Don’t worry, just a little bump - $70 is just around the corner. Short traders just keep making those margin calls, mortgage the house if you have to. Fortunes await you! PO is for pansies and doomers. At $70 short some more ..... it is going back to $22 .... the world is awash with oil ........ reality has nothing to do with it, its all in those charts!!!!!!!!!!
Joined: Sep 14, 2004 Posts: 6089 Location: Rural Virginia
Posted: Fri Apr 13, 2007 8:18 pm Post subject: Re: Wood as an auxiliary energy source
Good tips, Gideon.
Also:
Wear safety glasses and safety boots when splitting. And keep those legs SPREAD.
Extend the wrists (sort of angle them backward; it's hard to describe) when the maul is coming down so that the head hits the top of the log squarely, not at an angle. Significantly increases the effectiveness of the stroke. This is a great little trick I taught myself.
If you have to use a wedge, use the sort that is twisted (kind of like a screw), not straight. Much more powerful. (I dislike wedges, but every now and then they're worth the bother.)
When you're cutting up a tree, bear in mind that you will be splitting the pieces, so make your cuts cleverly so that the knots will least interfere with the splitting. E.g., put a large knot at the end of a piece, not in the middle. Cut branch junctions into sections short enough to split or small enough not to need splitting.
Anyone else got any other tips or advice on splitting?
Posted: Sat Apr 14, 2007 10:05 am Post subject: Re: Wood as an auxiliary energy source
nocar wrote:
Wood burning district heating is a possibility. In Sweden (and Finland I believe) it is very common for cities and neighborhoods to have district heating plants that heat water for tap water and radiators. In fact, district heating systems were used already in the happy cheap oil days, and were rather easily converted to burning renewable fuels. Most of them do these days.
Yeah, I was thinking about collective heating with larger installations (power plants). I still believe this is a viable solution in more densely forested regions during the impending powerdown period.
I'm glad I started a lively discussion, although I'm not heating my own home with wood (just the summer cottage), so I don't have much experience to offer there.
nocar wrote:
I am also surprised that noone so far has mentioned wood pellets. Many homeowners in Sweden that are not connected to a district heating system now replace their oil furnaces with wood pellet furnaces.
Pellet heating has practical advantages, but I expect it to become much more expensive in the future as wood processing industry it depends on is hit by the global economic recession. I believe that unprocessed wood will be the default heat source.
nocar wrote:
In a totally oil free world - can we imagine wood-fuelled steam ships on inland waterways? Sailing ships with wood on larger bodies of water? (In fact, wood transporting sailing ships was the last commercial use of sails to disappear in Scandinavia, a viable business well into the 20th century.) Can we imagine ponies pulling carts on rails from the ships to the heating plants? Slow speeds and rather light loads need quite simple rails to increase efficiency and can be drawn right through neighborhoods, since there are little risk of serious accidents and noise. (Wasn't rail transport started with ponies pulling coal, by the way?)
Well, I could imagine that... But I assume that more or less "normal" trains, running on electricity generated with coal or renewable energy sources will be the main means of transportation on the regional/national level. Unless the future energy collapse is much worse that I'm hoping it to be... _________________ "A devastating error is to set up a political system based on [individual] desire... the best dictatorship would be one where the government prevents any economical growth."
"Only scarcity and effort make life worth living."
-Pentti Linkola
Joined: Apr 03, 2004 Posts: 6372 Location: My Grandkids' Farm
Posted: Sat Apr 14, 2007 12:31 pm Post subject: Re: Wood as an auxiliary energy source
Gideon wrote:
The best part about an indoor wood stove - put wood in and you have heat. No electricity, no wires, no water to freeze or pipes to break.
Negatives - work. Not for pencil pushers with soft hands.
Yep. Luckily, the best way to make less work is to cut the most energy dense (recognize that term?) wood – Osage Orange (Hedge) and Black Locust top most lists I see and they happen to grow like weeds around here. Lucky me!
As far as city dwellers I would think finding a good collier (charcoal maker) might be a partial solution. Charcoal has about the same btu/lb as mineral coal, I think, so transport – the big bugaboo in the future, might offset the waste of the process.
What do you think? _________________ Make a plan and work it:
Joined: Sep 14, 2004 Posts: 6089 Location: Rural Virginia
Posted: Sun Apr 15, 2007 2:09 pm Post subject: Re: Wood as an auxiliary energy source
White oak splits fairly easily if it's not green and if you've cut out the big branch junctions. I don't have much trouble with it. Red oak splits easier, but white oak burns and coals significantly better.
Beech---now there's a nightmare for splitting. But what a beautiful, clean-burning firewood it makes.
Red maple is also very nice, as you say, Gideon.
Yellow-poplar (like pine) is great for starting a fire or goosing it up. It's also useful when you need some heat, but not a lot of heat.
Joined: Sep 14, 2004 Posts: 6089 Location: Rural Virginia
Posted: Mon Apr 16, 2007 8:54 pm Post subject: Re: Wood as an auxiliary energy source
Elm is certainly horrible. It doesn't grow here, but I once had the miserable experience of splitting some Chinese elm. Also, it burns badly---slow and smoky.
It seems to me that seasoned wood would be more brittle than green wood and therefore split more easily. Maybe it depends on the species.
I'll sadly resort to a power splitter when I can no longer do it by hand, a time hopefully still far off.
Joined: Sep 06, 2006 Posts: 85 Location: Stockholm
Posted: Tue Apr 17, 2007 11:50 am Post subject: Re: Wood as an auxiliary energy source
I visited my sister's afew weeks ago. they have bought an old house and had just thrown out the oil burner in the basement and replaced it with a wood burner with a big water tank to store the warmth. from there water is heated that circulates in the floors of the house and gives a very nice climate. also the tap water is heated by the same stove.
it was a really brilliant set up.
also they get their wood of their 40000 sq meter land...
Joined: Aug 26, 2005 Posts: 384 Location: Windy City No Longer
Posted: Thu Apr 19, 2007 11:43 am Post subject: Re: Wood as an auxiliary energy source
This fall I will be gutting and finishing the old summer kitchen on my farmhouse. Since it was the summer kitchen it has zero heat, but a nice chimney in good condition. The chimney is set up for a wood stove, but I don't have one.
Before I spend hours doing research on the net, does anyone have any good/bad things to look for? Auction season is starting around here and I might pick a used one up if I find one that looks good. _________________ TANSTAAFL
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