Spruce

Hi all, I normally cut and split my own wood but am pretty much unable to do so this year through illness. I'm looking for somebody to come and process about one and a half artic loads of softwood (probably all roughly 3 metre lengths) into 19 inch lengths and split such that the measurement across the split end is around four to five inches. I may be able to organise somebody with a Loadall/telehandler type machine if required. I'm about 5 miles west of Banff (Aberdeenshire). I'd be grateful for an idea of cost and availability as well as the maximum diameter your processor can handle. Any interest is much appreciated. Spruce

You should have bought a Husky instead...

In view of recent 'which is best' threads: Dry softwood!

Yes, or if you're fitting the liner in a big old flue you can just pour vermiculite insulation beads in from the top. It's relatively cheap. I think insulation is well worth the effort - the chimney sweep always comments on how clean our flue is and I always wonder why we have it swept twice a year... We fitted a Brewer UFO MK11 chimney cowl from Plumbing Supplies | BES Gas & Plumbing Fittings which fixed occasional downdraught problems. In any case, I hate the sound of hail clattering down the liner.

No - but if I stacked it like that I wouldn't want to burn it. Ever.

There's a big difference between 'need' and 'the regulations say you should have one'. If there's already sufficient ventilation there isn't any point in adding more for any reason other than to satisfy the regulations.

Yes, I know, but the building regs are a 'one size fits all' nonsense. The reality is that you don't need a vent if the property is already well ventilated. What exactly do you mean by 'signing off'?

You only actually need an airvent if you live in a modern hermetically sealed house. If you've any concerns buy a carbon monoxide alarm. For a big boiler stove I'd recommend an Aarow Stratford TF70 or TF90, I wouldn't fancy taking a gamble on a no-name stove at that kind of money!

My experience has been that cutting and splitting the wood to the size you're going to use in the fire, stacking on pallets then covering the top (just the top!) with tarps in the autumn seems to get the wood ready to burn quickest. I haven't had any trouble with mould or rot doing this. I've never tried putting pallets on top of the stack, no doubt this would help a bit with airflow but I don't think it's essential. If you have a cord stack as well, yes, do tarp the top for the winter but don't expect a drying miracle...

I'm a bit worried that you might be on a hiding to nothing. Clearview have a warning that the back boiler will affect conbustion temperatures here: Clearview 650 Woodburning Stove Dimensions We have an Aarrow Stratford boiler stove which heats the flue to 250 deg C within 10 minutes of lighting and goes on to 500 C plus in a few minutes more if nobody notices and turns down the air. It heats a 4 bedroom house with underfloor heating which presents a similar load to a thermal store. It may be that you won't be able to fix this without using a proper boiler stove.

The problem is that to a layman a tonne bag of wood holds a tonne of wood. It may be that to those 'in the know' a tonne bag of wood is actually a bag of uncertain volume containing an uncertain volume of wood, and this may seem obvious to you, but to the layman it just seems like another con by those dodgy firewood merchants. I'm not stupid, but before I started reading Arbtalk I had no idea that a tonne bag of wood didn't actually weigh anything even vaguely in the ballpark of a tonne, because it had never occurred to me to question it. I just thought it was probably a bit short of a tonne and I was only being ripped off a little. Yes, I do understand water content, air space, density and volume but as a firewood customer I just hadn't thought about it. It's the perception that's the problem, and honestly, with the frequency this sort of thing is discussed I'm surprised to see one of you guys talking about tonne bags.

We've had quite a lot of this appearing on Scots pine in the woodshed this year. The dark blob in the photo is about an inch and a half square, when touched it disintegrates into a fine brown/black powder. Most of the pine has been infested with what I assume is Bark beetle and has both the white fungus that seems to start under the bark and the 'classic' blue/black/green staining through a lot of the sapwood. Are these blobs associated or something completely different?

That's a Really Useful Page. Nice work!

Mine is definitely made in China, and they look identical even down to the health and safety label. The Sheppach must be made in China - there's no way stuff this cheap is made in Europe.

I've had this for six years and split an artic load of wood with it every year: Buy Axminster LS5T 5-ton Electric Hydraulic Log Splitter from Axminster, fast delivery for the UK It's £198.50 at the moment. The only fault has been a failed weld on the splitting wedge last year which was repaired by the local shipyard for a few quid. I process 19" logs with it so there's very little ram travel before the split, if you're doing stuff that's much shorter you need to stick something between the ram and the log to speed things up.