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Post by RocDoc on Oct 9, 2006 15:57:18 GMT -5
Awright a firewood conversation!
Effin' cool pulley contraption, first of all, Strat!
Is Spruce tree wood any good for a fireplace....or is it 'snap-crackle-poppy' and is good just for the outdoors?
We just moved into our new 'country home' 40 minutes outside of downtown (which SUCKS!) and for the first time in my life we have a fireplace....AND yesterday I flagged down a landscape company (cleverly disguised as a group of Mexicans, ha!) while rolling my little boy around the neighborhood in his wagon.
Two twenty foot spruces (diseased or they woulda stayed) and 7-8 overgrown juniper bushes for 665 bucks, the estimate and the guy says 'Look I have the crew now....so'...
And off we went.
But the guys don't do 'haul-away' or a chipper or anything of that sort so we've got 4 BIG piles of log/branch debris.
Smells wonderful, but that's a lotta shit we wanna get off the property before the snows come and all sorts of wildlife comes back to roost there.
It's supposed to snow here this THURSDAY BTW.
The town does that sort of haul-away just twice a year and we're pretty sure we're way past that date, so we'll probably hafta hire a tree service to bring a chipper.
But damn it's a shame to just toss these big beautiful logs...
I'm lobbying for getting one of those outdoor firepits-on-wheels to enjoy at least just a bit of pyro on these trees.
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Post by phil on Oct 9, 2006 16:36:22 GMT -5
Spruce is a very poor combustible ... !!
Don't forget to have your chimney checked
before lmaking a fire ...
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Post by strat-0 on Oct 9, 2006 17:30:44 GMT -5
Congrats on moving into your new house, Doc! We need pics!
As Phil noted, spruce is soft and pretty close to the bottom the list for firewood. According to the chart at the link on the previous page, it has a low heat content, is moderately smokey, throws sparks, and has a worse general rating than many varieties of pine. It has the same heat content as willow, which is just about the worst thing you can try to burn.
On the other hand, it's easy to split and burns easily. I would avoid using it in the fireplace, but you might look at the cost of chipping and hauling vs. having it cut up and stacked. It might come in handy in an emergency, or used sparingly with other wood. It might be a cheaper and practical way of getting rif of it, too! It will be too green to use this winter, anyway.
If you're looking to buy some cordwood, better do it now and beat the rush and higher prices! Otherwise you'll be down to Duraflames or those little bundles of sticks they sell at the grocery store for outrageous prices. Or the guys that park their pickups by the road and wait for suckers to come along to be gouged. We have a lot of those here - there's so much wood to be had. That's why I bought a chainsaw and a splitter! But still, sometimes one must purchase, alas (I haven't yet). Just look out for the sharks! Some will try to sell green wood, or stack it like Lincoln logs to make it look like more. But it's like buying pot - the dealers always try to short you just a little bit!
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Post by samplestiltskin on Oct 9, 2006 17:35:06 GMT -5
Your pot dealers suck!
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Post by strat-0 on Oct 9, 2006 19:23:12 GMT -5
Looks like it'll do the trick. Yeah, that little jewel has come in handy! Still quite a bit of manual labor involved - pumping the bottle jack with your foot, but it sure beats a sledge hammer and a moll! Hydraulic leverage rules, baybee! Splits those pigs like nothing!  |
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Post by strat-0 on Oct 9, 2006 20:01:51 GMT -5
When's the last time you weighed a bag, samps?  Of course, firewood is sold by volume, not weight. Which makes sense because the weight can vary wildly according to moisture content. So, if it were sold by weight, greener wood would cost more, and that's clearly not right. But some woods, like oak or hickory, are very dense and heavy even when dry. There are a lot of factors to consider. Firewood in the US is sold by the cord, or fractions thereof. This is even mandated in some states. But you will invariably find people selling it by the "rank," "rick," "rack," "stack," or "pickup truck load." A cord is measured as 8 ft X 4 ft X 4 ft. Check the local going rates for one and just keep it in mind. And don't be afraid to whip out a tape measure and calculator if you think you're being screwed. Tell us about your house, Doc! |
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Post by phil on Oct 9, 2006 20:06:48 GMT -5
 When I couldn't get the Power company to hook up my newly-built house before winter, I bought this cooking wood stove and put gas lights with copper pipes in the walls ... It made for a very warm and romantic winter nights ... |
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Post by phil on Oct 9, 2006 22:59:10 GMT -5
That was my baby ...  |
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Post by RocDoc on Oct 10, 2006 15:26:03 GMT -5
Thanks for confirming my suspicions, Strat and Phil....just maybe as a starter/tinder once it's dried, then.
Or the anything-goes firepit...
Pics as they become available. I just recharged the digital cam's NiCads last night so maybe I'll get around to snapping a few tonight.
Dumbasses that we are, we took no before and after shots, since I just happened upon my landscapers-disguised-as-Mexicans at 10 AM Sunday morning and they were literally on-the-job a ½ hour later....we've got a brick split level which sprawls across the front of our 100 foot wide lot and we had mountains of overgrown junipers at both ends of the house, which are now no longer there.
Then we had a row of 4 mature blue spruces about 30 feet from our back patio which gave us wonderful privacy from the rest of the backyard, but of the middle two one had a totally browned out (ie dead) top and the other had one side (if you split it vertically) thart had nothing but dead branches due to overcrowding when these were put in prob 30-35 years ago. A real shame, and I hated to knock down something that had been there so long...
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Post by strat-0 on Oct 10, 2006 19:07:09 GMT -5
Looking forward to the pics, Doc! Maybe you can make something out of some of that spruce -- benches or stools or something. Then you'd have something of them to keep around that came from your homestead. It is very pretty wood. Just not very good fuel.
Mine is a Husqvarna 345, Phil. It's very nice, and 3hp should be enough for my needs. I've had a couple of those piece-o-shit Poulan throw-away models. I killed one on the tree stairs. What I love about the Husky is the vibration dampening system. I can see that your Jonsered had a similar system. You can appreciate that after about 15 minutes of use, let alone a few hours.
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Post by RocDoc on Oct 11, 2006 12:39:53 GMT -5
We're getting the 1 and a ½ horse Remington electric that Menard's here has on sale this week, just so we can submerge all of our stumps a bit better than the crew did...quarter 'em up (vertically) and cut across a couple of times and I figure that'd do it...
The junipers ran alongside the garage in a spot where we'd like to get a sidewalk poured, and those are the ones that have the biggest need to get level down below grade.
And as I recall from our former house, where we had yew bushes, overgrown to fuck this very same way, the roots of this family of 'bushes' (now turned into effing treees!) are very shallow and there were like 'ropes' of wood all along the surface of the ground, and I'm pretty sure I saw the same thing here w/the junipers...if you want a nice even surface for the cement to stand, this might make it a little difficult if you don't manicure the bastards down.
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Post by RocDoc on Oct 11, 2006 12:41:20 GMT -5
Oh, and the main thing about the Remington chain saw is that it's only 39 bucks...next priced gas saw was like a hundred and 39 bucks. No.
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Post by samplestiltskin on Oct 11, 2006 16:29:53 GMT -5
(maybe it just helped that my last roommate grew, and actually weighed O's out heavy.. much too decent for his own good.)
i have no idea what you guys are talking about. chainsaws, i guess. chainsaws are cool. woodchippers are cooler.
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Post by Ampage on Oct 11, 2006 19:49:23 GMT -5
There's a foot in tha chippa.
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Post by strat-0 on Oct 11, 2006 21:13:42 GMT -5
(maybe it just helped that my last roommate grew, and actually weighed O's out heavy.. much too decent for his own good.) Yeah, I used to do that too. It actually began as an angry reaction to an awful dry spell in the early 90s. I was very disgusted, and recalled some friends from high school days who were quite successful at it. So I set up a small extra closet in my apartment with foil, a timer, and nothing more high tech than 4 ft florescent shop lights, got the right seeds from a really good bag, and proceeded to grow giant kind buds. These were green and red-hairy sticky colas, glistening with clear, bloated glands, and of a flavor unparalleled. It was at least as good as anything I have ever smoked - including Thai stick and other exotics from the "old days." As good as it gets. I was accused more than once of lacing it with something. Nope. That tiny closet kept me and all my friends in all of the kind bud we could stand for a few years. And plenty of shake to give away. I kept the strain going with cuttings for years. It's so easy it's pathetic. Free. But that's illegal, of course, and since advocating illegal use of drugs by an administrator is a terms-of-service violation at these boards, I must rigorously and adamantly stress that this evil behavior is not condoned nor advised by me. The above is presented for informational purposes only. Anyone with questions can email me, and I will gladly tell you more about avoiding the scourge and temptations of cannabis. |
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