The area is around Medford Ok. 2 hour drive.
Are chainsaws required?
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you can cut down trees if you've got easy access to lumber. but there's loads of ways to get wood for free. but the labor to process wood is never free. but it's a fair trade off .. your labor in exchange for low heating bills ...
slowly getting my Buck 91 cat stove figured out .. closing in on first complete season heating with a big cat stove. wood consumption is way down to about half or less. have not needed to turned on house heater for sometime. this is a 28 year old Buck 91 cat stove .. replaced cat with a new one to see performance difference, but the old cat was working fine.
helps that the Buck Stoves store in Tulsa stocked the fan blower motor, catalyst and door seals. which were all replaced trying to get stove back to new condition. sure counts extra having a wood stove store local that stocks major parts.
another important factor is the factory support from Buck Stoves. customer service is excellent! Buck stoves national tech support has gone out of their way to support their product, even after knowing they are helping out someone with a 28 year old Buck 91 cat stove.
slowly getting my Buck 91 cat stove figured out .. closing in on first complete season heating with a big cat stove. wood consumption is way down to about half or less. have not needed to turned on house heater for sometime. this is a 28 year old Buck 91 cat stove .. replaced cat with a new one to see performance difference, but the old cat was working fine.
helps that the Buck Stoves store in Tulsa stocked the fan blower motor, catalyst and door seals. which were all replaced trying to get stove back to new condition. sure counts extra having a wood stove store local that stocks major parts.
another important factor is the factory support from Buck Stoves. customer service is excellent! Buck stoves national tech support has gone out of their way to support their product, even after knowing they are helping out someone with a 28 year old Buck 91 cat stove.
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Even buying most of my firewood on pallets ($120/rick, seasoned at least one year after splitting, ready to burn), I save 60% or more on my heating bill.
Smoke from wood stoves has more to do with what you burn and how you burn it than the design. I see a lot of new "low smoke" "high efficiency" stoves in town putting up black clouds because they are burning grocery store junk or "seasoned" green wood from the local classifieds or keeping their fire way too low. You'll rarely see any smoke from the chimney of my 30+ year old stove - maybe light grey for the first 5 minutes when starting, and some white steam if the fire gets a little too carried away for comfort.
good point about economies of buying wood still ahead of paying utility bills. been awhile since I've purchased any wood, but recently on Craigslist about $75 rick season/stacked. on top of lower costs, much better to source your own wood, so you can control you only get hardwoods like Oak. plenty of other wood burns excellent like mulberry, hard maple, hickory, pecan, etc.
most newer EPA rated stoves really need dry wood to burn well. what ever the reason if you see black smoke other than startup. that stove is NOT burning clean. burning clean and efficiency are two different issues. one can have a wood stove burn extremely clean, but be not very efficient by burning too much wood for heat produced. and/or puts out lots of heat but with short burntimes.
with my old JUCA wood stove, which burned extremely hot/clean even with green wood. most seasons it'd take 5+ cords so I never got ahead of next year's wood. with Buck 91 cat I'm burning substantially less wood, so I'm about one year ahead right now. but Buck 91 has to have dry wood or it doesn't burn well. so I'd like to get ahead by 2-3 years of wood.
I've never seen truly seasoned wood in the local classifieds or on Craigslist. What got me to buying from a local stove shop by the pallet was one year where I went with three highly recommended sources and still got wet green wood. The pallets of wood I get at the stove shop have never even bothered to steam when I put them in like some hardwoods do even after they have been seasoned six months.
can't comment much on buying wood, since rarely have I ever purchased wood and only when I first got started heating with wood.
needing truly seasoned wood is a universal requirement of EPA rated stoves. dried one season barely meets the bar for low moisture content. most folks on the wood stove forums are recommending 3 years+ but two seasons seems to do just fine.
taking down a dead tree is a quick way to source dry wood. main trunk near ground will still be soaked with moisture, but will dry out quickly. upper standing wood will probably be dry and ready to burn. but be really careful of widow makers above your head when cutting dead trees! safest way to deal with widow makers is to pull down all dead branches above cutting zone. otherwise you don't need to be cutting on that tree.
here's my GE Protimeter that measures specific moisture content. this particular model was really designed for house inspection after water damage. it's able to determine moisture content with or without probes.
needing truly seasoned wood is a universal requirement of EPA rated stoves. dried one season barely meets the bar for low moisture content. most folks on the wood stove forums are recommending 3 years+ but two seasons seems to do just fine.
taking down a dead tree is a quick way to source dry wood. main trunk near ground will still be soaked with moisture, but will dry out quickly. upper standing wood will probably be dry and ready to burn. but be really careful of widow makers above your head when cutting dead trees! safest way to deal with widow makers is to pull down all dead branches above cutting zone. otherwise you don't need to be cutting on that tree.
here's my GE Protimeter that measures specific moisture content. this particular model was really designed for house inspection after water damage. it's able to determine moisture content with or without probes.
I run my shop on an all electric heat and cool system. I got sick of having to pay the minimum, as well. I have a vent in my roof I could hook a wood stove into. I've been really wanting to have a stove in storage just in case I might need it.
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