djbobbins

Do you think you can find comparable space (without getting involved in e.g. planning issues) at the same sort of monthly money elsewhere? If so then maybe consider it; personally I'd be wary about putting a load of time and investment into a kiln drying system which relies on you being able to burn wood in a smokeless zone. Unless of course your stove is an approved appliance?? Also a power supply would be useful - if needs be you can buy ex-electricity board billing quality meters to sub-meter a supply (we have done it with a tenant). You could always insulate all of one of your containers apart from one section (e.g. one of the doors). Then rig up a piece of guttering at the bottom with a drain. As the warm damp air circulates around, the water vapour condenses out on the cold door - effectively the door performs the same role as the chiller coil in a dehumidifier.

I'd have to plump for adding my name to the "air drying undercover" voters, but if you did want to think about some kind of kiln drying in a container, might it be worth thinking about the type of system that used to be used in chicken sheds? My next door neighbour had a former chicken shed as his workshop, it had an externally built solid fuel fired stove, with a feed and return 3" pipe natural convection (so no pumps or need for electric supply) hot water radiator system. That way you could burn wood as your heat source. Reckon it would take a while to dry though, and you'd definitely need some way of venting off the damp air. How much weight of water would you be looking to remove from your container load of wood? It should be possible to work out how much energy will be needed to do this, and assuming an efficiency for the boiler system, to come up with a rough idea of how much wood you'd need to burn.

Not sure about the superstition bit but I had a similar experience years ago on the embarrassment / not knowing where to put your face side. Nice guy whose garden I helped look after, me and my mate turned up one summer evening to do a bit of work and found the owner having a bonfire at the end of the garden. Not thinking too much about it we got on, until bumped into the owner walking out of the house carrying an armful of clothes. Turned out his wife had died that day (in her mid 40s) and he was doing some clearing out, presumably as some kind of catharsis. He was a really good guy to work for and I still replay in my mind the grief he must have been going through and wish I could have done / said something different than the stunned silence and mumbled words I did come up with.

Quite like the tyre idea but not sure where you'd get hold of a tyre quite that wide without a bit of asking around - must be about 19 inch rim but 14 inch wide! On a slightly more serious point, the design of the treadle system means that when he's swinging the maul he's effectively standing with all the weight on the right leg only. Can't therefore put any effort into it so I'd love to see him having a go at a chunk of my eucalyptus, which I had to persuade apart with a maul, two wedges and a 14lb sledgehammer... also can't imagine it's the best thing for lumbar stress swinging a maul stood on one leg!

Was about to say something similar; you'd better hope that's not one of those special elasticated rubber cheques... else you'll be going back round to re-load your logs!

Scroll about half way down this and see what the guy's leather boots did for him when he missed the steel toecap... Chainsaw boot test - Tree World

Payment options maybe, e.g. cash / paypal etc but not sure you can on postage; otherwise wouldn't you get unscrupulous people sticking a listing on with no reserve, waiting for a bid and then bumping the postage cost up??

Can't see it being an issue unless it is going to be stood for a long time, in which case just make sure it's well mixed before going into the saw.

cheap as chips or cheap for chips?! I've tended to go for supermarket boggo standard own brand 20-50 personally (for the saw that is, I reckon it might taint the chips a bit) but find that it tends to fling. You reckon the bio oil is better? Isn't the viscosity too low?

BBC has a few photos of the effects of weather. Sad to see that someone was killed by falling timber, but also showing an interesting way to prop a tree up - lean it on your house... BBC News - Severe weather: Your pictures

Are the log jacks on the Clark website somewhere? I just had a look but couldn't see them anywhere...

Anyone got or used one of these? I was thinking about asking for one for Chrimbo (my wooden, homemade saw horse isn't the easiest thing to move around and I have got logs to saw in a couple of different places) but am undecided whether it wouldn't be better to just buy some box section and bolt one together myself... NEW FOLDING METAL LOG STAND SAW HORSE SAFETY GRIP 150KG on eBay (end time 23-Nov-10 13:14:44 GMT)

Wood burning stoves are excluded: Excluded technologies | RH Incentive but "biomass heat generation" is included. For each kWh of heat you produce in a small (sub 45kW) it sounds like you will get about 7p (tariffs are due to be updated following government spending review). Unless I am being really dim about this, that means that if you can source pellets or woodchip for sub 5p / kWh (I've worked out what this means in pence per kilo somewhere in one of my other posts) you will be getting your heat for free. And if you get your woodchip for free / from a job, you will be getting paid to heat your own home! If I had the space I'd go for a woodchip boiler as part of a system with a thermal store ahead of a stove with backboiler but I guess it's down to choice. FWIW, I remain to be convinced on ASHP. The CoP is about 2.5 at best, or so I'm told. Combined with power at about 15p/kWh (say) your heat is still costing you 6p/kWh - compared to about 4.5p kWh for kerosene at the moment. Mind you, the RHI on the ASHP should just about cover the power costs providing it's running efficiently.

I'm guessing the next couple of months might be useful for that...

Isn't there an order of risk management that says PPE is last line of defence rather than first? Something like: remove hazard remote working safe systems of work reduce hazard PPE Clearly in a lot of cases removing the hazard isn't possible (anyone make chainsaws with guard rails over the top of the bar?) but as has been said, relying on PPE to keep you safe may prevent a scratch to the face but won't stop a broken neck from being hit on the head by a fast falling 50kg branch. Have a look at this (and the link therein) for a vid on boot testing and also a couple of pics of a guy who'd been wearing steel toe cap boots but had gone through the leather behind the toecap, then also toe, tendon etc... Chainsaw boot test - Tree World

Answered my own question, 5,120kg apparently. So I could have it plated for 7.5 tonnes, carry nearly 2.5 tonnes of wood and drive it on a car licence...

What's the unladen weight of a 4x4 Bedford MJ?

How about this? Have a look at lot 533, gas axe the bottom out, put a couple of skids / rollers on one side and hooks to hang the bag off the bottom, Welcome to MOD Sales Online - Military Vehicles for Sale - Ex MOD Land Rovers for Sale or any farmers out there selling old hay elevators that could be used to fill some sort of above ground hopper system?

To set the scene, I'm not a pro logger or surgeon; just someone with a bit of land that I'm lucky enough to harvest wood from... I have got a 3.2V6 Isuzu Trooper as my current workhorse, as well as a company car from the 9 - 5 (well, maybe more like 6 - 10 some days) job. I saw the following for sale and wondered if anyone has got experience of them. My logic was: one of the reasons for the Trooper was to have something 4x4 for lairy weather, this would provide similar fuel economy probably won't be much worse and in any case I will only do about 1000 miles per year so fuel cost is not a big concern I can drive it on my old-style car licence Doubts are: how onerous are MOT testing and insurance charges? missus might throw a wobbly! Welcome to MOD Sales Online - Military Vehicles for Sale - Ex MOD Land Rovers for Sale - #33670 - LEYLAND DAF 45 / 150 4X4 FLATBED, DIRECT GOVERNMENT SALE Any input appreciated!

I felled a couple of eucs, both about 40'. Split one fairly wet and stacked the other in rings to dry. I was splitting by hand (maul, pair of wedges and a 14lb persuading hammer). The dry stuff split only after a few good thwacks from the sledgehammer... not to be repeated!

Incidentally, I heard somewhere that eucalyptus shouldn't be burned in appliances with short chimneys (i.e. where people might end up inhaling the smoke) because it's hallucinogenic - can anyone back this up or is it an urban myth?!

So when it becomes sonorous? (i.e. sounds a bit like a glockenspiel when hit together?!)

In fact, I tell a lie, just found the webpage again and it says that logs burned in December could have been cut as late as September...

What does anyone work on for a definition of seasoned? I have been burning eucalyptus for a couple of years and - for the bigger stuff in particular - can see a definite improvement in the stuff that is going on the fire now, but was felled and stacked in 2007. I've also got some ash which was only felled about May this summer but appears to burn reasonably well, and a load of alder stacked which has been felled for about 12 months and also burns, but with a bit of reluctance. I was told as a nipper that wood is best between three and five years from felling, but a bit surprised to see a website for a company in Lancashire saying what a hard job it is to produce seasoned logs. The log-ic (get it?) was that wood needed to be felled in about Feb for burning the next winter. So - does my three year assumption work (perhaps better for some woods than others)? Or is 9 months plenty? Will my alder and ash get any better for being air dried for another couple of years?!

The "article" (I won't call it journalism) smacks of someone sat at a PC, doing a bit of a search on the web for stoves and picking out a few photos but knowing nothing about them in practice. Incidentally, when I was actively looking for a stove a while back I was recommended one of these, does anyone have any experience of them? The HCC Super Demon from The Barnatt Millns Group of Companies