even to cook your meals.
I contend that this is one of the most efficient sources of heat, because you get warm from it when
- You cut and split it
- You transport the wood and stack it
- You transport the fuelwood to the stove
- When you burn it in the wood stove
A stove is usually rated to burn an amount of wood per year to heat an area.
This is given by a cord measurement.
A cord of wood is 128 cu ft, or a rick of wood 2ft wide, 4ft high, 16ft long , or combination to equal 128 cu ft.
You will need to know how many cords your stove will burn in a season.
This is how much to gather in.
The species of wood you have will depend on what you have growing on your forestry garden.
Normally a high density hardwood gives out the most heat.
All species will burn when dried out enough and often you can mix them and come up with a good combination.
You will have to experiment with what you have and come up with what works best for you.
I burn everything that will make wood, tops and limbs even.
When I am done there isn't much left.
I normally leave the brush laying on the ground to decompose and add back to the soil.
You have moved your logs to an area where you can work on them.
It is now time to get to work.
I have came up with the length that works well for my stove.
You will need to do this also.
Make a measuring stick, from a narrow thin board this length.
Obtain a marking crayon suitable for marking on wood.
Take this measure and lay it down on the end of the log and make a mark on log at end of measure.
Repeat this until you have covered the length of log.
I like the wood to be the same length for transporting, stacking and putting in stove.
If you have a good eye for the length then you can omit this step.
If you follow these tips on how to make the firewood you will accomplish this task in a safe and easy manner.
I invite you to open up the following pages and get some information on the equipment that you will require to accomplish the making of the fire wood from your forestry garden.
If you haven't already done so now would be a good time for you to go to this page and get the needed information of selecting a chain saw that you can operate safely and easily.
Take your chainsaw and start cutting on the marks.
Try to keep the chain from cutting into the dirt and watch for adjacent objects the chain could catch and throw at you.
If the log has enough diameter this is a good time to insert one of your plastic wedges in cut after the chain has cut far enough down to clear the wedge.
Splitting Firewood
Now that you have the blocks cut off the log it is time to split them if they are too large to fit into your stove, easily.
There are different ways to approach this task.
You can spend either sweat and effort or money.
The more money you spend, usually the less sweat and effort is required.
A cheaper way to go, but with more effort and sweat, is the manual wood splitter.
Go to this page for the information on this.
When you get tired of using your sweat and effort you can step up to the power wood splitter.
This is a way to split those difficult blocks easily.
Go to this page for the information on this.
When you store your fire wood it works best if you have something to keep it from falling down.
The use of this simple wood rack will prevent this happening to you.
There are different methods used to transport your wood from where split to where it is to be stored.
I like to use my utility vehicle.
This is a rig that I wish I had bought when I first started this project of making a forestry garden from my country acreage.
Basically it is a small pickup of sorts.
It has the steering wheel and seat and a bed for hauling stuff or things.
Mine has the four wheel drive and positive lock.
If this is of interest to you then go to this site to get more information.
From fire wood to forestry gardening tips
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