Gav73

Been doing that for over 10 years - after I saw this video on YouTube

Very occasionally get a little bit of build up on the glass, I never clean it, but miraculously it disappears quite quickly - either from the next burn cleaning it or the Mrs who’s annoyed at the slightest restrictions on her view of the flames (OCD has its uses! 😆)

This is an interesting idea, suppose I could task the kids with making the pots.

😂 @trigger_andy could buy loads of firelighters for £200!

This suggests otherwise....

This started as we had a load of old candles and an abundance of sawdust and chippings I needed to get rid of. Time really isn’t a factor as it takes less than a minute to stuff the egg carton and pour a little melted wax over the top, but if I can earn £30 a minute, I might have to give it up 😂

Those disposable cups have a layer of plastic in them - I wouldn’t want to burn them and besides, I hardly ever go to a coffee shop for a take away coffee as I’ve always got a kettle on the stove for a fresh brew

We bought and installed this stove a couple of years ago and have tried to find some info online about it without any luck. its got the names Bourguignonne and Acc no 114 on it. it has a small hot water tank, four rings on top and two ovens (one would only fit a baked spud and nothing else). anyone have any info or seen one before?

I tried this one, it works great when you’re seasoning, but when you start using some of the firewood, the pallet doesn’t staying in place because the stack isn’t even - I ended up ditching the pallet and just relying on the cover which wasn’t as good as some water got in. I’ve since upgraded all the covers to proper roofing materials. More expensive, but much more practical

Some interesting ideas. I’ve not bought any candles, just melted down any old ones I’ve got my hands on, I tried the toilet rolls idea, but found they were far bigger than I needed - it was a bit of a pain as I couldn’t bulk produce in the same way as with an egg tray or carton. Also the slab idea was great in theory, but messy and my wife struggled to break them up. The egg boxes worked well for size and ease to break a piece (one egg holder) away. I’ve not tried mixing the wax and sawdust together - might make it easier to place into a container of sorts, I may give that a try. The main thing I want to try and do is produce them in batches without having to use the B word (buy 😞) anything. I usually make them when I’m working away in the workshop with the stove on, so don’t spend much time on them.

Anyone have experience of making their own firelighters? I’ve been using sawdust and shavings rolled into a ball, put into egg cartons and drizzling melted candle wax on the top to bind the sawdust together. The egg cartons work great as they hold the material and are easy to rip apart into single firelighters. It took a while to get the consistency right, but now we find they work much better than the firelighters we used to buy. Challenge I’ve got is finding something other than egg boxes as the container for the shavings and wax - we’re not getting through as many eggs now. Anyone have any suggestions?

One of the things my youngest had to do as part of lockdown homeschooling was find as many of the common species of trees in our immediate area. Within 200 yards of the house we found 17 of the 24 species! Quite a lot of diversity for a small area.

Don’t agree with the firewood bit, I use two pickeroons (long and short handle depending on how low to the ground the wood is) for picking up the split logs as well as the rounds for splitting. It doesn’t take much longer and does save your back. Once you have the technique mastered it’s easy to pick up a piece of firewood and flick it into the wheelbarrow/trailer etc without much effort at all

Seems like the different versions of everyone’s pc’s, phones, tablets, chalk and slate etc can’t all see the clip. So here’s a still of it 👍

It’s what I’m burning at the minute! Great amount of heat coming off it IMG_0701.MOV

Just a couple of thoughts... if the diameter of the logs averages 200-300mm you might be able to get away with just a four way wedge, anything knotty or twisted might bind up a six way wedge. I use a Rock machinery venom 20M capable of splitting logs up to 1M in length and I’ve not found anything it can’t split - even a metre of length lump of (twisted to the max) eucalyptus. It’s very economical on the petrol and I’ve actually found it easier to split the logs into 1m staves which I then cut to length once they are seasoned (two stoves - one takes a 500mm log, the other a 200mm log) on a Forest Master BLS4 Bulk Log Saw Horse. I used to cut all the logs to the required lengths, split them, then wheelbarrow them to the log stores and stack them. Found by doing it the other way round it was so much easier, easier to stack and a lot quicker to fill up the stores. Also found that the seasoning was a bit quicker as there were more air gaps with the longer staves. to give you something to compare with, I split a cubic metre in 15-30 mins depending on the type of wood and any twists.

I separate out as much of the “spoil” as possible, net it up and sell it as what I call “tinder” - it likes a match and gets things hot 😆

For over 10 years I’ve been burning whatever wood my friendly tree surgeons have dropped off for me to process, the only one I don’t burn is laburnum - that stuff stinks and I’m sure it’s full of nasty toxic stuff. tend to burn softwood when there’s someone in to feed the stove and use the hardwood overnight and when going out for a while. It’s worth being fussy and keeping the denser wood for when longer burn times are needed

Try contacting FSCKindling on here.

I’ve actually got some up at the front of the log store, it definitely helped with the weather, but I found it impeded the wind blowing through a little bit too much for my liking, so I have it rolled up and only down when the weather is really bad

Yes my tarps are only on the top too, the firewood sits on pallets with pallets at the sides and back to hold the stack from toppling. Masses of air flow going through. I’m always keen to find ways of being more efficient with the firewood!

I use tarps to loosely cover the firewood I’ve split from rounds while it’s seasoning, tend to find there’s quite a bit of condensation under the tarps and when the temperatures drop below zero it freezes! How does that work? Loading from one side and collecting from the other? How does the firewood move forward to allow for more to be added?

Guess you’ve been lucky then. The snow during the recent cold spell blew into my log store - even though it has a 3’ overhanging roof at the front. Once it melts, it leaves everything damp!

I always have at least 3 days supply in baskets next to the stove, so even when the wood is damp (from the Scottish climate) by the time I go to burn it, it’s as dry as needed. Simples.

Main difference is the forest master one can be set up for any size firewood you want, I looked at these, but preferred the flexibility of the forest master one