Martin Jenkins

On this topic, just next door to me, the 70 yo owner of a copse in some fields away from the road found that a couple of blokes had gone in and chopped, very haphazardly, loads of his trees down. Onto fences and all. He decided that his wood wouldn't be nicked, so he started cutting it into logs to take away, and after he'd chopped some, and gone back for some tea, he came back to find that they nicked the logs he chopped up. Swines. That was only a few days ago

Lady next door to me just told me they had a level pickup truck load from Kilmersdon Estate (few miles north of you) for £45. She says it is bone dry. I can't vouch for it, as I cut and dry my own!

RIGHT I got a Husqvarna 357xp in the end. Didn't go for the heated handles, and I think that was right for me; today is the coldest day I've been out with it - hasn't got above zero for a few days now, and didn't have any issues with the cold. Paid £470 inc vat from willis and grabham, and got the chainsaw box for another £37 - I tried without the box for a couple of months, but ended up with little bags with the bits in, which was a bit rubbish (the stump vice, sharpening kit, chain loosener, that sort of stuff). After the Ryobi, it's like moving from a Kia to a Mercedes - starts reliably all the time, and the engine is just lovely. Took it for its 10 hour service last week, and that cost £28, think that may be it for a while in servicing though! Oddly enough, the man in the service place (garden machinery place, properly smelling of oil) said "that chain will take a couple more sharpenings" - I sharpen the thing every other fuel load, otherwise it is really hard to get through stuff. Thanks very much for the advice, which basically shaped what I got. I would have otherwise gone for the husq 440e, much smaller. And I ebayed the mower for a bit more than the garden centre offered (£350 from ebay, less the 40 fees against the £250 from garden centre). So thanks again and Merry Christmas! Now all I need is for my wife to let me do more hedging this week - apparently I'm supposed to spend time with the kids and her mum!

I really like the look of this one: The Woodsmith's Store: Gransfors Bruks Spliting Maul - Green Woodworking Tools - Green Woodworking Accessories The problem I have with my tenner one from Mole Valley is that the top of the shaft, next to the wedge, splinters continuously, even though I keep wrapping loads of duct tape round it. I don't miss the wood, but it splinters anyway. I can't figure it. SO that metal bit just where the shaft gets split looks perfect for me.

I posted the original thing over a year ago now - and I have to say it has turned out very well. Still going through some of it, and the coppiced alder has bushed up hugely.

I have taken your advice and put my ride-on onto ebay... No bids yet! Husqvarna LT120 Ride On Mower on eBay (end time 29-Aug-09 16:17:00 BST) Is that a problem, that there is plastic instead of metal? The dealer near me told me (in sales mode, but he is selling both Stihl and Husqvarna) that the plastic Husq is as strong as needs be, but just loads lighter.

South West Woodland Show 2009 News & Events ConFor Anyone going? I am hoping to.

ah it does look nice indeed... I have decided to follow the first step of advice and stick the ride-on onto ebay. I've told the garden centre people, who are fine with that - I told them that if I couldn't sell it there I'll sell it to them! At least I will be able to say "the garden centre came and checked it out, and offered me £250 with a view to selling it on their forecourt for £500 or so". Then I'm homing in on the Husqvarna 346xpg, on the basis of it's in between the 40-60cc range that has been mentioned, it is 4.9Kg, which isn't that much, I'm hoping that the anti-vibration stuff will be good (my hands shake after a few hours with a brushcutter, but haven't really noticed much with the ryobi). AND I can buy it on the internet. Still might need to get it tuned up, but that may still be cheaper than buying it off the street. What's Justin's show? I did read somewhere that on September 11th in Longleat there will be a woodlands show. I'm supposed to be on a course doing technical auditing though. Serendipitously I've had a call today from a tree surgeon who has been employed by the local power distribution company, who had been told to clear cut all trees that could possibly affect power lines - we had loads of lines down last winter; the person I talked to seemed very sensible and he's coming along on Friday to talk about something like pollarding all the trees affected, logging, and stacking, and going into a three year (or whatever appropriate) cycle. I'll pick his brains too about a chainsaw.

MS260 does look good. I'm averse to ebay because of all the extra hassle involved - whereas with the local garden machinery maintenance place, they'll just come along and take the thing away. I suppose I might try seeing what I can get, "buyer collects" or something. And don't you have to buy a stihl from a dealer anyway? I see words on internet sites saying you can't buy a stihl off the internet.

Thanks, sounds like good advice. I thought about going for an 18" bar just because the ryobi has a 16" bar. I won't be felling any trees bigger than 2" - value my life a bit. The MS361 seems to be between £700-£800, and if I buy not from the internet (and do the px) I'll need to pay against RRP I expect - of £840. Seems a bit overkill, but then it may just be the lifetime investment I need to make. I'll ask the garden machinery place what they'll quote for that. Again, very sensible - I remember from my youth using a fat chainsaw for a day, and feeling shattered afterwards. The ryobi is pretty light. I'm near Oakhill, in the Mendips. It would be great to have an opinion - I don't really know much about woodland management, although I have a basic plan of cutting trees down in a specific area, in the winter, attempting to let them coppice, so there will be trees still here after I've been here for 20 years! I am getting there on the keeping it sharp point - I now have a little stump vice and I do a quick sharpen every 2 or 3 fuel loads, or when it seems to need it. Sharpening is a nice break I find. Thanks all!

Hi, I was wondering if I could pick your brains. I have 8 acres, half of which is woodland (ash, oak, alder, hazel mainly), which I cut and stack for central heating and hot water. The wood stove is our only source of heat (apart from an electrical immersion heater). - I think I use about 4 cords of wood per season. Because I haven't used a chainsaw before, when I started a couple of years back, I got a ryobi 3540c - my brother calls it a toy chainsaw, and people laugh at it. It is pretty rubbish. I have decided to trade in a ride-on mower that was left when I bought the place, for a chainsaw more suitable. The local garden machinery place has offered me "£200 - £250" for my husqvarna lt120 ride-on, and are asking £150 on top of the part-ex for a new Husqvarna 440e (they sell it for £386). It is a 41cc, with 18" bar. The ryobi is 35cc with 16" bar, although I'm not sure I get full power from it - seems a bit underpowered when compared to my brother's Stihl 230. They will sell pretty much any Stihl or Husky, but in stock the biggest they had was the 440e. Is the 440e a good choice for a weekends in the winter chainsaw user? The "deal" is aimed to be done by this Friday. Thanks for any recommendations!

I'm in Somerset (BA3) - what sort of prices? Thanks very much!

I have a Dunsley Highlander 10 central heating boiler. It is multi-fuel, although I nearly exclusively burn wood on it. It does 10 rads in our cottage and hot water, it's great.

Hi, I have direct experience of Aarow, Clearview, Dunsley, and Morso - first three British, last you know about already. I don't like the Aarow; Clearview is brilliant though - very low amount of ash, high combustion, very hot. I have a Dunsley Highlander 10 Central Heating wood boiler stove in my own house (3 beds) that does all our heating needs - the only form of heating completely. It is great. Much cheaper than LPG.

There are 3 or 4 big old fallen trees. Sounds like it's worth logging then, thanks for the advice! We have a Dunsley Highlander 10 CH, cost £1,125 from a web store. Only form of heating, it's fine for our 3 bed cottage.

Hi guys, I moved into my place a year ago, and over the year I've got rid of the lpg boiler, and got a wood burning boiler stove that does all our household heat and water. We've got four acres or so of variable quality woods; ash, alder, hazel, oak in the main. There are three or four medium trees down at one end, that have been down for some years - moss growing on the outside of them. I've cut a couple of rounds of a couple of them, and left it in the woodstack outside for a few months, and just brought in one split round yesterday; the logs are pretty light, squodgy when I split it; feels like a lump of polystryrene. It /seems/ to burn ok ish. Is it a right waste of my time chopping these trees up and drying them? I heard somewhere that after a few years laying, a tree became a bit useless for firewood. I hate waste! The previous owner just left everything.

I have been burning alder (in a wood stove) that I've been seasoning outside since about april 2008; it's not brilliant, not as good as ash, but it is ok.

Sounds like a good method to me. I use old pallets I've got from a nearby tractor dealer, splat in some old fence posts around the corners, nail some old stock wire to it, stack up the logs, and put an old tarp over the top. More effort for sure, but I like to use up old stuff first!

@dazlog - I recently came to the same conclusion, got some pallets from someone local, used old fencing posts and old stock fencing and an old tarp, and it's great. I stuck it under some trees to give it additional overhead cover.

I thought this was going to be about sticky firewood. Like those cypress trees I cut down to get rid of last year, they were VERY sticky. I haven't burnt them yet, am going to wait about <a long time> to let them stop being too sticky.

That would be lovely for me - but as it is only my own place for which I'm logging, I couldn't justify that to my wife - she'd rather have a new cooker... I will keep my eyes open for local farm auctions though with log splitters. What is the cheapest I'm likely to be able to get one for? I had only just come to that same conclusion though, even for myself; what I was doing was petrol chainsaw cutting to fit linkbox on old tractor, taking back to garage area, leaving until I had time, then cross cutting using an electric chainsaw. I can rarely get the tractor close enough to the fallen trees though - the place is very hilly and quite boggy in places. I just this weekend cleared nearly all of the four foot timber lying in my yard, which had a tarp over the top of it, and the stuff in the middle had gone a bit mouldy at its ends. I've now made a four foot wide by four foot high by eight foot long pile of logs, with pallets underneath, sheep netting on the sides, and a plastic rain cover; there are basically three stacks of logs in there, one at the back, then one in the middle and one at the front; hopefully the middle stack won't go mouldy.

Thanks very much all, for all your comments. I'm really encouraged - and yes it makes a lot of sense that dry wood of all types is really going to perform satisfactorily in an efficient wood burner (mine is a Dunsley Highlander 10 central heating boiler, currently sitting behind me on the carpet, awaiting installation). Just as well as I coppiced all the stuff I cut down then! - i.e. I left the stumps with a clean highly slanted cut, rather than my otherwise messy wedge - jagged hinge - final cut that my amateur tree felling produces. All I need now is to get a good wood drying area. Right now it's all under some fir trees, on the basis that it's generally keeping the head and feet dry, when rain comes straight down, with sides getting air, but the last few days of sideways misty rain has soaked the lot.

Durable - that's another thing then; I asked somebody on a different forum if I could use alder poles (I have very many very straight 15 meter long ones, up to 18 inches diameter) for temporary buildings, and I was told that alder would rot very quickly ...is that not the case? you're not all winding me up are you, and then will say "hehe, alder is rubbish after all!!" - I wouldn't have thought so

That is really good to hear Mr Ed. Are you suggesting that all those sites that rate firewood, and e.g. say "oak, ash, hazel are grade 4; alder is a grade 1 - and makes poor firewood" - are all perpetuating a myth? Just I well that I coppiced the alder then, instead of razing it - I coppiced it because I read somewhere it is good at fixing nitrogen.

Hi, I'm new, first post. Been happily reading for a while. Six months ago I moved from Bristol city out to Somerset, little cottage with 8 acres, of which about 4 is wood. I want to be as sufficient for wood off the land as I can. There's loads of ash, hazel that clearly used to be coppiced, but nobody has done it for 20 years + - not a problem, and lovely firewall (I read). However there is also a shedload of alder, which everybody including the person from whom I bought the place says "that's rubbish". Well my wife wants rid of it from some places, for amenity, and pigs and the like, and I hate to throw stuff away, so I'm cutting and splitting and stacking it under some fir trees (pretty dry under there, pretty good ventilation), and I'm hoping that it will at least burn. What it so bad about alder as firewood? will it just NOT burn? will it stuff up my wood boiler stove? will it burn really quickly? will it burn slowly and cold? ...if I am really wasting my time completely then I suppose I should know, and maybe I should be letting it rot down somewhere, or something. ...I did read that alder makes good charcoal, but that's too much hard work and time for a hobby-farmer like me. Thank you, Martin