Steven P

So it is some kind of stove we'll assume. fire proof? I would be tempted to screw up a couple of pieves of paper, light them and pop them in. If there is a flu and chimney a bit of paper should be enough to create some heat and a bit of a draw up the chimney taking away the smoke. If it doesn't a couple of pieces of paper will send enough smoke into the room for you to notice it. This is tricky to see from the photo - has it been used before? Nice smooth metal with sharp corners, no remains of ashes, put your hand in and no soot anywhere might suggest new stove that hasn't been used Final check you might want to do is to look at the chimney, where is it in relation to the stove? (and if you do the paper check, you might see some smoke coming out). So if it looks like there is a flu and chimney the next thing to do is to get it swept and cleaned then? Oh, looking at the photos, I assume that is its door stood behind it. The handle from the top to the pipe behind the stove is for the air supply. If you look at the stove, is there a makers mark anywhere. So my suspision looking at it, is they stove was placed there to look good for the sale. I suspect it is quite new. No chimney attached - with my stove half the cost was installing a chimey liner in the existing chimney, if your room doesn't have a handy chimney the vendor might not have bothered to do the full job and saved the cost. So let us know how you get on, it looks intruiging

Looking at the photo, from the stove top to the cowel must be more than 6.5 ft, 4ft outside leaves about 2.5 ft insde above the stove - the poster is a hobbit! I suspect he means from the ceiling to the cowel is 6.5 ft

Rich Rule... Mr Steven would pretty much kill me if I left my axes hanging about in the hall like next to your fire, bad enough sharpening the chainsaws in the living room and watching a film together. Stere, I used to get the free Metro on my commute to light fires with, grabbed enough in the year to see me through the winter, the plan all went wrong this year and working at home, no commute, no papers. Had to buy firelighters for the first time this year

Your campfires will take quicker if you lght them up a bit anf not at the base, Same as Norwegian Log Book suggests, larger logs at the base and the hot embers will set them on fire. Benefit of this is that you don't flick ember in the air putting a large log on if it allready the the base of the fire My top tip, dry kinding and after that we all have our favourite ways

How heavy is it? Oak is heavier than willow which are the 2 choices being considered. Also the end grain, willow is fast growing and will have wider growth rings oak will be closer together. I'm no expert and might be wrong of course. Often when I see logs like that a few leaves sneak in and they can help you out

Just to add to this, anything that you get tipped this winter will still be wet, and will need to be dried if you want the 'ideal' 20% moisture content. So it will be good for next winter. You might have to accept the inevtiable and buy some fuel this winter. It might be possible to get waste wood that is dry from local joiners and so on, perhaps clean pallets (not painted for example). Pallets you can usually pick up on industrial estates if you ask and should be dry wood. Of course you have to deal wirth nais and taking them apart. But then you would normally have to split and maybe cut free logs too.

I have a file for the dinks, a stone and a Fiskars Xsharp. I was dubious about the Fiskars but on their axe it is OK, dead easy to just quickly run the axe through it a couple of times without a big sharpening set up needed. Not had much luck on the hand axe with it yet, the blade is a different angle and it needs a bit of work to get it to match the XSharp, having said that, the knife side works well in the kitchen too. Can't go wrong with a stone and a file, does the lawnmower as well

Pretty crappy? Regardless who owns them they are not yours. Imagine you were in Essex near one of the fields used to store new imported cars, you can't just go in that field and take one simply because there are hundreds there. Same with with trees - the value is less but the principle is the same. Another way to look at the issue is that if everyone took the attitude, council land, council trees, we own it, I'll take it, then pretty quick there will be no trees left. Often the dead wood on the ground can be left for wildlife

Thinking about this, construction sites have fuel tank for things like generators, no need to bury them in concrete. They will need a bund and so on, not sure about filling them though, much like Donnk pictured

I'll agree with Stubby here about getting a bulk load of logs. I don't however know your set up, your new house might be a small city centre terrace with a yard, it might be detached house and acres of land. You migh have a log store outside at the moment, there might not be. But to answer your question, 1 bag will last about a night. They are priced for the occasional fire, such as a few over Christmas week and the odd weekend and where buyng a bulk load would be more expensive or inconveniant to having to store half a load till the next winter. If you had a fire on each night, £6.50 a night it soon becomes an expensive thing. These bags are bulky in a retail shelf and have to pay their way... so the pice is high. Bulk delivery, comes from an out of town yard generally, with much smaller overheads, and so are a lot cheaper... but you need to store them and keep them dry.. which is where Stubby comes in with building a log store. You might also consider getting a hatchet or small axe, again a money saving thing that pre cut kindling is another process, adding a cost to log.. which you have anyway it soon pays for tself. There are a lot of log suppliers out there, and you can look on places like Gumtree where there will be the occasioal advert for logs but these generally need splitting, however can be free too. It also might be that a local log supplier if asked nicely could deliver smaller amounts if you don't have space to store them - probably at a premium but not as much as Wicks

Every time we get locked down, yes.

I feel a bit insignificant here, only a 5kw stove but that heats the house mostly. Defenitely depends what you put into it though, had oak in there (free of course) yesterday and today and that got quite toasty, on soft woods it takes a bit longer to warm up but I get more of them. This year I suspect we will be burning a lot of wood, both of us at home all day. Every day. Having to talk. In normal times I burn wood in the evenings and use coal when I go out to work - got a dual fuel stove on purpose and this heats a 3 bedroom semi. Pure finances come into play here too, I cannot store enough dry wood in the garage for a ful winter and so to buy fuel, smokeless coal has more heat than dried logs for the money. I would go for insulation as soon as you can. I am in the process of doing under the floor this week and you can stand one foot above the insulation and one above none and I canactually notice the differnce in the warmth of the floor

I'm with the other answers here, you won't get anything for free. Sort of. You might get stuff free to you if it makes sense to do so, for example I got a transit van of logs the other day because that tree surgeon was on the way to the tip, and dropped them off to avoid paying the comercial rate at the tip - financialy better for him. So if it is convenient for their jobs I get logs. The next thing to consider is that for free you can rarely pick and choose what you want. Currently I have a load of Scotts Pine to cut and split and a load of Laylandi.. I doubt I willever get oak, thorn or fruit trees for free. Going back to the argument of the giver getting a deal, it might cost almost as much to process as it would that you can sell them for for a small amount of wood, less hassle and cheaper to ti it somewhere. My other source of logs is tipped down the road and I have to collect it, extra hassle but I get the odd hard wood, often have to dig it out of a pile of wood chip. So if you are willing to accept that 'free' is really meaning costing less for the tree surgeons and what goes with that you shold be OK. If you ask the right way you should get some, and be prepared to put in the work to add value to go from a tree to a log on the fire

You might want to be a bi more specific since we are all going to post what we own at the moment. What are you going to be doing with it? Do you have a budget? Do you need it to be rechargeable or so that you can change the batteries (handy if you are an hour from home and the batteries die), How bright exactly - when was the last time you bought one and how bright was that (the light intensity has increased, you might have been using 100 lumen torch, 150 lumens would be great, might be that you had 300 and 150 would be rubbish) and so on. Narrow it down a bit. Me? I need one for running through woodland trails in the winter, so I got a bike light, think it is 450 lumens, cheaper than a dedicated head torch for the power but I had to make a head strap out of a go-pro head strap, it does me quite well for running downhill cross country through the woods at that power. I would avoid fancy bits and pieces, had a couple and they never lived up to expectation.

If it is Vermiculite board, you can just cut a piece the same size, or for a one off purchase might be cheaper to buy one ready cut than a whole sheet to cut yourself. If you don't quit get the right size, maybe a bit big, you can cut it to size easily. Wood burning stoves are quite simple internally, nothing special about the parts so long as they all fit it will work. For example, you can get glass, bricks, grates, and so on all from others apart from the manufacturer. For mine, after market baffle plate (steel), second grid (manufacturer), glass (after market), bricks (I made, 1st set replacements I bought from manufacturer), and it still warms the house

Google reckons about £30 an hour for skilled trades such as Electrician, Brickie, £25, Labourer £12 to 15, plus profit for their company, £600 is quite high. (I had 2 roofers half a day for £300 inc vat a couple of weeks ago) Keep advertising, word of mouth and so on, if you get forgotten about the next guy will get the work

It takes me more time to move the logs about as they dry than actualy splitting and cutting them. I don't have the space for a big pile so after splitting they get stacked, and then when dry, stacked inside the garage for the winter. I would say that the main advantage of a barn is you don't have to handle the logs as much and therefore saves time

I can't say what is was but in our house, the old owner had Harleys, alarmed the garage but not the house. 13A fuse in the garage labelled 'blaster' One of the sites where I worked alarmed their buildings and 3 months later had to put "wear ear defenders when entering" because of the number of times the alarms went off before you could reset them (3 or 4 doors to a building, 100 buildings, had to remember which door the alarm panel was behind - fixed with a code to the signage) Point here is that if you are getting an alarm, make it unpleasant to be there when it goes off... but make sure you can reset it quickly if you have neighbours. However also going with the make it take too long, too lit up, too noisy and too many cameras option too. Consider their attack as well. Are they going down the front of the house or jumping the back wall, where do you need to strengthen to make it trickier

If logs are > 20% MC they will also burn

If it is in the stove when it is burning then no problem whatever it is. Not sure exactly what you are describing, you might want to limit how long logs with the mold are in the house. I wouldn't be too worried about it - my logs have a full range of things growing on them and they all burn just as well as each other. Just reading you other comments, you might ask to get your logs delivered in March when they are freshly split and then store them yourself for the summer - might be cheaper 'unseasoned' and you will probably end up at this time of year with logs the same MC

I'll assume this is a serious question just for a moment. The question keeps saying "should I buy this, should I buy that", so adding it up what the budget might be, £40 for a winch, £20 for a new rope (I wouldn't use a climbing rope in a winch, too stretchy) and 'some wedges', 3 or 4 at £8 each? £25. plus postage, £5 each? Adds up to about £100 of "should I buy" with a quick google search, might be more, might be less. I'll assume that you have some 2 petrol made up else add another £6, also assume that yuo have suitale PPE - helmet, chainsaw prof trousers, gloves, boots etc (else add another £100?). Taking the tree to the tip? add £50 to hire a van. So a basic cost £100 to buy the stuff he wants. How much would a professional charge to fell this tree? £200 if it is simple maybe? Fell it in one go, he can chop it up. My point here is the leap from what he want is willing spend to buy the kit to getting a fuly insured and competent tree surgeon in isn't atually that great. Just the willingness to 'should I buy' stuff puts my mind in doubt that this is serious. The other option is that he wants to fell other trees and wants the kit.. in which case some sort of training might be handy, and a bigger saw

Leaf blower? I just use the mower, it picks them up, cuts them up a bit, and puts them in the collecting bag. Mind if a leaf blower will annoy the neignbours more....

That's the point, the logs as they dry send their moisture out into the air creating warm moist air. Warm air rises to sit just underneath the roof. If you could measure it, it will be more moist under than above the roof. If this is a problem for you then create more air flow under the roof so this moist air can escape and be replaced by drier air from outside. A cheap fan can do this, I wouldn't bother, it wouldn't cause me any worry.

That condensation under the roof, the moisture comes from where..... If it drips back on the wood it's only going back where it started. If it worries you a lot you could get a -probably- cheap solar / battery powered fan to run on at dusk to create some air flow under the roof, will dry the wood out qucker too

Are you looking for lumps of wood or for wood chip? If it is wood chip then a call around the local tree surgeons should see you get more than enough... but you might need to be prepared to accept a couple of tonnes at a time. Great for the garden to put under the flowers to supress the weed though.. let the neighbours have some too and hardwood lasts there longer than soft wood. Might not be able to specify a type and delivery but if you are able to wait until a suitable local job happens it should be free. Curious, I have never smoked food - what is wrong with softwoods? I assume each has its own flavour but why not?