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Peter Grant
Heat from firewood is the best im putting in a boiler I can load with the skidsteer handling wood to much is the only downside to wood for shure
Great job on your homestead. Thanks.
Love this guy. One of the early videos I watched was Your interview with this neighbor. Do you need more interviews with him he is a very interesting guy.
If the woodstove has a glass, it also fits the lighting aspect.
Great idea, Iโm definitely going to do it. I can get used pallets for free, and I like my wood stacked and covered too.
I cut my logs in the woods at 13’4″, gives me 10 pieces of 16″. After I get it down any limbed I cut a 1/4 or so through my log. I then take a bunch of logs over to my wood landing and dump them in the skidway. The skidway is 20′ long and narrow enough I can drive the tractor over it. Single file, each log is ready to roll over to cut the remaining way through. I continue, rolling one log at a time to the front of the skidway and once cut they are all in the same place to be split. They go directly into an IBC tote in which has a notch in to reach to stack, and they’re ready till I need them.
Love that efficiency ๐
Awesome explanation and effective utility. ๐
Idea for moving wood. Get an old set of skis , snow or water, then strap wheels on and then you don”t meed to plow a path. Might require very basic framework to keep them parallel.
Fantastic mate.
When I was a kid we had a 1 stove to heat, cook and it had a water jacket in the back. We call them a slow combustion in Australia and models such as Rayburn and Aga.
Was fantastic way to get all three of these things and super efficient.
I have my parents to thank for showing these simple things that I grew up with and learnt as a child and am working slowly toward getting off the grid so we are not reliant on it.
I think you guys get a little cooler over there but where I grew up we still got snow every winter and 1 year we got over 1m which is a heap of snow for Australia!
Would you like to create multiple storage sites for all that wood to reduce risks?
Streamlining your firewood processing saves a lot of time and effort. Stacking and restacking can eat up a lot of time.
Curtis mentioned Ben Falk on another video and I have been learning a few things now from him too.
Next step: Replace your half-cord cubes with a taller box with a roof that holds 6 of the smaller hand-cart boxes. When you cut the wood, load it directly into the hand-cart boxes on the pallet. Then you have one machine step to carry the tall box to the cabin, and you can just cart the hand-cart boxes directly from the tall box.
I made sure to design my house with a woodstove right next to a double door leading to my patio. That way We donโt have the mess in the house.
I saw a guy build a log cutting deck that he would stack 6-10 trunks on it. It was about waist high and had slots for the bar to pass through every 16โ. He then would grab each log, spin around, and set it on the splitter at the same height.
-no more bending and picking up
Love these little updates Curtis with little nuggets of key information. I like how you share when something’s not as good as it could be and say how your going to change it or that someone else has a better system than yours so your going to make alterations. Too many others just portray the everything is awesome nonsense. Great seeing your homestead going through the different seasons. I’m taking lots of notes while searching for my land in Scotland. Scottish islands are looking likely. Higher consistent winds, good for turbines. Some challenges but all have solutions. Exciting times ahead.
I have been wood heating since i was 14 (my moms garage), thats 42 years. The equipment (and its capacity) matters greatly. For those with smaller equipment, mini “trailers”, self roofed, can be pulled with smaller machines (quads?). I have a 7000# forklift and have repurposed large steel pallets. They have their own roof of tin and can carry 1.5 cords each of hardwood. Even on the coldest year our SUPER insulated house burns only 2 cords, and my shop butn rate is “project dependent”, so not too much. The other thing worth mentioning is that AIR to AIR exchange is most efficient and “simple”. Folks buy these outside boilers for “wood heat” ..but MAN there is a TON of complexity there, AND need for electric. To your comment on “the right cookstove” , the modern large wood firebox makes a HUGE difference. I have a robust collection of old style ones, including two Kalamazoo Pilgram multi fuel (wood/coal-NG/propane), but the newer Hico, Bakers Choice, Pioneer Princess, Esse (and others) are SUPER nice but EXPENSIVE. The new ones can heat your entire house AND cook/bake. Just gotta have $$ . Enjoy
My wood processing is drop, skid (tractor) to a slab of concrete over a large drop off to concrete stacked retaining walled pit. The wood is bucked and hookarooned onto a heavy steel table 5×10 then my helpers roll it onto a splitter and it drops into the pit. The bottom of pit is an old truck frame with chain link fence on it (to allow air circulation) then once the 12×24 pit is full (about 11 cords) it can be unloaded from the downslope side onto my steel pallets. Every 3-4 years I run out the supply, clean out the pit by removing the frame and getting rid of bark/dirt/debris. I am at that point this year. …Given our current situation I wish it were FULL!!โค
Good idea to have a selection of Silky saws for cutting trees by hand. I have 4 of these saws and they’re unbelievably sharp and easy to use. I can cut down a 4″ diameter tree easily without too much strain because they cut on the pull rather than the push. I don’t actually use them to cut my firewood, but they sure could if there’s no gas for your chainsaw. I did buy them for quiet forest management in the future.๐
Wood cook stoves are awesome, two or three or four in one. Heat, cooking, you can generate power with certain attachments, and heat water, although that requires skilled plumbing from my understanding, the first two are good anyhow. If I ever complete my cabin build Iโd love to track down an old black iron one second hand, those are awesomeโฆ. Unless possibly the new ones are more fuel efficient.
I use those to carry my bees boxes. They are really nice.
Love the way you are doing the wood, but splitting by hand will become harder as you age. Iโm going to be using a splitter until I canโt. Plus we have hard woods which are much more difficult to split by hand. Question, do you have a sawmill for your homestead?