Time to re-stock the firewood pile

[difflock]

1 hour ago, trigger_andy said:

Out of interest have you calculated how much oil you burn for the 20-30 minutes it takes to heat the hot water cylinder? 

 

I have a 2500l Oil Tank and Im considering picking up another 1000l oil tank to sit beside it as oil is so cheap just now. 

The nozzle is a 0.65 = 0.65US Gall/Hr

So .65*.5*.8*=0.26 Imp Gall or 1.18 litres per day for a generous 1/2 hr burn.

And in the depts of winter, burning a gallon a day for 2 hrs boiler running.

And, since I checked the oil tank yesterday, prior to ordering oil, we have used about 1000 l since I filled the tank at the end of Sep(during that 1 week long price spike), so 1000/7mths/30 days= 4.76 litres/day = near enough 1 gall/day.

marcus

Edited April 25, 2020 by difflock

[trigger_andy]

7 minutes ago, difflock said:

The nozzle is a 0.65 = 0.65US Gall/Hr

So .65*.5*.8*=0.26 Imp Gall or 1.18 litres per day for a 1/2 hr burn.

marcus

1.18l a day for a 1/2 hour burn? 

[difflock]

Yes,

.65 US Gall times 0.5(the 1,2 Hr) by 0.8 (4/5) for conversion to Imp gallons, I hope?

Going to google it to check Andy

Edit at 3.78 l per US Gall= 1.22 litres for a 1/2 hr

And der intersnot tells me(as I imagined) that 1 Imp gall = 1.2 US gall, so 0.83(oops!)

 

Anyway see image of logs stockpiled to dry out to be lighter before I handle them to split them, lazy bugger that I am!

Edited April 25, 2020 by difflock

[coppicer]

1 hour ago, youngsbury said:

I’ve got a eco Angus orlingo biomass coming up for sale shortly would one of these be any use ? 

Thank you for mentioning that. Unfortunately we don't have anywhere to put a gasification log boiler and a large accumulator.

 

Currently we have a wood burner that provides space heating for the large open-plan living/dining/kitchen, which is where the family - myself excluded - is to be found most of the day during the colder months. I'm in my office, usually, but the house is heavily insulated, so a quick blast of central heating first thing keeps every room in the house in the high teens for the rest of the day. I just put on a jumper if the office cools.

 

Anyway, the wood burner works well, so we want to keep that. If we install a thermal store and that works as expected with the solar thermal during the summer, we might replace the woodburner with one that has a boiler, maybe a Dowling Sumo, and use that as another input to the thermal store to drive it through the winter. Not as efficient as a gasifier, of course, but more flexible and wouldn't require any new space.

 

Edit: Sorry @difflock, didn't mean to hijack your thread!

Edited April 25, 2020 by coppicer

[trigger_andy]

13 minutes ago, difflock said:

Yes,

.65 US Gall times 0.5(the 1,2 Hr) by 0.8 (4/5) for conversion to Imp gallons, I hope?

Going to google it to check Andy

Edit at 3.78 l per US Gall= 1.22 litres for a 1/2 hr

And der intersnot tells me(as I imagined) that 1 Imp gall = 1.2 US gall, so 0.83(oops!)

 

Anyway see image of logs stockpiled to dry out to be lighter before I handle them to split them, lazy bugger that I am!

Ok cheers. Cheap and hassle free heating at 22p a liter really. 

 

It was the 1.18 liter per day comment that threw me.  

 

Ive got a few tons of wood that will need processing at some point in the future. Do you notice much of a difference in weight letting them sit to dry out? How long do you leave them before processing?

Edited April 25, 2020 by trigger_andy

[youngsbury]

No problem I need to sort the bio out and ask on here another day ! Will also have this Jutul log burner but is a bit of a beast ! 

[difflock]

1 hour ago, trigger_andy said:

Ok cheers. Cheap and hassle free heating at 22p a liter really. 

 

It was the 1.18 liter per day comment that threw me.  

 

Ive got a few tons of wood that will need processing at some point in the future. Do you notice much of a difference in weight letting them sit to dry out? How long do you leave them before processing?

Well 1.18 l or 1.23 l or whatever, WHEN heating domestic hot water only, in the summer months.

Otherwise about/just over a gallon per day, but then the volume of wood being burned is a big factor in our reduced oil consumption.

Edited April 25, 2020 by difflock

[difflock]

1 hour ago, trigger_andy said:

Ok cheers. Cheap and hassle free heating at 22p a liter really. 

 

It was the 1.18 liter per day comment that threw me.  

 

Ive got a few tons of wood that will need processing at some point in the future. Do you notice much of a difference in weight letting them sit to dry out? How long do you leave them before processing?

Well, I will soon be able to comment difinitively, since I ordered another set of crane scales!

 

But from recall less than half the weight(350kg to 150kg?) after splitting and drying,

and again from hazy recall drying "in the round" took the logs down to about 30% from over 50% moisture when fresh felled,

so significently lighter to wrasle with when splitting, and fewer "sap japs" in the eye.

[coppicer]

On 25/04/2020 at 15:49, difflock said:

But from recall less than half the weight(350kg to 150kg?) after splitting and drying

Thanks for these figures. I'd be interested to hear what weights you get with your new crane scales.

 

I'm in the early stages of thinking about how to get a more efficient workflow for firewood, but starting from a very different place to you. The firewood isn't a business for me, just a chance to get outdoors away from my desk, get some exercise, do a bit of problem-solving, and help keep the woodland properly managed. There's an opportunity to save money on energy over the long term, but that's only one factor among many.

 

So far, felling trees and cutting them up with a Truncator 6Pro has worked well for my (low) volumes, but the problem has always been drying and storage. Since I have some large windblown trees to get through, in addition to the smaller ones that I fell, this problem is only going to get more pressing over the next year or two.

 

I don't have any internal or even covered storage space, so I'm thinking of using those big vented bags, one to a pallet, with a bit of tarp placed inside and on top to keep off the worst of any wet. The problem I can see with that approach is that once you fill a bag they can no longer be handled manually. If I fill the bags and leave them in the yard or garden, I'm going to have a large pile of huge plastic blobs next to the lawn. The wife doesn't think is a good idea and I understand her point of view. If I fill the bags where I process the firewood in the woodland, I would really struggle to transport them back to the house as they are.

 

As far as I can see, there are three options for transport.

 

1) Get a portable gantry crane, set it up where the bags are processed in the woodland, and use a hoist use to lift the pallet with a four-legged lifting chain, one leg to each corner. The bed of my Land Rover Hi-cap is 900 mm off the floor, so with the gantry at a height of, 3000 mm, it should be possible to raise a pallet high enough off the ground to allow the Land Rover to back under it. Then I would reverse the operation at the house end. I would probably only need 4-5 bags a winter. Problems? Fiddly to move the crane to and fro; time-consuming; not a cheap option.

 

2) Use plastic pallets. Get an electric winch and some metal ramps, attach winch to front of Land Rover bed (probably attached to chassis in some way) and pull the plastic pallet up metal ramps. Problems: most metal ramps specifically designed to be non-slip; unloading probably quite tricky; would need a lot of space at unloading end.

 

3) Use a tractor. If the bag is on a pallet, and you have a tractor with pallet forks on either the three-point link or on a loader, then you're laughing. Unfortunately the affordable compacts - the smaller/garden tractor Kubota, Iseki, etc. - don't have hydraulics that look remotely capable of picking up 350 kg or 500 kg of bag stuffed with logs. So that suggests going bigger, and (if you avoid the wrecks that will need lots of spannering) before you know it you're looking at £10k or £15k rather than £3-4k. Something like your Kioti would be perfect, but expensive. I could sell the Landy to soften the blow, but a tatty old 300Tdi Hi-cap isn't going to fetch much. Problems: none, other than cost!

 

So I'm still mulling things over...

Edited April 28, 2020 by coppicer
spelling

[difflock]

That eternal conondrum!

The machinery you need do do even a little, is generally also sufficient to do a lot, whether you want to or not.

Kinda like being "a bit pregnant!"

Cheers,

Marcus