A woodstore several days ago.
I keep a lookout for these now and note the rising popularity of wood burners. In a stand of sensible, although superior, new-build houses a small woodstore was provided as a standard next to the dustbin.
This was a grander one cut in to a hill in woodland - presumably contributing the fuel - so it had a bluebell wood just above it.
18 comments:
I was able to keep my youngest daughter supplied with fuel for her Rayburn through out the whole of last winter with wood out of skips by the roadside.
We're planing a wood store for later on this year.
Very wise, Bill. A generous gift when you consider how much gas and oil cost.
And you can't grow future gas and oil in your garden!
That's a pretty spectacular wood store, though. My chinmey kinda fell in a bit on itself during last winter so needs some attention soonish.
On a vaguely related note i've become slightly obsessed with hedges & topiary and the skill and random good luck that is required to be in any way proud - it's quite amazing how many people either don't know or don't care that much of their hedge is dead. Ho hum.
Tom Petty is into hedges...
writes the occasional nice tune, too.
Dick, this hedge is worth seeing some time.
Wood piles are great. The woods where we walk the dogs are full of fallen trees.
That's an impressive wood store!
Mine is the size of the section on the far left. I have found a supplier who sells me wood for a fantastic price. Cherry, Ash, Norwegian Spruce, and all as dry as a nuns chuff.
The last bugger charged me 90 quid and the guy who fitted our multi-fuel burning stove measured it with a dampometer*. It was over 50% water!
CR.
* Made up word. I do not know what his doohickey was called.
In respect of growing oil, JuliaM, that rather depends on the size of your garden. The monstrous acerage of oil seed rape is needed for the 5% biodiesel required these days. It must be affecting food prices by now, the amount of land it is taking out of food production.
Perhaps if you are fixing your chimney, DtP, you could look at having the flue lined and a natty feature woodburner fitted? It's becoming quite the thing to have an effective back-up heating system for if the French get funny about selling us electricity or if the Russians squeeze the gas pipes again. I agree that we don't appreciate hedges nearly enough. They are an under-used method of creating sheltered gardens, damping noise and helping to give the city air a good scrub overnight. It can be difficult to keep them alive in drought conditions, though.
Is Tom Petty going to do a show with Alan Titchmarsh, RWG?
Regarding fallen trees, Lilith, if nobody sees you grab it, does it count as having been removed?
I wonder if tree surgeons have a side-line in selling-on the wood they've cut down, Captain Ranty?
That's a fabulous wood store. I only hope mine looks as good in a few years.
Cap'n - you will break your heart trying to get any heat out of wood of more than 20% moisture content. It uses all its energy drying itself out and has none left for you. Anything over 20% is not firewood, really. You really need something around 10% or even less. My year-old stuff is now about 5% and goes off like a Fukushima fuel rod.
I think yours may be better functionally, Richard, as you've gone to the trouble of making a raised floor. Despite the handiness this site is a cool and shady spot so the fuel might be damper than is ideal.
The raised floor is essential, as the ground there is very damp. Even so, with a couple of tonnes in the verticals are already sinking into the soil, despite being buried about 2 foot down. I need to do some work on shoring it up, and I have some old telegraph poles that will be perfect for that. Ranty, get yourself a moisture meter (they can be expensive, but I got mine from a Morso dealer for a tenner) and then phone around for suppliers, and tell them that it is for immediate use and that anything above 20% will not be accepted. Check the wood before he drops it off the truck and reject it if it doesn't meet your requirements. The stuff I get is £130 for a load (about 2 cube, say 1.5 tonnes) and it is always around 20-22%. After 6 months out of the weather, it's perfect.
Quite a few of my friends are very glad of their solid fuel fires/stoves and wood stores. Oddly I'm planning on getting one of those lovely modern clean burning stoves shoved into the corner of my sitting room. Just in case the power goes again on a colder day this year - plus of course no tax on wood picked up from around and about.
Beware - it's addictive.
My mates and I go wild camping a lot.
We usually leave a pile of logs in the woods too.
My late uncle kept a modest wood store and stocked the logs in a pattern designed to aid drying during storage.
Three layers laid front-to-back (as per the illustrated woodstore), the next layer laid laterally at the front and back of the stack but not in the middle, then three front-to-back, then one laterally and so on. The lateral layers ensured a good flow of air through the stack to assist drying.
He was a fine man, 15 pints on a Friday night at his peak. I miss him enormously.
There is a way of stacking wood in cords which allows the wood to shed any rainwater quickly and still allow circulation of air, similar to what you describe. In theory, you can season wood in the open like this. In Wales, I trust to a nice corrugated roof with a decent overhang.
I liked the design of woodstore based on the shape of a rowing boat stood on end. It doesn't hold the volume of a conventional shape but if it has to be in a place where it will be seen, it is more of a sculptural feature than utility storage.
http://silvertop-designs.com/?page_id=92
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