There are less warm days and more cold days at this point, getting into the freezing temperatures during the night and mornings. Feels like last year this all started a few weeks earlier, but now its late November and its time to turn on the central wood boiler. Gonna start getting my firewood workout on.
It begins with adding some small twigs and branches, along with some packing paper I saved for this. It makes great tinder, and once the fire gets going its time to throw on bigger logs and get the furnace up to temp.
When I turned it on the water was 70F (21C) inside, but I will get it all the way up to 185F (85C). This takes a few hours but eventually the firewood inside the wood furnace will warm up the water jacket that surrounds it. 420 gallons of water needs to be warmed up, so it is not something that instantly happens.
We piled up a nice pile of wood, could have stacked it but did not.. oh well.
Over by the barn where I keep extra firewood there is much to cut up, and many logs in the back ready to be brought over.
Having firewood of all different sizes help, as when building the fire I may need small, medium or just large pieces.. Depending on what it looks like in the furnace at the time. My second year in I am learning about all of this stuff.
I was surprised when I found a mint plant growing over by the wood pile. Not sure if a seed blew over here or maybe my foreman or his wife planted this here. I certainly did not plant it.
All of this wood is well aged now, cut nearly a year ago. It should break up nicely and make for a nice fire.
It is quite the stack, once I get to the bottom it will be time to build another stack. All of this wood comes from scrub trees so its all slender logs and branches.
I see no point to cut up more wood until I go through this. Otherwise the ants and termites will eat it before my wood furnace can burn it.
We keep a pile of what I call "emergency firewood". It is some well aged wood that is split. So in the case the wood furnace is having trouble burning something that is a little too green or damp. I can throw a couple of these pieces in and keep the fire going well. Also if I use up all my firewood we have this to use.
I bring my Kobota UTV over and its time to start loading up wood to bring over to the wood furnace.
Using tools like a sawzall, lobbers and some glasses and gloves is all I need.
Eventually I will go through this entire pile of brush.
We have a collection of bigger logs as well. May need to cut those up as they weigh a good 100 or so pounds each.
Another pile of wood ready to go, this year we are ready. Any time we cut up some trees we brought it over since last winter.
A chair just chilling in the back of the pile. Oh man its quite the mess, but rather have this than no wood at all.
To stack it all I would need to cut them, so I did not do that.. Just piled them up.
About an hour or so of cutting up wood, I have a UTV bed full of firewood ready to go over by the furnace.
I need to bring over a few of these a day when its cold. When its warmer we tend not to use as much.
Loving this UTV, I got a second one on order and should get here by December. Really excited for it, but in the mean time I will use this workhorse.
After cutting for an hour, it barely put a dent in the pile.. Thats a good thing..lol
And the cycle repeats.. Burn firewood > Shovel out ash > Collect more firewood > Start over to step one
I will be doing that until April I am guessing. The more cold it is, the more wood we use, so depending on how cold we get is how long this pile will last. And as soon as its almost up its time to find more firewood. Luckily I am surrounded by forest and there is always massive downed trees caused by storms, the question is how easy is it to get to that wood.
But for now I have a messy pile of wood to go through, but it will not last forever.
