Alycidon

I picked up two large trunks and branches ( largest 4 feet or so diameter) that had been sliced up with a large saw from a site recently. Been down at least 5 years, some of the trunk sections have almost 150 rings. The way the chainsaw went through I figured I had some Scots Pine and some hard wood, Bark was still on the hardwood, maybe Ash, not heavy enough to be Oak. Anyway I have started to burn the softwood, I have never seen anything burn like it. Burns like its crerosoted, and burns very very dirty. Crap all over the sides of the glass and I know what I am doing with a stove, the crap does come off easily though. What is it?, does not smell like Euc, on cutting I was sure it is Scots but I have never had Scots burn like this does. A

Well done, very very brave. What was the attitude and response time of the local Police when you called them?. Just need to now keep a careful eye on firewood stocks, hay barns etc in case of a re visit intent on revenge. A

Ecofan have just had a price rise, I have 5 or 6 left at the old prices, The larger one EF812 is £150 inc VAT, the smaller one EF810 £115 inc VAT, these are genuine Ecofan products supplied by me who is an approved UK distributer. Warranty is now 2 years. I have nickel and black bladed models in stock. Ecofan - Find Eco fan stockists through the UK distributor http://www.ecofan.co.uk/pdfs/Ecofan-Leaflet-2013-DD2.pdf A

The legal requirement under the building regs is for a 6 inch flue unless the stove is Defra approved to burn wood in a smoke control area and has a 5 inch outlet. Then a 5 inch liner can be used. Most if not all stoves of the heat output you need would have a 6 inch or larger flue, very very few are Defra approved. You could have it installed without a liner if the chimney is assessed as sound by the installer but you wont get the efficiency out of it that you would with a liner, the stove wont pull as hard. A bit like driving your car in third gear all the while. Sounds like the first steps are to get quotes for the install and plumbing work, then see if the installer can drop a 6 inch liner down before going forward. A

6 inch is the diameter, this is the correct size for most woodburners. 904 is the grade of stainless steel, 904 is the highest quality grade and is usually warranted for 20-25 years. Sounds like a good quality install. If the liner is laying against the side of the chimney it will warm the bricks, its the major cause of fires in thatched properties. The liner does get pretty hot. As others have said I would be pretty sure you have no chimney fire, is there a cowl of some sort on top of the pot?. I assume so, you are not reporting smoke coming back into the room caused by a jackdaw nest in the flue which has maybe caught fire. I assume you have not been burning wet wood since it was swept, it you have you may have tars in the flue which has ignited. A

Yes very much so, I sell Ecofans and am happy to send you one to try, if you like it keep it and pay for it, if you dont send it back. So a no risk trial. (85% stop sold !!) PM me if you want one. A

[ Correct, you will use a large volume of logs. The other issues are depending on your current heating system plumbing work will be needed and this may need to be extensive. Get a plumber who is used to boiler stoves to quote, you may find him through a local reputable stove dealer. Depending on how good your insulation is you will need about 5kw of heat to the room and about 15kw of heat to the water, 2 more if also doing domestic hot water. Stratford Ecoboilers are very good stoves ( I sell them!), made in England and not expensive all things considered. 7 rads will mean about 14kw of heat to water depending on size + heat output to the room + heat loss in the pipework + DHW maybe. Morso have just launched the revolutionary DB15 which burns downwards, burns Bituminous coal as well but max heat output to water is only about 10kw from memory, cost is about 2k. The Boru 20kw or 30kw and maybe Hercules 20 or 30 are worthy of consideration, the latter is an old design and not without its drawbacks but it is quite cheap. A last thing to consider is the size of your chimney, several of the older designs of boiler stoves such as the Brosley Hercules take a 7 or 8 inch liner. I have had 2 instances in the last 2 weeks of failing to get a 7 inch liner down and having to change a stove to one that takes a 6 inch liner. As a result I have a Hercules 12 and 20 going cheap !!. A

Cost of cord in a cube of logs is about £40 buying Ash + Syc delivered. Those selling this at £70 a cube are simply loosing money or buying market share, I have come across 2 instances this week of logs being delivered locally from 30 miles away at £65 and £70 a cube including VAT. Busy fools in my book. I have never been so busy selling stoves, its manic, so demand for logs will increase significantly over the next few years, there is no need to murder prices. A

How long is a bit of string, some members here do a few tons, others 1000s. Another thing to consider is logs coming in from the Baltic already kilned at costs which are not that much higher than its costs me s a smaller operator to buy in cord, process and store it. I would not be interested in leasing your equipment thanks, I am quite happy to let take its course with my current volumes. Others may be. Perhaps an explanation of what your kit consists of, what it might cost to hire for say a six month period, its throughput ( always a tricky one, depends on the MC of whats going in) and the likely cost per cube to operate it might help. Not actually sure if you are allowed to promote yourself in this way though, talk to the moderator first. A A

The vid I saw on U tube showed it cutting small diameter silver birch, this is a very easy timber to process which is why it usually figures in demo vids. Thats fine if you only process that but I would be wanting to see how it handles bigger tougher timbers, certainly Ash and Sycamore before parting with my hard earned. A

Also interested in a couple of loads, only about 40 minutes drive away. 3m lengths are best for my haulier, diameters ideally not much more than 250mm. A

Thats what I thought, thats the best way to drive customers away, crazy. Once end users have used a better quality product price becomes a secondary issue. A

There was a short article about that on BBC breakfast late last week, what is planned to happen to that timber?. A

Suggest a metal crate, after kilning then tip contents into bags for storage/ delivery. A

I used to do that in my old business usually selling truck parts against a well known Swedish truck assembler. I would price truck twin clutches out at £300 ( with the agreement from the customer that they would not actually buy it!) The vehicle assembler has a budget for the campaign, the sooner it gets used up the sooner we could get back to sensible pricing. Dropping 1K on a cluch soon makes a decent hole in it. Sometimes the dealer would call me to check, I told them what I had quoted the customer and exactly why. Eventually they realised they would not win and played ball. A

There is a market for 25% MC but it becomes price driven as your product is no better than 20 others in the market. I am probably alone here selling my upmarket logs but last winter on 3 customers did not re order and one of those moved away. Drive home your USPs, the work you have done to ensure disease free, short lead times, etc etc. A

For most firewood sellers 22% is perfectly acceptable and as I said a stove (any stove, not just crap ones) will perform acceptably well burning it. But just have a look here: http://www.forestry.gov.uk/pdf/eng-woodfuel-woodasfuelguide.pdf/$file/eng-woodfuel-woodasfuelguide.pdf Look at the graph on the second page, the heat output difference between 22% and 16% is significant as you would expect, thats the point I am driving home to my customers. Yes they are paying me more money than anyone else but they are getting more heat for that money. We had a very wet summer here last year hence my logs were far wetter than normal so I can sympathise with areas of very heavy rain such as Western Scotland, in those conditions you can only do what you can do. I looked at some kiln dried Ash tonight from Latvia, between 7% and 10%, lovely stuff. A

For me thats wet. For optimum use in a stove MC needs to be below 16%. My air dried went out last winter following a very wet summer at 15%, moving to about 19% later in the winter. I did buy 40 cube in last winter and that was 22%-25%, customers were not happy. So far this autumn I am going out at between 5% and 12%, mostly about 7%. 22% will give acceptable results and is below the 25% level set by Hetas as a maximum MC level. However I am educating my customers over the importance of dry (sub 16%) timber in getting optimum calorific value from their logs. I do charge a premium price and customers quite rightly expect top notch product. A

I am 60 is a few weeks, I would not do logs if I did not have a processor and deck, even then and using a teleporter its hard work. 6k should see you ok for a tidy used japa 700 and manual deck from Fuelwood. Other option is to buy them in, I saw some this morning, decent Ash, 20% MC £60 a cube including bag and delivery!!. By the time you have costed your cord and the time and effort you wont be loosing much buying at that sort of price ready processed. A

Artic usually has 3 bays of logs 3 meters long, hard wood weight depending on species 23-27 tonnes. From an artic load you will get about 45 cubic meters of logs. A

The pic on the link looks like a standard 1 cubic meter bag, I suppose that is extra large when you are used to selling tiny ones. 70 for a cube of hard if well cut, split and dried is very cheap, no profit in that at all unless getting the cord for free as arb waste. A

Drying grain then you used to put ventilated tunnels under the crop, however logs will destroy them. When I did them in bulk I just plonked them into one huge heap. However when you get to the bottom of the heap you get a huge amount of crap ( bark, chips etc) that have congregated there. I had to fill 15 bags by hand to separate the crap from teh decent wood. I moved to using arb bags, stack them 3 high with the teleporter, logs dry lovelly in their own time. A

I just thread the bags onto the teleporter forks, far easier than using a bag holder. The bag will need bouncing a few times to settle the contents when initially filled, then re top it up. You cant do that with a rack. When you come to sell it the contents will have shrunk by about 10%, if you dont bounce then you will have to top the bag off before delivery. A

Will have a chat with him when I get a minute, working 70 hour weeks at present. PM me with your e mail addy please, I will then respond and you can e mail me some costings providing the MC stacks up. If its not dry after this summer then it never will be, last winter what was your average moisture content?. Thanks A