It’s that time of year ....

[Touch0Gray]

It is getting better yes. But it took lots of money mostly from our tax dollars to clean it up and setup treatment systems for mine drainage. But there are some that may never recover.

Considering the 16 miles of steel mills in Johnstown are empty, the rusted shells by now, with all of the marketable materials bought and scrapped to make new steel overseas, the coal mines slowed to a crawl because they were no longer needed to produce raw material for coke, I sure hope they are improving. Fact is plenty of people are still heating with coal considering there are "86 coal powered plants have a capacity of 107.1 GW, or 9.9% of total U.S. electric capacity, they emitted 5,389,592 tons of SO2 in 2006 – which represents 28.6% of U.S. SO2 emissions from all sources."

Wood is essentially a renewable resource, if a tree dies, and falls to the forest floor and decomposes, it releases all the same carbon that is released during combustion, albeit at an accelerated rate.

 

[webby3650]

2 of 3 wood burners around here have a constant smoke plume, 24/7 the entire heating season, year after year. No one would ever know I’m burning anything... I’d rather see a tree rotting than entire valleys filled with pungent smoke day after day.

 

[Touch0Gray]

2 of 3 wood burners around here have a constant smoke plume, 24/7 the entire heating season, year after year. No one would ever know I’m burning anything... I’d rather see a tree rotting than entire valleys filled with pungent smoke day after day.

I agree, I almost never see or smell smoke from my chimney, it helps that it is 40 feet tall, but I try to burn clean dry wood all the time. There are a LOT of outside wood burners here, a chimney that terminates 15 feet from the ground is horrible and these people burn old telephone poles I think.

 

[edyit]

There are a LOT of outside wood burners here, a chimney that terminates 15 feet from the ground is horrible and these people burn old telephone poles I think.

You and I have the same neighbors?

 

[Touch0Gray]

You and I have the same neighbors?

Either that or the reason people buy outside burners is to burn old telephone poles. There was a guy living across the street from us decades ago (we still lived in town) who actually burned old railroad ties! Gak! That was disgusting, that may have been the primary cause of climate change all by itself! (exaggerating, of course, not about the railroad ties, about the climate change)

 

[peakbagger]

Railroad ties when chipped and burned properly burn quite clean . Unfortunately a home burner is not going to have the gear or the brains to do it properly.

 

[edyit]

One of my neighbors has an OWB, he gets his logs dropped off around June, cuts and splits them around October and starts burning them near the beginning of November. Tells me I'm nuts to store all that wood, it gets too dry and burns too fast..... meanwhile he's "burning" green wood, on the damp chilly days, like this time of year he smokes out half the road.

 

[Touch0Gray]

Railroad ties when chipped and burned properly burn quite clean . Unfortunately a home burner is not going to have the gear or the brains to do it properly.

yeah...he had a burner made from and oil drum, a 15 foot single wall steel flue/chimney in a tin shed next to his trailer and cut a hole in the wall of each to blow the heat into the trailer. If my memory serves me, he usually had a bottle of cheap brandy in his hand. :rolleyeys:

 

[heavy hammer]

I work with plenty of guys who pull any wood out of the pole dumpsters to burn in their out door burners. Many even say the greener the wood the better it lasts longer and not as hot of a fire compared to nice seasoned wood. You would think that tells you something right there. Plus I love hearing about the wet black tar stuff dripping from their chimney stack. Like I said you think seeing that would answer their own questions if they are doing it right.

 

[begreen]

We're going through a cold March. Burning more wood now than we did a month ago. No complaints, but I am dipping into the hardwood stash. The ash buildup is significant compared to doug fir.

 

[Woody Stover]

We're going through a cold March. Burning more wood now than we did a month ago. No complaints, but I am dipping into the hardwood stash. The ash buildup is significant compared to doug fir.

After a couple months of no cold, I started not caring if I was burning up my good stuff or not. I brought up Hickory and Black Locust, just for the heck of it. Watch, next winter we'll be in the deep freeze, and I'll be regretting my folly.

 

[SpaceBus]

We're going through a cold March. Burning more wood now than we did a month ago. No complaints, but I am dipping into the hardwood stash. The ash buildup is significant compared to doug fir.

I feel the same way with Balsam Fir/Spruce compared to the small stash of hard maple I have. The bark on the Balsam fir is only a few mm thick, even on the older trees. I feel like I can go weeks on cleaning out the Cookstove ashes, but the Morso is now burning mostly maple (and pretty much only at night) and it fills so fast.

 

[Touch0Gray]

Weather has moderated, saw my first groundhog dead on the road yesterday. (the REAL groundhogs day, no self respecting groundhog comes out of hibernation on February 2nd). I am splitting up a lot of kindling because I have to start lots of fires. I never need to start a fire from November to the beginning of March, I always have a bed of coals.

 

[peakbagger]

The orange road ban signs are starting to pop up in my area. The frost heaves are definitely very obvious and the paved street that runs through my neighborhood is definitely showing a lot of rough spots. Once the road ban goes in, the traffic is limited to 5 tons in my town, 6 tons with a lot of other towns. If we get late season snow and they town has to get the plows out, they usually take some pavement with them once the road bans are on as it usually means the roads are flowing on layer of wet mud on top of ice. A lot of rural towns have dirt roads and high clearance 4x4s is about the only way to get around until things thaw out.

The folks out in the woods logging may have good conditions but once the bans go on many cannot move their wood. The pulp mill I worked for would try to have 30 days of wood in the yard prior to mud season, around 50, 000 tons of wood, it would be piled everywhere and a lot of the contractors would have stockpiles of logs stashed adjacent to state highways that are not usually subject to road bans. If we had long mud season our mills wood yard would look empty near the end of the season with any deliveries going right into the chipper.

 

[SpaceBus]

The orange road ban signs are starting to pop up in my area. The frost heaves are definitely very obvious and the paved street that runs through my neighborhood is definitely showing a lot of rough spots. Once the road ban goes in, the traffic is limited to 5 tons in my town, 6 tons with a lot of other towns. If we get late season snow and they town has to get the plows out, they usually take some pavement with them once the road bans are on as it usually means the roads are flowing on layer of wet mud on top of ice. A lot of rural towns have dirt roads and high clearance 4x4s is about the only way to get around until things thaw out.

The folks out in the woods logging may have good conditions but once the bans go on many cannot move their wood. The pulp mill I worked for would try to have 30 days of wood in the yard prior to mud season, around 50, 000 tons of wood, it would be piled everywhere and a lot of the contractors would have stockpiles of logs stashed adjacent to state highways that are not usually subject to road bans. If we had long mud season our mills wood yard would look empty near the end of the season with any deliveries going right into the chipper.

The roads are really bad here on the coast. Worse than last year. The paved road near my house was just finished being rebuilt summer 2018. It looks like we live in Russia now.

 

[Touch0Gray]

The roads are really bad here on the coast. Worse than last year. The paved road near my house was just finished being rebuilt summer 2018. It looks like we live in Russia now.

Roads everywhere are crumbling, quite a few around here are past the point of repair and will need to be taken down to road bed and the pavement replaced.

 

[kennyp2339]

Nothing like you guys here, again a very easy winter in NNJ, only one real snow in the beginning of Dec, actually yesterday the temp topped off at 72 deg f, mud season was feb here, we had a decent amount of rain then some night time freezing temps and thaw in day light, the ground now is pretty much damp, but firm, firm enough for me to start making plans to take the tractor into the yard to continue moving last falls dirt pile, grade it out for more grass and wood stacks. Such a contrast to the peeps up north, but for once I'm not complaining of a lack of winter, I loaded the wood rack in the garage, usually that rack will last me around 8-10 days of 24/7 burning, I think with the rack filled now and shoulder season here that rack will be it and there might be surplus left over to go back out into the shed come mid April, if that's the case then total wood consumption for the season would be about 2 1/4 cords burnt, my lowest ever since starting 8 years ago, my normal consumption was about 4 solid cords.

 

[peakbagger]

GIve it 20 years and Hearth.com will have wood fired air conditioner forum (and yes there could be wood fired air conditioners).

 

[SpaceBus]

GIve it 20 years and Hearth.com will have wood fired air conditioner forum (and yes there could be wood fired air conditioners).

I really hope domestic scale wood fired electricity becomes possible.

 

[peakbagger]

Much more likely that someone comes up with a small absorption chiller. The smallest one I know of is 5 ton. Meanwhile I am still waiting for Dean Kamen to find someone to build his Sterling engine he uses to heat and power his mansion.

 

[Mech e]

Much more likely that someone comes up with a small absorption chiller. The smallest one I know of is 5 ton. Meanwhile I am still waiting for Dean Kamen to find someone to build his Sterling engine he uses to heat and power his mansion.

Arkla Servel made residential natural gas absorption ACs in the 70s. I installed a few. In the end, they were more expensive to purchase, operate, and repair compared to an electric unit. A wood fired unit? Sounds like a fun DIY project but not commercially viable.

 

[heavy hammer]

We had temps in the mid 60's yesterday. Still some winter left but not a bad one at all just more wet and mud than anything. Who knows maybe 60's in January is not far off.

 

[MoDoug]

This was my first winter with a wood stove. I planned on having it installed last winter but I didn't, however I did get a good start on my wood supply for last year, or so I thought. Fortunately this was a very mild winter and my wood supply barely got me through, it gave me a good gauge for the future. I really enjoy the wood stove, but the anticipation of spring morels and crappie fishing will make it a lot easier to shut the stove down for the season.

 

[firefighterjake]

Sad to say Space Bus, but you are few years late to this site. There was a potter that would report out on experiments with wood fired pottery kilns and report on his progress. I havent seen him post any shots of his adventures in kiln firing for a couple of years but it was interesting stuff.

Plus he had the best Hearth.com name . . . Adios Pantalones . . . wonder what ever happened to him?

 

[firefighterjake]

I actually don't mind the end of the burning season . . . mostly because I slowly begin to cut back on the number of fires so it isn't a chore . . . plus it's still cool in the mornings and evenings so fires are still nice to chase away the chill.