Wet wood? No problem.

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I strive for the efficient lifestyle and I am always looking for an easier, more effective way to complete a job. The reason I bring this up today, New Years eve 2008, is that northeast Ohio got about 6 inches of snow last night...blanketing my woodpile. All my beautiful firewood that greets me each morning, and then upon my return from work, is hiding somewhere under that blanket of white stuff. I mentioned in an earlier post that one mistake I made with my planning is my woodshed is about 2/3 too small and the majority of my wood sits outside exposed to Ohio's notorious winter.
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My first year with my OWB I went out and purchased about 4 mega large blue tarps and kept my woodpile covered, safe, dry, and shielded from the Ohio winter. I did everything I could to keep the woodpile dry because we all have learned since childhood...wet wood doesn't burn. Well, this great blue tarp idea lasted into December of my first year with my Hardy. After about 2 snowstorms I folded up the tarps and tucked them away in the barn. To me, covering my woodpile is a waste of time and actually creates more work for me or, I suspect, any owner of an OWB. When I had my pile covered, the wind was constantly tearing them off and after a heavy snow, I had to pull up the tarp (which held about 50 pounds of snow) to get to my logs. What a pain...What a waste.
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When I open the door to the firebox on my Hardy H2 I am literally staring into the fiery pits of Hades. If I were to throw a wet or snowy log into the Hardy, it would be kiln dried in about 30 seconds. What need is it for me to keep my wood covered? After a hard snow, I just reach into the snow, pull out a log and bang the snow off of it. In the furnace it goes...and burn baby burn! I can still remember fighting with the tarps...I would lay a log across the bottom of it and throw logs on top of it to keep the wind from blowing the blue kite to Pennsylvania. All those logs holding down my tarp, not to mention the snow, was just a burden to feeding my furnace. No more tarps. No more tarps. No more tarps.
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My friend down the street just installed a Central Boiler OWB this summer and the wood he has which isn't under the roof of his shed, is covered with out 10 tarps. I offered my opinion that the tarps are a waste of time since his OWB will dry out any wet log...but he still felt it necessary to cover his wood. I would bet money that there will be no tarps on his wood next year.
Smokin

Letters from the Woodpile

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Another Sunday. The Browns lost 31-0, but that wasn't as bad as I predicted. What a waste of time. At least with this season being so bad for the Browns I was able to quit watching by halftime on most Sundays and go stack wood for the coming Winter.
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I have learned over the past couple winters to stack my wood strategically...that is...I match the size of my logs with the time of season I will be into that area of my pile. I keep the smaller wood in the Fall/Spring areas of my pile and put the large logs in the Winter section. It seems to work for me. During warmer weather...40 degrees and up...my fire is at risk of going out because of the long duration between burns. Hence I need smaller logs since they keep their embers longer. In the heart of Winter, none of this matters since my Hardy H2 is working more, burning more, and smoking more.
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Today, I noticed the smoke was blowing out to the vast woods behind my house so I decided to burn the bags of wrapping paper and card board boxes left over from Santa's visit. A responsible OWB owner should never burn anything but seasoned wood in their furnace to keep smoke to a minimum...but on days when the wind is blowing into the vast Ohio outback, I figure nobody would care...so in go the paper products. I would rather claim my BTU's for my house then to throw good stuff in the trash.
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If a book tells a story...so does a woodpile. Today I grabbed a couple of logs to go into my OWB and I immediately recognized the log about to be sacrificed to the Hardy God. Its interesting how I have a woodpile with around 20 cords of wood and still I can remember specific logs from my summer of labor. Every log has a story to tell!! Anyhow, this log was very recognizable to me as it was from a truck load of soft wood I picked up for free back in July. I was driving on a short cut thru an affluent neighborhood and saw an S-10 sitting at the end of a driveway with the bed heaping with logs and a sign on top reading "Free Wood." Cool!!! It's Mine!!! I thought...but wait...I don't have my truck. I quickly made a direct B-line to my parents house and commandeered Dad's truck and drove back to the free wood. I get excited when I come across a find like this and I can still remember the nervous excitement speeding to that house. There I was, in Khaki's and a nice button down, in the Ohio-in-July heat transferring a load of wood from one truck into my Dad's.
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While most of the wood turned out to be landscaping type trees, it was still good size for my Hardy, it didn't need split and certainly would burn on a nice Fall or Spring Day. I knew exactly where I would stack it. So today when Northeast Ohio was experiencing a reprieve from Winter and basking in the 60 degree weather, I ran across this one log and I flashed back to a lazy summer day when I got a free load of wood without having to fuel up a saw. Ahh...Life's simple pleasures.
Smokin

What I got for Christmas...Safe woodcutting

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What I wanted for Christmas and what I got were two different things. What I did get from my wish list were a Husqvarna Pro Forest Helmet and a pair of steel toed boots. Well, to be specific about the headgear, it isn't a "helmet," its a "system," which means it's much cooler than a helmet. This baby has earmuffs and the face screen on it...all in one attractive bright orange package. From all the wood cutting I do, and the fact I am usually cutting alone, I have really grasped for all the available safety equipment. But as for the presents, that was it for my woodcutting hobby... No new 18 inch chain for "Big Orange" (my 455 Rancher), no 14 inch Poulan (I love these), no Coleman Cooler to hold my beverage, no dump trailer...But who's complaining?
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I preach chainsaw safety too everyone I meet and all my friends who cut or own a chainsaw. My biggest impact on my annoyed friends came this summer when a buddy of mine went along with me to cut up three decent sized maples. He showed up in a T-shirt and shorts while I came in long pants, long sleeves, chaps, muffs, safety glasses, and chainsaw gloves. He told me he never knew that chaps existed so I went on about how much damage a brief encounter a chain can have on his upper thigh. Despite the heat of summer, I always wear the chaps when cutting. After this day, my buddy went to the local garden store in town and bought his own pair. Now he tells me he feels naked to cut without them. To me, cutting without safety equipment is like going out on the road without my cell phone. It just doesn't feel right.
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What has been missing from my safety equipment stash until this Christmas was the helmet and steel toes. I am curious to see how I adjust to the helmet because its weight concerns me. Will it be comfortable when looking down on my log? Will it get me too hot and make sweat run into my eyes?
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As for my steel toe boots, the ones I got for Christmas were too small so I will have to take them back. They are about "hunting boot" height on my calves and I wonder how these will behave when I cut this summer. I have always cut in tennis shoes, realizing the danger my toes are in, but I may benefit from the extra ankle support from the boots.
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This summer I was cutting with my dad and we were pulling trees off a railroad cut and onto flat land. I had limbed the felled trees and dad would tie them to his bumper and pull them off the enbankment. Well, I wasn't far enough out of the way and a log snagged on a stump and spun around like a ball bat and swept my feet out from under me. My right ankle got sucked under the swinging log and was fractured. As I fell to the ground, knowing that something bad had just happened, my saw came bouncing to the ground about 4 inches from my head. Needless to say this put me out of commission for a month but I used this time to reassess my approach to this hobby. What if I were alone when this happened? What if I cut my leg with the saw...and I was alone??? Ugh. I shudder at the thought. So, right after this, I bought the chaps and wear them religiously. I bought the chain saw gloves as well...The left glove has the Kevlar material in it in case your hand slips off the handle and touches the chain... I am now always certain to carry my cell phone in my wedge pouch and I also give a map and address of where I am cutting. In fairness to my wife, I usually cut on old oil well access roads and railroad cuts so she probably would never be able to find me. I always make a point to take her or my dad on a Sunday drive and show them where I will be. I hope I never need them to come drag me out...but you never know.
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Please, if you cut, be safe, don't get so drained that you start making careless mistakes, wear your personal safety equipment and if you have to cut alone, leave directions behind on where to find you. I also have no problem with any of you leaving to me one of your chainsaws in your will...if needed.
Smokin

What I want for Christmas

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Here is a short Christmas list I have made. These don't appear in any order of importance.


1. Peace on Earth (now that I got that out of the way)

2. Someone to show me how to sharpen a chain correctly. I am good at butchering them but that's about it.

3. A new Husky for limbing...nothing special...about a $200 saw with a 14 inch bar. I swear by the 14 inch bar

4. A safety helmet with earmuffs and a face screen. I am a big proponent of safety.

5. Two extra leafs on my F 150's rear axle.

6. 12 pick-up truck loads of firewood mysteriously appearing in my woodshed...neatly stacked.

7. Someone on call...free of charge...to check my OWB at 2:00am when I worry the fire has gone out.

8. A buddy with a strong back to help me cut wood. Cutting wood by yourself is not advised.

9. A nice pair of safety sun glasses.

10. A nice pair of steel toe shoes, comfortable please.

11. Someone to believe me when I say Poulan's are a good buy for cutting wood. I love the Poulan. You will never hear me say anything bad about them.

Smokin

Getting Results

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I find trees to cut. I load up the truck with my saws, wedges and safety equipment. I drive to the trees. I cut up the trees. I load them in the truck. I drive home. I back up to the woodshed. I unload the logs. I make my neat woodpile. I repeat this again on a later day.
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That gets me results. I do the labor and my results can be seen out in my side yard in the form of a hulking pile of firewood. Maybe all this is what makes me enjoy heating with wood and my OWB. I do the work, I see the results. I don't do the work, we all freeze in the winter. Come to think of it, I don't think there is anything else that I do in life that gives me the same results oriented outcome than my woodcutting for my Hardy H2. At my day job I do something good for the company...nobody seems to care or notice. I come up with a great idea to make the company more profitable...my boss shoots it down because he didn't think of it first. At home, I preach the virtue of family...my children fight with each other and argue. My VCR blinks 12:00 AM, my friends never come over to visit, my gun club doesn't mail me my monthly newsletter, McDonald's charged me .40 cents for extra tartar sauce on my Fillet-O-Fish...you know how it goes. But the wood cuts nicely into 30 inch rounds and stacks nicely in the shed. It burns when you put it in the firebox.
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Today is my parents 50th wedding anniversary. I'm thinking of buying them a rick of firewood. Smokin

Mud Season

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One outcome I wasn't ready for after I installed and started using my Outdoor Wood Furnace (OWB) was dealing with all the mud. The mud begins to appear around mid November and it doesn't leave until well after I shut the smoker down for the season in the spring.
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I must fill my Hardy with wood at least twice a day, but to be honest, I make about 4 to 5 trips out to it just to check it out and tinker with the burning wood inside the firebox. Honestly, what else is there to do during an Ohio winter other than wait for pitchers and catchers to report for spring training? My trips to the Hardy are one of my highlights of the day. All of these trips, coupled with the weather we have here in Ohio, leave a nice mud trail in the grass between the house and the woodshed. Unless the ground is frozen from the cold...I'm dealing with mud. I wear my Rocky hunting boots out to the Hardy which I keep in the garage with the laces tucked inside the boot. I don't tie them, I just slip my feet into them. Without my boots, I would have mud up to my ankles from walking out to the furnace.
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When I built my woodshed, which my OWB sits in front of, I threw down about two truck loads of gravel in and around the shed. My shed measures 8' x 16' and the gravel area goes out about 20' in front of it. The gravel helps when I am at the firebox but if I venture anywhere off the gravel, I am certain to sink in deep. One of my early miscalculations with this project was how much wood the furnace uses and all the wood that fits in my shed is just about 1/3 of what I need to get thru winter. Boy does this use a lot of wood! But fear not...the nice thing about the OWB is that your woodpile can be outside by the furnace. This saves a lot of effort in that your wood doesn't have to be lugged into the basement...and all the dirt, bugs and smoke annoyances stay outside. When I am hauling wood in the summer, I just back my truck right up to the shed and unload. Anyhow, all my trips out to the woodshed during winter, not to mention the trudging around the pile looking for my selected logs, really churns up the mud. Mud, mud everywhere.
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I keep an old wool coat and a wool knit cap in the mud room (ironic?) leading out to the garage and I slip into them as I go out to put on my boots. Mud becomes a big deal for me because I track mud into the garage and on the sidewalk where I veer into the grass to head out the the OWB. It's a Catch-22, the mud, because I would rather it be cold where the ground is frozen thus making it easier to walk. But when its cold the Hardy uses more wood. If the weather is warmer, it uses less wood but then I have to deal with the mud. I have thought of putting in a path...gravel or mulch...but to be honest, I'm not a "yard" kind of man, so I don't stress over my yard. I like my yard to be nice but it doesn't have to be perfect. The grass from my mud path has always grown back each spring. If I were to lay down a gravel or mulch path I would have to deal with this obstacle in the summer when mowing around it. Having an annoying path to negotiate while mowing would be more of a pain to me than walking thru all this mud. Smokin

Bad Vibrations

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Some of you may not know how an outdoor wood boiler (OWB) works and I'm here to tell you, it is a very simple machine. My OWB is a Hardy, and it doesn't matter what particular model your dealing with, they all work pretty much the same. They make heat just like your heater in your car. The OWB is a large tank of water that surrounds a firebox. Someday I will get into all the nuts and bolts of how this whole thing works but these OWB's keep the water temperature somewhere around 170-180 degrees Fahrenheit. The hot water is pumped underground into your basement in 3/4 inch hoses and into a heat exchanger that is slid into the duct work that comes off the top of your forced air furnace. After the water is passed thru the heat exchanger, it is returned to the tank of water outside to be reheated. Of course you don't have to have a forced air furnace since an OWB can be adapted to your boiler, if your house has hot water heat, but my set up is used with my existing forced air furnace. The heat exchanger looks just like a radiator you would find on a vehicle, more along the size of a dump truck or other large semi radiator. All of this is wired so that when my house needs heat, a water pump on my OWB pumps hot water to the heat exchanger all the time my existing forced air furnace turns on the blower to force air thru the heat exchanger and fill my beautiful house with hot air. Keep in mind the burners on my forced air furnace do not kick on. I use no gas. Just the blower motor runs.
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All of this is a simple procedure but I have been bothered by one principle of this system since installing everything. Here is my concern...The blower motor has to blow the air thru the heat exchanger and...to me...I worry that this "obstruction" in my duct work would put an extra load (back pressure) on my blower motor. It appears that my blower motor would have to work harder to force air into my house. To me, this could lead to premature failure of my blower motor.
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Lately I have been noticing my blower on the forced air furnace making funny noises as if the motor is out of balance, causing a vibration in my duct work. It could be nothing but I have mastered the art of worrying and decided to place a call into a Luxaire technician who is scheduled to come out next Monday...Luxaire is the brand of forced air furnace in my basement but I am sure you have just figured that out on your own...He told me a bearing could be going bad in the motor or I could have a build up of dust or crud on the "mouse cage" (the rotating fins that force the air) that has made an unbalanced condition. He was happy for my business and he was accommodating to my busy schedule.
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I hope all of this noise from the basement amounts to nothing but to be sure it won't hurt for a small payment to the furnace man to check it out. One thing nice to hear is that he keeps a full supply of parts for my Luxaire forced air furnace on hand, including replacement motors. I hope I don't need one but.... Of course I don't like to spend money but one ace I have up my sleeve is I don't spend money for gas...zero! I figure all this money I save can be put to a "minor" issue like a bad blower motor. Well, I'll let my self believe that so I don't get mad at forking out hard earned cash for a furnace repair.
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I had to empty some ash today. I have a metal pail that I fill about once a week. I dump the ash in my garden for recycling. I hope your day is as warm as mine. Smokin

The Smoke

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The smell of woodsmoke...next to the free heat an outdoor wood furnace gives...is the best thing I like about my winter. I love the smell of woodsmoke. It reminds me of camping...Freedom...Youth. The smell of woodsmoke becomes a part of your life with an OWB. During the planning stages of installing your furnace, you'll want to consider the prevailing winter winds in relation to your house...and any neighbors... I have my furnace located to the northeast of my house and...for the most part...the wind carries the smoke out towards the vast woods behind my house. I noticed since having an OWB, I always know which way the wind is blowing. I am always watching my smoke and seeing if it is going out to the woods or over towards the neighbors. My woodpile has varying degrees of seasoned wood and if the wind is carrying the smoke towards the neighbors I only put in my best stuff to keep the smoke to a minimum. When the wind is blowing towards the woods, I dump in my green stuff, pine, cardboard, anything. You have to be a responsible neighbor in all that you do in life but especially with an OWB.
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But any trip to my furnace results in me being embraced by smoke when I open the door to the firebox. That is why I always wear the same wool coat whenever I go out there. The wool coat protects me from the flame, if I get too close and it helps to keep the smoke off my clothes that I wear in the house. The knit cap does the same thing for my hair. Smoke likes to check into your hair and never check out. The knit cap also keeps my bangs from being singed from an unexpected blast of heat when I open the door. This had happened to me once and it made for a long, embarrassing couple weeks at work until my hair grew back into proportion. My last piece of equipment is a long pair of welders gloves. They protect my hands from the splinters and the fire when I'm tossing in logs. In my opinion, all three of these things...the wool coat, hat and welder's gloves...are a must if you have an outdoor wood furnace.
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If there is one thing you will learn with an OWB it is the smell of woodsmoke will become a part of your life. I remember one evening this last summer smelling a camp fire and I immediately thought of winter time and loading my wonderful OWB back at home. All winter I smell the smoke all the time...going to get the mail, walking out to the chicken coop, or going out to my car for work. The smoke, despite my best efforts, follows me in the house and both my daughters and my wife all comment about the smell of smoke. I wonder when I'm not around if the smell of a fireplace makes them think of me? Fondly I hope.
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I also noticed that I can tell what type of wood I am burning by the smell of the smoke. To me certain types of trees have distinct smoke smells. Pine, which nobody likes to burn (unless you have an OWB...in that case anything is worth burning) has a sweet smell as does cedar and just about any soft wood. Oak has a distinctive heavy odor and Black Cherry smoke, to me, smells like Elmer's Glueall. I can smell that same Cherry smoke smell when I am cutting it with the chainsaw. My favorite is, by far, Elm. Elm, if you ask most people, can make a lousy firewood because Elm does not spit...at all! I will burn Elm but only if the logs are small enough to fit in my furnace. If they need split, I don't dare take them home. Even with a hydraulic log splitter, Elm will give you fits trying to split it. But for smoke smell, Elm can't be matched. It has a pleasant, baby powder smell to it and it wafts into your nose the moment it hits the flame.
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I would imagine that anyone with an OWB deals with the smoke just as I. I go to my furnace each morning before I go to work and I know that my clothes smell of smoke when I arrive at the office. I wonder what my coworkers think? "Smelly dude." To me, the smoke is a welcome sign of winter and it is the pleasant byproduct of a summer's worth of hard labor. All the searching for trees, cutting, loading, dumping, splitting and burning not only gives me a winter's worth of free heat, it gives me the pleasure of smelling the wood smoke. Ahh to be the owner of an outdoor wood furnace! How lucky I am. Smokin

Getting Started cont.

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I'm not the most experienced blogger in the world and to be honest I never immersed myself into the blogosphere enough to realize what the heck I'm doing. The fact with me and my OWB is that it is already installed and working...so I obviously won't be giving a daily detail of each step I have incurred while purchasing, installing and all the other stuff that goes along with this smoker. I won't bore you with going back in time and blogging a fictional OWB installation again as if it is currently happening. You already know the truth and I have moved on with my relationship with my OWB being that it is three years old. However, where I am today came by way of a lot of steps, successes, and failures that make me a current experienced OWB owner. But also I don't want to ignore my story of my pre-OWB life but rather I want to share it with you. I intend this blog to be a "pulp fiction" style story interspersing my current day OWB happenings with "Lost" (Thursday nights on ABC) style flashbacks of my installation, the first time I fired it up, the wood cutting, the broken ankle...all of that.

What I plan on doing is posting all my pictures of the installation which should give an accurate account of all that I had to do to provide my house with free heat. The pictures, however, will most likely have to wait until after Christmas since these are all on an old PC that is not compatible with my USB flash drive. A remedy is the new 2G memory card for my wife's camera, that she will open on Christmas, in which I can download the pics on it, and upload onto our new PC. Vista stinks by the way.

My topics for this blog are plenty. Of course there is the OWB itself, how it works, my likes, dislikes etc. But also I have become an expert on chainsaws and woodcutting in which I can share with you and I have developed an armchair arborist hobby in which I have developed a new love for trees, the different species, which make good firewood, which don't. I also am proud of my truck, which if you want an OWB, you have to own a good truck...mine is the greatest...btw. There is also a lot to write of the current political climate in which the EPA is attacking the OWB owners. I wrote a nasty letter to the Ohio EPA that I want to share with you. Anything we do in life should be done with responsibility to ourselves, and our neighbors and the same is so with owning an OWB. You must be a responsible owner and avoid causing issues with your neighbors. It is because of some selfish, irresponsible OWB owners that we currently are fighting the EPA.

I will continue to update my profile and adjust my settings, format etc. Let me know what you think. Smokin

Getting started

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I have to get all my pictures of my Hardy H2 posted. I installed this guy by myself, with help from Pa, saving $1000. As you can see from my picture, I underestimated the size of my woodshed for how much wood this furnace uses. These are nothing like a fireplace. You need wood, and a LOT of it. OWB's aren't for everyone and every house, but I am really happy with mine, not realizing at the time of purchase, that I was also buying a new hobby and lifestyle. I'm a woodcutter now!

My goal was free heat, which I have achieved, by definition of the word "free." Free to me was not spending money to heat my house. I spent $5000 on my purchase of the Hardy and my calculations show that I will have it payed for this February. That is the pure money side of it...Now, I have purchased three chainsaws, numerous chainsaw accessories, not to mention the time, labor, broken ankle...more on this later...cuts, bruises, sunburns, sore back, and other sprains and strains all for my free heat. Is it worth it? For me it is. What better way to get in shape than going into the woods and bringing home the logs!? It sure beats hanging out in a health center with a bunch of sweaty jerks. Smokin!