Steven P

We all have to start somewhere and while a shed isn't generally ideal fire wood, you can still learn from it. If I had nothing, a shed to take apart I would buy a bow saw, a cheap hatchet ad a sharpening stone. Most of the shed wood will be pretty much kindling only. Use the saw to cut it to length, the small axe to split it, and the sharpening stone to keep the axe sharp. If the budget was a little bigger, get a Fiskars X10 (?) axe, a saw again and a Fiskars sharpening tool. Then you can start to add to that as your budget gets bigger and you get larger logs to split - I have an X17 I think and that will go through most things, I have a maul and hate it (it has never spit anything, breaking the wood through brute force). Next step up is replace the saw with sometihjng with some power - ask in the chainsaw section for advice there but lke all tool advice there are snobs who will want you to have the best and the lucky who have got away with a 2nd hand chansaw for £10 for the last 100 years. Chainsaw is a big investment by the time you get protectinve clothing (trousers, eye protection, maybe a helmet, gloves, ear defenders) added to the cost. Norwegian Wood is a great book to read

Not an expert here. However. Are all your logs to be the same legnth or do yuo have clients that specify a 25cm log and some that specify 30? If so this makes it a bit safer, a 27cm log can go into the 30cm pile for example, a 35cm log can be cut to 25 and this adds al larger factor of safety if needed. I'll also assume and knowing what logs I pick up that some will be undersized - if this is not an issue, I guess cutting threm undersized will aso not be an issue. Just trying to make that 5cm end to cut off a bit longer. If your secs are tight though, I would be tempted to split the -slightly oversized- wood first keeping it in a seperate pile and with these thinner logs you can get a bench circular saw or siimilar (with suitable guards and guides, hold the long end and cut off the small pieces with thst.

Kind of glad the wood is worthless, its gong to keep me warm all next winter Sold some in the last few weeks (my excess) which will pay for the coal I'll burn to.. so not quite worthless.

I'd go with Ratman, eliminate the simple - like what you burn - first

Reading this, there are 2 options for strangr smells. Ones that sould be inside the stove and ones that sould be outside the stove. There shouldn't be a smell from inside the stove coming to the outside of the stove. I guess inside stove smells should be easy to work out. Put smethng selly in the stove and see if you can smel it when the door is shut! If this is the case then one f the jonts needs sealing better and that could be your 5" to 6" connection, it could be thr connetion to the stove, it could be the door seal but you will ahve a starting point then. Sometimes if I put bread in the stove, yo can smell toast outside.... and this could be ideal since it stars no smell and ends up with smell so you dont cotaminat the room before you burn it (otherwise, put your smell in a plastic bag, seal it up, put it in the fire the next day) Outside stove smells - nothing to do with the connection. Could be a hot metal smell, could be dust, or cleaning products, could be builing materials getting too hot (plasterboard in the ceiing?). If it is outside stove smell and it is recurring then there is something not quiet right, maybe you are burning the fire to hot biut I can't think what else it might be. Just to note, mine wll smell when I have a good hot fire n it - a hot metal smell (assumng you have had the stove for a while, new stoves stink as any paint r finishes cure) Dampers: I have 2, 1 for top air, one for bottom air into the fire box, not really. Top air burnes off fumes from combustion - how wood burns. Bottom air is for coal though cannot hurt to also have top air. However in the comments Damper refers to a chimney damper, a metal plate in the chimney that closes it off, reducing the draft and so the fire

Thanks, at £15 a time for the battery, £50 for the saw, £15 for the charger - adding a few batteries is going to put it in the range of gumtree or e-bay second hand top branded electric saw with a wire. I mostly cut firewood to length at home so that might be a better option. If I had some of their other battery kit I might consider it more.

Painted stove? so scrapping it off a new stove is maybe not acceptable? I'd go for the get the stove nice and hot and see what you can scrape off with something non abrasive - perhaps a wooden spatula? Get quite bit off like that... and getting the stove hot will help of course, when you have the windows opens for the smoke to get out. When it's mostly off you can use something like an old cotton T shirt rag to wipe more off. It might take some time, scrape, clean, wipe, let it heat get hotter, repeat. Thinking to my cooking, when it's as clean as you can get it like that, let it all cool, wet it and perhaps try a dishwasher tablet - mildly abrasive but shouldn't scrape up the paint like wire wool could and see how that works. Needless to say, do that in as small an area as you can

Likewise, not sure how easy it is to steal an amount of firewood, OK if you are going to nick it for your own use but to steal it and sell it afterwards, £30 for a boot full maybe and you'd be there for say 20 minutes loading up, more to load up a transit. Unlikely to be able to sell them to a bloke in the pub either - have to go online and again, that leaves traces. Far easier just to break the door in and take your TV. I'd worry about drying them in the garage and the moisture coming off - 1 tonne of logs could have a lot of water in them. But for the first question, I don't worry about it, just goes in the fire like any other log, and it doesn't spread so much in my log pile. I don't tend to have a lot of wood in the house all at once so it will get burnt fairly quickly once inside

I was looking to see if anyone had any thoughts in this. There are a couple left in mine, and I have some pocket money to spend. It says it takes the 20V battery, I would be using it to cut firewood

So... I'm not a builder so take this with a pinch of salt of course. A builder will take out some of the horizontal cement from the bricks a course above the bricks to be removed, slide through metal plates and support them. Take out the bricks, put a new lintle in, let the cement set and then repair the holes they first made.. I think. You could just wng it and hope for the best, take the bricks out, put a new lintle in quick, but I do't think this is a sensble idea because..... Looking at the brickwork you have exposed, there are parrallel verticle edges, 1 brick out fro the edge of the fire place... the ones you are wanting to remove. Then you have the lintle that you want to remove and then above this is looks like the vertical edge continues upwards and under the plaster. chances are you will be replastering this wall anyway.. so why not take more plaster off going upwards and see if there is another lintle further up? Can you look from the inside to see if this is the case, even if your head wont fit, hold a camera up and take a photo. If there is, just take al the bricks out to that point, put the new one in where you want it and rebuild the wall. Becuse of these vertical breaks that's why option 1 won't work. But I am not a buildier

I got a couple of Stihl petrol ones cheap from e-bay. A bit of a project to get them cleaned and working (no new parts needed though) and cheap enough. if you are using them domestically vibrations and so on shouldn't make a huge problem. I think the answer would be do you have other domestic power tools? Go with the same power source if you can - pointless having a 5l petrol can full just for a hede trimmer if everything else is electric, similarly if everything is petrol then you are set up to use it (and domestically might be god - get through the petrol and use it all in a season, I sometimes cannot use 5l in the garde in a year so it gos in the car in November)

I made mine from shuttering they used to make concrete paths with. 2" thick and cheap wood, I think so far they have lasted me 4 or 5 years. The herb patch with a wooden border has been in there for 7 years, bry similar wood and untreated. Copost heap has the same wood I think most wods will last a few years and it's a payoff to replace them every few years or to hve them long lasting. I might be tempted to say cheap wood, to replace them every few years but when you fo refresh the soil inside, dig in lots of compost and so on

You've sort of covered my thoughts on the above, at school we were expected to go on to 6th form and unniversity of college, nothing was ever said about manual jobs or trades, or where to go to get them (and the school looked over farms, the next big town in that direction was about 15 miles away). Farmers get their seasonal staff through agences If they are anthing like the agents I have tried to use, the agent gets the full rate and then tries to fll the role with the cheapest labour and pocket the difference. If I want say, £10.10 an hour (and the other 150 UK workers want the same) but the Romanians will go for £10 an our (simple sums) then the agency is getting an extra £15 an hour from the migrant workers which is a couple of thousand over a season. Migrant workers are cheaper so agencies want to use them obviously. Then look at the UK workers, the vast majority of us hae worked all our lives with the expectaion of school - higer education - offce job - retire - die and manual labour seams below us despite the wages available. Many would like ti wait out just in case the ideal job comes along next week.. or the week after than take a 'lesser job. The final thought I ave is that generall we don't know what the the expected earnings are - sure we can see the hourly rate.. but 40 hour week at that rate and then overtime at a higher rate.. but never metions how many hours exoected,, if we knew that 4 t 5 months hardsip away from the family could be paying £700 a week might make it more apealing (years ago train drivers or signak men or someone was going on strike tll it slipped out what they were earning (strike was over pay). The next week the management went to the union with hundreds of job applications and said "Oh we can just get new staff - here are the applocants" - and the strike ended... point being that people get more interested if the take home pay is known an is nice)

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)