First of all, you have to live in the country enough to have this be possible. When I lived in Mt. Shasta because 6 months a year it is pretty cold there most people I knew then (from 1976 to 1992) had wood stoves to heat their homes because it is much more cost effective even though it is also labor intensive (or can be).
First of all you start with a wood stove and then you have to choose what kinds of wood to burn.
Here are some of the choices depending upon where you live and how much a wood cutting permit costs from your local forest ranger regarding state or national forests. There are areas where you can gather wood and areas where you cannot gather wood. But, when I did this a permit cost about 10 dollars to 15 dollars a year but is likely more expensive now.
So, basically, if you are safe with a chain saw and you are strong enough to split wood with a maul you can cut and haul your own wood for the permit which was around 10 to 15 dollars a year when I did this.
You do have to be careful of pine because flue fires often result from burning pine too much. when I came back from skiing about dark in 1980 in Mt. Shasta there was a fire engine there because of a flue fire in my chimney. So, I climbed up on top of the roof and gave them one set of tire chains we tied a rope to and we knocked loose the pine pitch in the chimney. (Then I had a wood stove that the pipe ended about for feet up the fireplace and so the pine pitch gathered in the brick chimney over the season.
The other choices for wood are oak (which is extremely hard to cut especially if it is dead) but will burn the longest if you know how to set your damper for long burning.
Piss fir (which is called this because when you burn it it often smells like pee) but you won't have the pine flue fires in the chimneys with Piss fir either.
The fastest burning but which is also good for starting an oak fire is cedar. But, cedar burns up really fast so you do not want to have this as the only wood you burn for heating.
So, oak is best but hard to start burning so cedar helps you start it burning. Then there is pine which can if you burn too much of it cause a flue fire. So, a mix of pine and piss fir and oak are the best woods for burning long term. Piss fir just means Douglas fir or other fir types like White fir and other firs.
So, to save money (as long as you are handy) a wood stove might work if you live far enough out in the country where you can get a wood gathering permit from a forest ranger for specific areas.
However, I remember one time I cut down a dead lodgepole pine and it fell the the wrong direction and I ran. However, it almost killed me because the top which was only about 1 inch thick by then hit the top of my head and broke off. But, if I hadn't been as fast as I was at about age 35 could have killed me.
So, felling trees doesn't always work the way you think it will so be very careful.
Also, if you are not handy, chain saws are really dangerous too.
You have to lubricate the chains and add to the oilers of the chain and make sure you have oil and gas in the chain saw and remember to sharpen the chain too otherwise there can be many problems like the chain flying off the chain saw which is something you don't want to see while you are chain sawing wood.
A maul is necessary for splitting wood down into more usable pieces for your wood stove. The smaller the door to your wood stove the smaller you will have to cut and split the pieces for burning.
So, though this is an alternative if you are not handy it can be dangerous.
But, you also might heat your home for the price of a permit to cut wood from a ranger plus your chain saw and your trailer or truck you need to haul wood back home with. then you also need a wood stove properly installed too with a good stove pipe or chimney with all the branches of trees trimmed away from your roof too.
Note: Trimming branches away from where your stovepipe exits the house is necessary to prevent fires from embers that might escape your stovepipe or chimney. Whether you are building a fire in a fireplace or a fire in a wood stove it is the same. So, often people screen their top to their stovepipe or chimney to prevent larger embers starting fires. The screen can prevent larger embers flying free and instead the screen forces them back into the chimney or stovepipe and thereby might prevent a fire. end note.
So, like I said this is very work intensive but saves an incredible amount of money for heating too because most of the work you are doing yourselves on weekends. Not only this if you plan to live in the country or close enough to the country where you can get permit to gather wood for 5 to 10 years or more in the same place then your investment in a wood hauling trailer or a pickup truck or a gasoline driven chain saw could be useful to you. There is also a new Ford 150 pickup truck that you can get a built in generator with access near the tail gate of the truck. So, I guess with a 100 foot orange electrical cord you could run an electric chain saw out of this one too. I don't find electric battery operated chain saws very effective because they run out of electricity too soon for me. However, as rechargeable batteries get better this might change too.
All my older friends in Mt. Shasta still heat this way who have lived up there since the 1970s because it makes living there more cost effective from about October through April or May of every year.
They all swear by Stihl Chain Saws from Germany. Stihl is sort of the Mercedes of Chain Saws. But, I have used and owned several different American Chain saws too over the years and they are okay in most situations too.
The first snows have already fallen there by the way in town and on Mt. Shasta this year already in the last couple of weeks.
No comments:
Post a Comment