log_hauler

We have a 5Kw Charnwood stove in the lounge- this winter I dedcided to measure how much wood we were using. So I filled a builders bag with logs from the pile & when empty re-filled it. Since September we have used 6 builders bags of logs- so just about a builders bag a month. The fire runs 24/7 at this time of year.

Glad to hear you are (mainly) okay. Never forget your PPE peeps....don't become another statistic.

Grrrr wasps.....reminds of the time when I stepped on a rotten log and crashed through into a large wasp nest. A cloud of angry wasps flew up and began to attack me. I legged off across the field and the swarm followed me! The only way I got rid of them was by hanging my coat on a fence post- they carried on attacking that while I kept on running. Still got stung about in 10 places though!

Pitty I'm 200 miles away- I would have bought some off you. I'm guessing you'll have no trouble shifting it!!

Find a woodworking / turners forum and try to get rid of it on there?

I don't think it's a great idea. Fungus and wood boring insects will grow on those dead logs and will probably spead to the growing timber too. Bad managment if you ask me-keep the forest floor tidy.

20 degrees C in Torquay today. In January ffs! People out in shorts and t-shirts! :thumbdown:

Been very mild here in Powys-first frosts in what seems like months. I reckon we are due for some cold in Febuary....

Signed up and added my 2 penceworth- line will pass 1 mile from my old house- near the champion pear tree.

There's a serious point about improving how we manage our woodlands in there. How many unmanaged stands of badly neglected woodland do w all know?

Sometimes I think we worry too much about the quality of wood we sell. Don't get me wrong, I hate to sell anything that isn't dry, doesn't look & feel good & will throw anything not quite right to one side for my own fire. Most customers just want 'wood'. Surely, we all hear the comment "it all burns".

I've sold lots of 12 month seasoned poplar & without exception, everyone has loved it. Open fires & burners alike. One chap came back for 4 loads providing it was the same wood!

I have 6 month seasoned beech & took a bag (free) to two of my regulars & said "try this & tell me what you think". One said, "great, burns lovely" & promptly pre-ordered & paid for 2 loads. The other said "it's lovely Chris" but " can we have our usual stuff". So, I took them a load of pop, cedar, goat & crack willow. They were delighted, paid cash with a tip & will probably tell their friends what a nice chap I am.

It's all about managing customer satisfaction & remembering that what we think they need or should have is not necessarily what will please them.

I aim to be open & honest & tell customers what the wood is & how long it has been split & under cover.I can't recall ever receiving a complaint.

Really just goes to show people prefer to burn different types of wood. Since we can't always all be burning seasoned oak/ash it's good to know what the good second choices are. I'll burn anything on my fires (haven't found anything that burn eventually!). The worst day we had though was when the missus fetched in a load of fresh cut Cedar from 'the wrong pile'. When I came home the fire was a pile of barely smouldering wet wood. I got a little pile of coal burning real hot underneath it though and the green wood burned eventually.

I certainly wouldn't sell such green wood to anyone though- they would never come back.

Intresting thing is how much easier it is to drag those logs over snow. A technique I have used occasionally in snow is dump large logs on a sledge-a much easier way to shift them over a distance!

Power might be handed to the little people initially, but it will end up in the hands of that cabal of local business people - estate agents, solicitors, land agents, developers, big farmers, land owners and anyone else who plays golf with them - who end up pulling all the strings in an area. It sounds it's heading towards a cronies' charter to me.

 

Never a truer word said. Got to be ripe for abuse by greedy developers this one.

Best (worst?) snow I've seen, the result of one nights snowfall in the Rockies. That's a Toyota Landcruiser under there!

Never sold any logs on E-bay, but I do admit to looking from time to time as occasionally you'll find punters selling entire trees and stuff they just want removed. Once got a nice couple of trailer loads of oak from a chap in Birmingham for not very much money.

How much is a box of 1000 suitable for a 4x4 MT tyre? I have a set General Grabber MT 33" tryes on my truck which are 'pre-drilled' so studs can be easily fitted.

These any good (can get 10MP originals)?

As above poster said - be wary of 'hung' trees which have not fully fallen. Best practice is to get them on the ground before cutting up. Other than that you ash ought to be burnable.

I'm burning off all the crap wood at the moment - saving the good stuff in case it gets really cold. Got plenty of good hardwood (mainly ash & blackthorn) put by in my personal log stores- including a stack of 10 year old oak logs which I never seem to have the heart to burn.

HI log hauler your pc fan:lol: mate will melt on top of our 16kw euro heat stove:thumbup: the N.F.U insureance will hot like that mate:laugh1: i think i will pay £130 for a fan i do not whant to burn down the house:lol: mate

It sits on the hearth about 6" to one side (5KW stove)- blowing air around the side and back. It doesn't even get that warm because of the cooling airflow going through it.

I was just about to say 'Concrete Saw' but you got there first. I've not used one either but a friend had one for cutting new doorways in an old building, says it was great. The one he hired was a lot smaller than above but made short work of old brickwork. I just hope nobody threw any re-bar into your tree before the muck went in .

Diamond blade might make short work of steel too? I'm surprised these things aren't used for break-ins. Just think how easy (if not very quiet) to cut your own doorway!!

The cheapest way is to subscribe to e-mail alerts from Space Weather.Com

SpaceWeather.com -- News and information about meteor showers, solar flares, auroras, and near-Earth asteroids

Ocasionally Northern Lights are bright enough to see from the UK especially if you have a good, dark Northern horizon. The e-mail give you a few hours or days notice to be alert for possible display. I have seen them twice from the UK in Cumbria and Warwickshire.

Photo I took in 1992!

Okay bit of cheat -these are from last January in Powys.

Been thinking about this job- what you need is a diamond bladed concrete chainsaw

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_CBpJNxdag]YouTube - Concrete Diamond Chainsaw Chain Saws[/ame]

Great bits of kit by the look it! You can hire them, so cost the hire of said tool into the job.

Might be an interesting watch....

For that kind of money I could get my entire central heating system replaced....

A small mains fan will be LOADS cheaper even after paying for 100 years (number out of hat) worth of electricity.

Quite right! We've got an old 120mm PC fan

120mm Internal Desktop PC Fan For Computer Case Cooling on eBay (end time 14-Dec-10 09:08:42 GMT)

run it from an old mobile phone charger (couple of Watts). Will run for 100 years and still cost less in electric than an 'Ecofan'!