Steven P

My tool of choice is AutoCad and certainly that is possible with that - if you break that down to the basics you need to read from an excel file 11 columns of data, then take that info to position a circle or ellipse? and some text based on coordinates in excel. BricsCAD should be able to do the same which is cheaper, for 2d only BricsCAD lite might work?. I am not sure about Rhino, it doesn't come up often in CAD forums that I read, you might now though, can you do any automation with it, like excel Macros, AutoCAD uses LISPs - if you can there are loads of examples out there to do mostly what you want. Even easier if you can save the excel file as a CSV file type. If you go to CADtutor.net, someone might know enough there to help out before you spend any cash on software.

Pallets - if they are still whole then you are usually OK to go through the stringers with a saw. My preference is to assume they are kindling, use a decent piece of wood to prize them apart - crow bar if you must, then just split the planks lengthways. At half or third width, a decent hit with the axe chops them into length

and there are after market suppliers who might have a baffle that is close enough to the original if you can get dimensions (even dimensions from inside the stove)

He knows now, perhaps he can finally tell us exactly how long a piece of string is?

Setting a price.. what do your potential competetors charge? and what units do they sell by? that will more than likely set your prices than a calculation based on the weight you buy, and the weight of dried wood you sell

'through an internal wall' - what is this made from? You'll need to take into account whether the flue could ignite the internal wall, any ceiling or surrounding materials (look above any ceiling too). I think that 2x 45 degree bends are OK, can't remember if there is a minimum separation between them and also a minimum from the top of the stove, partly so that the sweep brushes and rods can navigate through. Draw - depends a lot on the overall height of the system, 8 or 9' out of the shop part of the building, if you can get a 6' section on top of the stove as well then my mind says this is about the height of a bungalow - and stoves get installed OK and work OK in them. A lot of this depends on temperature difference (you get a better draw the day after a fire than when there wasn't a fire)., hot air rises

'safe to use the wood burner this winter' to me sounds like you have the wood burner there and ready to go, just checking that the chimney is OK? It doesn't look any worse than mine did and the sweep didn't find any problems. The chimney liner makes the wood burner more efficient (well it is really the register plate at the bottom which blocks up the big hole with only the stove chimney poking through that does it), it isn't necessary to have a liner but the fires do work better with it and the lined chimney is cleaner. If you arn't sure then a chimney sweep can advise best

How heavy is a 'bag' of 'wood' My comment will be the type of wood, hard woods? Oak has a density between 600 to 900kg/m3, Balsa at the extreme about 125kg/m3, both are hardwoods. Green oak (lets use oak since everyone wants that) might be 50% heavier than oak at 20% moisture content (as an example) Is the wood measured in an actual builders bag that is stretchy or perhaps into a box or other container that isn't? How is the wood put into the bag? thrown in, dropped of the end of a conveyor, stacked neatly or roughly stacked? There are many variables and it is unusual to see wood sold by weight - mostly by a volume. There is no set volume either, a load, a 'ton' bag, a builders bag, a boot full, a tipper load, trailer load, or a net bag (from the petrol station.... which is the most likely to be sold be 'weight') As for weight, that is tricky to specify

I was told be a shepherds wife once that a sheeps whole goal in life is to die, they'd probably hang about that tree just waiting.

Second comment on this that is sometimes overlooked is that for domestic work, the customer will sometimes ask for the wood to be left, sometimes to be taken away. Are all jobs priced such that any wood taken is to be processed or is that a nice occasional bonus when you can take a couple of tones of oak to process into firewood to sell on and a nice pain in the butt when you take a couple of tonnes of laylandi - taking the wood away is a nice customer service either way, the profit is in the tree work itself.

Regulations - if it met the regulations when installed you are OK even if they have changed I think, for a new install or upgrade you will need to meet the current ones.

You're a bit far away from me but.....I'd do that if needed and if the logs were delivered (to collect them from my local tree surgeons tip, 20 minute round trip for a car boot full, another 10 minutes cleaning the boot of tree bits (got a newer car this week.. it will stay clean till then end of September), and what, 10 car boots to a tipper load, 6 hours of collecting, almost quicker to give you a hand for a day!) As for 'free' - yup that would be great but it has to be mutually beneficial to everyone, if you were close to my drive on the way to your usual tip site (East Kilbride by the way......) it might make sense if your work day is shorter for it, or if you need to get back to finish the job. Drive half way across the county to mine for free doesn't make sense, and you might want me to chip in for petrol money and driving time. Got to be realistic.

As above, my first fan was a £50 one from an online store, the next one is a £18 (I think) Aldi one, both stove top fans, and both about the same, I noticed the difference when the first one stopped but not necessarily when I bought it. A slow steady jet of air coming out the fire place, point the fan at the living room door and it sort of sends it to the hall to go upstairs. I reckon the stove top fans at this price the thermoelectric generator are vey similar, and the difference will be the heat sink and fan design. The greater the temperature difference the more power you get from it... so a larger heat sink and a better fan design sends more hot air out. However I don't know how many of these are designed by professors in thermodynamics and how many are designed by a Chinese man (mostly made in China), scrap of paper and put together it sort of works. I suspect there are more Chinese men making these than there are professors. If you want you can get a basic fan and heat sink and spend the same again to get an upgraded generator for a little more power (I haven't yet, got the old one to do that with sometime), and even more power? Try thinking of a water cooler for the 'cold' side but that is going a little far I think My next one will be a Sterling engine fan just for the aesthetics.

Just a thought, are both the farmers land owners or are either of them tenants? Giving them a little credit that they are telling the truth. If their tenancy is just the fields, and they don't work the woodland or pay for it, they might not know exactly who owns it (however I bet they could find the landowners number in 5 minutes if they ever needed to if there was a problem that affected their land).

You can try the bricks but I suspect that you will need a few to make a difference, to storage heaters I had had about 40kg of bricks in, we had them downstairs, nothing upstairs so that is about 12kg of hot bricks per room to heat up and move about. This is what you need, fill it full of ash, shove it in the bed just before bedtime, take it out just before the sheets start burning.

Firelighters are just solid paraffin really

Always ask permission first, there are a lot of reasons why wood is left 'lying around', could be that where it is is a better store - for now - than taking it back and filling up a yard till it is needed,. could be that there isn't quite enough there to fill some kind of transport and waiting a season more to fill a truck, could be that it is left there for the beasties to eat, or it might be hard to extract and not economic. Most people don't wander in the woods with a saw just to cut a tree down for no reason and no plan what to do with it. In the last cases, if it isn't viable to pay some ones wages to take the wood away then asking the landowner might get you the answer you want. A good option is the local tree surgeons or the tip site, but you have to be patient and accept that you will get wood if it is better to drop it off at yours than their yard (ie a shorter journey), might get 2 loads in weeks and then nothing for a year. Some people might appreciate a contribution to petrol costs, some a beer and some nothing but they get home half an hour early that day. One of mine has a tip that I have permission to go to you might get that arrangement instead, When it comes to 'helping yourself' no one is going to complain if your kids pick up a stick to take home but if you turn up with a car, trailer, van, saws and so on and no permission then you are open to all sorts of landowner complaints and whatever else they want (best case, they make you empty your carefully collected load and then put in in their own vehicle to take home, thanks for doing the hard work for them!) So rule of thumb, get permission first or ask a local tree surgeon if they can spare any

Multifuel... the hottest fires I tend to have are a mix, get a base fire going with coal and then add logs on top, hotter than that are the coal with chainsaw dust on top, that tends to get things a little bit glowing and rattling. For general all day long fire I'll stick to logs. Did I read somewhere that with the hot ashes built up around the grate it is in slight danger of getting too hot and shorter lifespan (ash has some insulation properties). With a wood grate / base there is cold on the bottom to keep it cool, with ash taken out there is an air flow going past it keeping it cool, cover it all with ashes and all you have is heat... and before you say it doesn't get that hot in there, look at the state of any nails you pull out (certainly I've had a couple with weak welds) and with a good hot fire the edges of the firebox glowing (see above... coal + saw dust does that nicely)

Yup, that is what I understand too, all the land is owned by someone somewhere and what is on the land is theirs so taking it you should ask for permission. In reality a child picking up a stick to play with isn't going to cause much trouble, but turn up in full safety gear, with tools, saws, and so on and you are asking for someone to ask what you are doing. The land registry (or registers Scotland) will tell you who owns the land.... if if it is a genuine that no one owns it.. well claim it as yours! It is however unlikely if as you say the owner hasn't done anything to the land for years that they will be passing. If it is accessed by the public then you should also get liability insurance just to be sure. How big is the limb by the way? I am not advocating this but it might be possible to carry it away with a few strong people, the log limb still belongs to someone. As for the land being left, some land is on purpose left more wild - nature likes it that way

Get it dried, bring it in the house, throw it on the fire straight away.... We had (have?) woodworm in some floorboards, I did some reading. House wood has been treated now though the stuff I used doesn't penetrate the wood very far, what is in there is still munching away but when they try to get out they eat the stuff and die. Yup woodworm beetles come out of the wood to breed and there is about a month when they do this, each beetle lives outside the wood for only a few days (or weeks, I can't remember) - just checked April to August, in the winter the larva are busy munching away in the wood. Wood goes onto fire, end of that one. I am not convinced that they have a calendar in there so if you bring cold wood into the house and it warms up, the larva might just think it is breeding season and come out mid winter - how quick it does this I don't know. The tip here is to only bring in what you need.then burn it You might be unlucky and get woodworm from firewood, I am not convinced about mine reckoning I had 2 lifecycles of 7 years happen for the floorboard to give way and the fire had been in for7 years then. I would however recommend treating the wood in the house just as a precaution - a DIY job but awkward depends where you have to go (I was under the floorboard in the crawl space spraying it all) - can be done as and when you get access to the floorboards (say when you get a new carpet perhaps) As a matter or routine I tend to knock my logs together now as well before I bring them in, knocks most beasties off, and if you are delivering to customers in the winter transporting the logs should also knock off any loose bugs reducing the likelihood of taking beetles to customers houses

I used to use paper till I stopped commuting to the office and didn't pick up a daily free paper, firelighters now just for speed. I could of course split up wood kindling and no need but that gets to be a long job for a fire ever day. I tend to go bottom up but put enough bigger pieces on top so it goes if I get distracted. Top down works just as well though and if I thought about it would probably go sort of middle-out

.. but it is 'home'.....

You should stop.. not wanting to do it a disservice, but it was a lovely town once (grew up near there). Says something when the Weatherspoons is right next door to the DSS, get your cheque and be buying beer with it within 5 minutes. I once asked a taxi driver, who knew all the town, which bits he would save rather than start again and he had to think hard about that. I guess that is the same with a lot of towns, nit wanting to be a grumpy old man, but town centres have had their hearts ripped out all over with our preference to buy all our stuff from Amazon

This is true, can't say they are all the same, however here you can spot the ones doing this as a career, to the casual passer by though, maybe not. You can also spot the genuine cases,.,,, who are less common and pushed to the outskirts by the 'professionals', the family groups who can be persuasive to the single beggars to move along to less profitable spots. I'd have to go out my way to pass by one of them.

'Fiskars have it nailed' - I reckon so, the axes you buy in our favourite DIY warehouse are very similar colourings, 'Magnusson' branded, but made for 'Kingfisher' - or B&Q If they are trying to rip off the branding there is a reason for it.