i could definitely see a cheap miter saw being faster than the chain saw in this case. Still a pain, but i think you could really fly.
What's up with all you members running the old pre-EPA smoke dragons?
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I did the same a couple years ago. Bought a cord of wood from the local Boy Scout troop. About a third of it was too long. Chop saw was the fastest and I think safest way to deal with it.
It's a minor factor in my reluctance to get a new stove - I cut for the old monster, that can take 28" w/ room to spare, so I have lots of wood in the 24-28" range, I'm guessing I'd have to cut down 50% or more of my existing pile, possibly 90% if it was one of these stoves that only takes 18" logs or less... I picked up a 2nd hand 10" radial arm saw a few months back, nice heavy B&D unit, may have been a formal rental-tool. for $25, with a stand... I figured that if I needed to cut the pile I'd build a jig for the radial arm and go to town with it.
Gooserider
Gooserider
Gooserider said:
Goose:
For some odd reason the bulk of the local wood in lots are 24". Most stoves are too small, buyers need to cut down. Guess it makes a face cord, one half full cord, and easy to calculate. I think the longer box gives a 20-30% longer burn, right? Do you see an advantage in the large old monster?
UncleRich said:
I agree the 24" length makes for easy cord figuring, but it's oversize for just about anything in a modern stove - modern stoves seem to run 16-21" for max log lengths on average, some are maybe an inch or so longer. The few wood guys I checked around here were doing 16-18", which also works for figuring a cord and gives fewer short lengths if cutting from log length.
As to burn length, the longer box doesn't seem to do much for me. It might if the stove was as efficient as an EPA stove, and was as big in the other dimensions but it is fairly small vertically and front to back so I can't get that many splits in. The useable firebox volume is probably only about 2.7 cu ft. Since I cut to considerably less than that, but not short enough to go end to end, I effectively only get about 2 cu ft per load at best. Since I don't get useful secondary burn, the net result is that I typically get about 6 hours max time when the blower is working, which is my definition of "useful heat". The stove holds coals for ages, and I can do relights after 24 hours w/o problems, sometimes after 36hrs but it doesn't put out much heat for most of that time.
The ONLY advantage that I see to the old monster is that we already own it. If we were going to purchase a stove, I would never even consider paying for one like what we have. (Might take it as a gift, but then we're cheap...) The EPA stoves seem to have much better firebox configurations, some hold as much or more wood, and get more heat out of every split. I don't see any good reason other than already owning one to go with a pre-EPA stove. (Note that I'm not married to the label - if someone had a non-labeled stove that I was convinced had a safe design and incorporated EPA equivalent secondary burn, that would be fine with me - say a "Corie Special" for instance....)
Gooserider
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