Steven P

Made this little fella. Just a note, he s too big for the living room but with the wngs fastened on, too big to fit out the door!

Thanks - that was what I was hoping, but of course I want them to grom 0 to 6' tall in weeks obviously. Seriously though the hedge has had holes in for years and 3 or 4 years won't make a huge difference, I was thinkng get some seeds, jab the fork in the ground and drop one in each hole that the progs make, and then move on. Didn;t want to do anything as hard as digging holes in the ground ... (also at the moment there is a cover of long grass weeds which is trickier to dig through).

and with apologies if this has been asked before (I couldn't see anything though) I have a gap in a hawthorn hedge that might be nice to fill, and taking my prescribed 20 minute of daily exercise today noticed a lot of last years berries still on the hedges further up the road. So what do you reckon the viability of these would be? If I grabbed some and planted them in pots would they start growing? Thanks

The proprtion of wood I am burning has gone up - but it has been watmer so the fire has been burnign less. This is mostly becuse I am also at home and in control of the fire, rather than out and others n charge of the fire and the coal store.

when our glass fell out we just took the bits out, put the spark guard from upstairs in front and carried out without the glass. The stove then just becomes a slightly more efficient open fire but it stillworks without the need to make a temporary replacement

Said what?

Whoops - just seen the exact same question below, please ignore me!

Good morning, I have an excess of firewood and so want to sell some on. So what are the current prices for unseasoned split softwoods by the m3? I guess - a price for retail (small quantities, say a car boot full at a time) and a price for wholesale (back of a tipper truck quantity) (and if you are at it, why not add the costs for hardwoods as well - make a decent answer) Thanks

The ash pan looks huge - OK having a big ash an might be OK, but does it need to be as big as the fire itself? I think I wold prefer a snaller one to empty more often - it's no harship to do that. If the ash pan was smaller it might look OK I was i B&Q and they have a stove with a similar 2 door syste, I was wondering earlier if having a seperate door for the ash is a good, indifferent or bad thing (again for what it takes to open a single dor and take the ashes out doesn't affect anything - and I do mine in the mornings befoe I ight the fire)

I was gong to suggest string (a natural fibre one) but I guess there are a few problems with that. Customers understand the units of wood measurement "bag of kindling" being one of them. Do we want to add "tied bundle" into the mix? In a bag they will be convinced thay are getting the same quantity each tme... but from an envirnmental perspective its a good option. If the kindling i a uniform length they will take some time to tie together (maybe make a U shaped frame with slots to put the string through, load it up, put string round an tie should be fairly quick, buy the kindline un bagged) I also guess it would be less labour intensive to just lift a bag off a pallet and deliver it but my first thought was 2 bands of string tied around it. (just to note, i have always returned my coal bags - partly because he can see them and knows where i have hidden the cheque for the next lioad

Just newsaer to clean the glass.., then it goes in the fire as I liht it. I tried stove glass cleaner when I first got the stove and that wored well, however once I used it on hot glass and it ruined the glass - so take that as a warning. Air vent - air wash vent is always ope, and usualy the main vent half to fully open, I rarely let it just smoulder, all or nothing and I canremake a fire if I lt it go out and it gets cooler

I'll be getting some of tht then!! (seriously, compred to Lidle, I empted the ash pan yesterday I think and might empty it tomorrow with my usual smokeless coalman coal, had to do it hourly almost with the bargain stuff)

So if I read the question right, you have 2 very similarly sized logs, when you split them both and checked their moisture levels from the centre of the log they both read the same 20%, then you put them both on the fire, whch one would burn the slowest? Should be both the same, how they are dried makes no difference really. Now if you are finding the air dried log burns slower than the kln dried log then there is a reason for it and the only real variable is that the air dried log is wetter (higher moisture content) than the kiln dred log. I am guessing your second part of the question is really gven the choice what hard wood log should you buy? For this you will get many answers, we all have our favourites (I really like thorn - hawthorn, blackthorn and so on, others will swear by oak, or ash). Pretty much (with some exceptins) 1kg of wood at 20% moisrure has the same energy as most other wods at 1kg and 20% (16MJ per kg according to google just now, just over 5,000kwH per tonne of kiln dried wood).. however we buy wood by quantity (builder bag, tipper truck, 'load' and so on) and here you should look for the most dense woods to get the best value. Softwoods are considered 'bad' because they are the least dense (generally) and so the least energy per delivery, Something like this link could help here https://solidfuel.co.uk/pdfs/GUIDE-TO-WOOD-AND-MULTIFUEL-SEP19.pdf and you can find expanded tables but load for lod oak is pretty good for heat output.

I was a bit late orderng coal this week so had to go to the shops for a days worth of coal. Got Lidles £4 for 10kg... I won't be getting that again, a reaonable heat but so much ash it smothered the fire (had to empty the ashpan twice a night, normally its once every other day)

Yes, it would be right to target the end user to ensure that they are burning dry wood. You can sell me wood at 10% moisture, say a tonne a month, but then dump it on my drive. Some months it might stay below 20% moisture, but this week, I'd be lucky to bring any wood from outside that wasn't dripping wet. The retailer cn do al thy want but at the end of the day the customers actions keep the wood dry or not. However, political comment, the governmet isn't interested in what is right just interested in the bottom line and how they can profit (and they will, simplest that costs go up so they get mre VAT) (look at recent policies - and not so recent - of 'can't fix it, tax it (Sugar tax, plastiv bag, Scottish minimum alcohol pricing , cigarette duties, beer duties...)

I split it as soon as I can and stack it at the end of the drive - it gets afternon and evening sun for the wgile summer and any wind that comes down the drive, that seams to do the trick. I can tell, if I stack it on the north facing wal, it won't dry as quickly, on the south facing wall it is done within the year

I read once that increaseing road capacity doesn't make things better in the long term, just they take a while to fill up again - so the crossing is no suprise hat more cars use it

Same idea as a composting bin - wel known you can put in anything in there (including say, chicken remains, the bone from a sunday joint and so on), and ver time compost comes out. Gess they just got the mix right to make it quicker. Cannot do it in a normal compost bin because.. the rats get in and it won't get hot enough insde to kill any bugs. not that I woudl recomend this, but my litle 5wk stove will get rid of most animal bones over night (for the days when Ihaven't put the bins out for 6 weeks and it is full, a lot of waste gets burnt).. guess you could just use a bigger stove, uncle Bob goes in and heats the house as he goes? Saves a lot of carbon emissions too that wy if you're using the fire anyway

I'd just go to B&Q and get a new handle for the time, effort and cost

Problem you might have is too many signs! If you put up a sign you are saying to the world "Look this is dangerous" and a clever lawyer might argue that you knew it was dangerous but did nothing to make it safe, trying to shift the liability from the stupid onto you. Perhaps look at rhe wood pile and decide what might be a reasonable height for it to be at - consider how stable it s, whether the sides are vertical or sloping and so on and keep it to that safe height... and then no signs needed surely? I would consider a sign "Keep off the log pile", and as long as the gate is locked shut, no trespassing sign and the log pile is out of sight (not tempting people togo in and climb on it) then that should be OK... but if you are worried a quick call to the insurers might give you a clue what they will axxet and pay out on if there is an accident

Depends how patient you are, if it is slowly falling then wait until it is at a height you are happier to cut at?

Sounds about right for cost per heat output, If you have only electicity then solid fuel is good. If you can get them for free and ignoring the time you put in yourself then logs are good. f I had to pay for solid fuel I would buy coal and never wood - cheaper for the heat output, takes up less space, fire stays in longer, no arguments about smoke - it is all smokelss that I get (well, mostly...). For many of us adding anything other than a stove is going to be big money (OK I am a special case, gas main to the house was going to be 10's of thousands apparently), central heating boiler at £1k installed? radiators and pipes - another £1k? Gas tank - the same again? Gas conection if the pipe is utside the door £1k? which is another factor to take into account. that is quite a lot of kwh worth of wood to make it a saving (hoever, it makes the house worth more when you cme to sell it). It's a tricky thing to work out what actually is the best value if you look outside the raw fuel costs. Things are gong to get easier - and mre exensive - when the government turn off the domestic gas supplies, electric only The nowegian wood book is worth a read here.

I reckon to get through 2m3.. but also a ton of coal.. (the free space in the garage for dry wod is only so big), 5kw stove, 3 bed house near Glasgow - next year I have to burnore wood as there is loads sitting outside slowly getting wetter and wetter as the wnter goes on

Reminded me of a couple of stories. A while ago a pensioner had school kids sitting on his wall to eat chips - he was OK with that apart frm them dropping the litter, so he had a word, and gave them a bin, litter problem solved because it was easy for them (kids still ate chips there). Point here, people will use a bin if it is easy for them, carry rubbish for 50m and they will ditch it. Second thing, the council has team to prosecute fly tippers and they do look in bags for receipts and so on, I guess there is some truth in that story. However they normally reserve that level of investigation for serious fly tippers. A couple of things annoy me - the take away bag thrown ut of the car wndow because that is just pure arrogance for the countryside and lazyness, and also (living 1 mil from th ecouncil recycling point) is 'proper' fly tipping - drive the car, empty the boot and drive off again.. when 2 minuteslater yuo could be putting it for recycling. I can accept howver the we al drop rubbish witohut knowig it (you thikn its gone in the pocket but you missed - particually happens this time of year whn yuo have gloves on). I will also take a carrier bag up the lane every now and then and fill it with rubbisjh - just because someone else dropped it doesn't mean I should leave it there to look at every morning

I'd also worry about the cutains, not you perhaps but the next owner of the house who might not realise. At first thought your quote sounds high but what are yuo being quoted for? There doesn't look like a lot of wall space so you might need something more compact which could limit the choces the nstaler has.. and of course the more secialised stove is, the more the manufacturer thinks they cancharge. I'd get a breakdown of the quote if you can to see what is in it