Steven P

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)

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