What can you tell me about wood?

If you have a straight chimney and want to clean it, here is a good cheap way. First you will need to get up to the top of your chimney. Get a ladder and make sure you are safe. Do not fall off or it will hurt. A lot ... Get a sturdy rope longer than the chimney is tall. Get a burlap sack and some chains or medium sized rocks. Full the burlap bag with the chains or rocks so that it is just a few inches smaller than the chimney is wide. Tie the rope to the bag securely and lower the bag slowly into the chimney. Let the bag slowly drop to the bottom.

*****IMPORTANT****** Make sure that the flue is open and that you have very carefully sealed the fireplace closed with a heavy cloth or plastic and some duct tape. You do not want to fill your house with soot!!!

Now, slowly raise and lower the sack several times the full length of the chimney, This will scrape off any loose soot that has built up. Clean up the fireplace carefully and you are set to go. Sure, you can go buy an expensive chimney brush but this works almost as well.

Best to get a pro to do this for you every year as they have the tools and take care of the mess, but this will work in a pinch.

Originally posted by Asktheanimals
Since you're burning wood from fallen trees just avoid any that has vines clinging to it. Poison Ivy will spread in the air by burning as a poster above mentioned. So unless you know what poison ivy looks like just avoid any wood that has vines attached.
As far as getting critters in your woodpile that can be avoided by careful stacking and leaving space between rows. Also put some blocks or bricks underneath the stacks to keep it off the ground. Wood thrown into random piles will definitely attract insects, toads and snakes.

I left some of the big stuff on the ground so I need to get it up to avoid snakes. Thanks.

Good advice about the vines. Thanks.

reply to post by Terapin


That's pretty cool! I don't see me on the roof either. I hired an expert to clean it when I moved in, but you never know, it might come in handy to know how to do it myself.

reply to post by NotThat


Any snakes in a wood pile, would only be there for the insects or other food they could find there. Keep the wood off the ground so it gets air, and if snakes worry you, bang on the wood pile with a stout branch before you take any wood. The banging will scare off any snakes who are more scared of you than you are of them. Snakes like sunlight so wont be hiding deep in a wood pile for very long. Here in the US snakes like to live in holes in the ground when they are not getting sun. Woodpiles do not offer them the same protection or even temperatures that a hole in the ground does.

I have lived in the Amazon rainforest, and the jungles of Borneo and never once had any problems with snakes. Let them know you are there and they will simply go away.

God bless my holly Husqvarna! If you take care it can be long long friendship. You can also burn pine (i.e. without soot troubles) if you have good stove with dual burning - first you generate "wood gas" (even cars can use it as fuel) and then you burn it with sufficient oxygen income. And clean your chimney at least every fall.

Originally posted by Terapin

I have lived in the Amazon rainforest, and the jungles of Borneo and never once had any problems with snakes. Let them know you are there and they will simply go away.

You sound like an interesting person to know! Thanks for all your help. Banging the rack pile is a good idea. It would chase away other things besides snakes, too.

The four foot rack I bought is almost full and I have maybe half as much stacked on the ground to use for the outside firepit. How much wood do most people burn in a winter?

Originally posted by zeddissad
God bless my holly Husqvarna! If you take care it can be long long friendship.

Is that a type of tree or the name of a stove? What is a dual burner?

reply to post by NotThat


Husquavarna is a famous brand of chain saw. How much wood? . . . Well it all depends on your local climate, and if wood will be your only heat source. I have friends who go through two cords of wood and others who only use half a cord. In my opinion, you can never have too much wood. If you don't burn it in the first year, you can use it the next and then you will get an idea of how much you need in general.

Wood stoves are more efficient than fireplaces, but you will need to have it installed and you can not simply put it in your fireplace as they have specific chimney requirements. Most states require that you install a chimney liner so there is added cost. If you plan on using wood to heat your home a wood stove is the way to go. If you just want a fire now and then a fireplace is fine.

Dual burner stoves have a secondary burning system to burn the wood gasses that usually escape up the chimney, and thus they can also burn of much of the soot and thereby allow you to burn Pine.

The house I grew up in was built around 1720 and had a huge central chimney. Two fireplaces in the second floor and three downstairs, plus a much larger " kitchen" fireplace on a separate chimney. We also had a Dutch Oven in one of the chimneys which allowed for baking bread or other Oven meals. You could keep a fire going in the central chimney, and it heated up the chimney mass so that the warm bricks would then keep the house warm. Each fireplace also had a crane arm so you could cook over the fire or heat water if you wished, by hanging a pot over the fire.

reply to post by Terapin


Hey, I was going to ask you how much wood was in a cord but first I clicked on the dark"cord" on your last post and got an answer! How fancy is that!!

So I have about half a cord. That's not too bad for free. I'll keep on looking. It has become a sort of treasure hunt. I fill up the back seat of my car with wood and go home, and add it to my stack.

I bought a ventless gas stove for my last house but the pilot was always going out and I had to lay on the floor to peer at a tiny gauge to re-light it. I didn't like it very much.

I was going to buy a pellet stove but they need electricity to shake the ash out of the pellets to keep it burning, and my area had frequent power outages. I didn't think a back-up battery would work well for a week long power outage.

I thought wood or coal would be too heavy for me to lug. I thought you had to empty the ash every few days and I didn't know what to do with it. It seemed complicated. But here in my new house I have a fireplace. I have burned a few fake logs this winter and didn't burn the house down. I enjoyed it so much that I decided to buy real wood so I could have bigger fires. Then all the trees came down - and here I am with free wood.

I got a shop vac for Christmas and it has a special filter and bag for fireplace ash. It looks really easy - not complicated at all

I saw a picture of a house with a central stone fireplace like the one you grew up with but I never came across one in person. I think I would like a house like that as long as someone else took care of all the fires!

I figured that you might ask about cords, and that is why I put in the hyperlink for you to click on. That website is a good general resource you can learn the basics from. Hope it helps.

Those shop vacs work great for fireplaces, but be very sure that all the embers have gone cold before you try to use it. I know people who have set their shop vac on fire when an ember smoldered inside the vac. You can dump ashes in the garden as it is great for the soil, or spread it around under bushes. Again, make sure there are no hot coals.




[edit on 10/3/10 by Terapin]

Another trick that might be useful if you don't have much experience using a fireplace.

• Make sure the damper is open before attempting to light the fire. Obvious, I know but smoke coming back into the room is definitely unpleasant and I have been caught out more than once.
  
  
• Remember that cold air sinks. If you've just opened the damper and it is cold outside, you WILL have a column of outside temperature air in the chimney. That column of cold air does exactly the same job as a closed damper when it comes to forcing the smoke to back up into the room, ever heard the term 'temperature inversion'?. The secret is to warm up the chimney air before trying to light the fire.
  
• I generally use a 'torch' made of wadded up newspaper to do the job. Scrunch up a newspaper page (or two) into a torch about a foot long and an inch or so thick light it and hold it up inside the chimney at about the level of the damper two pre-warm the chimney air. Don't burn yourself.
  
• You may find that the smoke from this torch does back up into the room for the first few seconds. This is usually because you haven't been able to stick it far enough up the chimney and there isn't enough room for the smoke to be held inside. In practice, this seldom happens to me, but it is just a tiny bit of smoke compared to that generated by the newly lit kindling.
  
• I find that it usually doesn't take much warming to solve the problem and one 'torch' does the job. YMMV, especially on very cold days.
  
  

Originally posted by Terapin
I figured that you might ask about cords, and that is why I put in the hyperlink for you to click on. That website is a good general resource you can learn the basics from. Hope it helps.

Those shop vacs work great for fireplaces, but be very sure that all the embers have gone cold before you try to use it. I know people who have set their shop vac on fire when an ember smoldered inside the vac. You can dump ashes in the garden as it is great for the soil, or spread it around under bushes. Again, make sure there are no hot coals.




[edit on 10/3/10 by Terapin]

Thanks for the website. I found the pictures helpful and the equation to figure out how much you are paying for a cord will be useful.

Nothing like burning the house down with a lit shop vac!

I didn't know the ash was good for the garden. Thanks.

Originally posted by rnaa[/

Make sure the damper is open before attempting to light the fire. Obvious, I know but smoke coming back into the room is definitely unpleasant and I have been caught out more than once.

My damper is always open. The guy who cleaned it suggested that I leave it open because it is very hard to open/close it and the glass fireplace doors will keep out the cold. It whistles when the wind blows and the fireplace mesh screen rattles but it hasn't been a problem with the temperature.

I haven't had a problem with smoke in the house but I have only burned fake logs so far. They don't put off much smoke. I will remember the newspaper trick. Thanks.

I was told that most people use a different type of fake log, called a fire starter, to use with wood.

The directions on the fake logs say that you have to keep the glass doors open until the fire is totally out because the fire is hot enough to break the glass. Is that also true for a wood fire? I know from camping that wood embers stay hot for a long time.