New to wood burning

[Millymollymandy]

Ooooh, I wouldn't want to meet you in a dark alleyway at night!

(especially in those trousers!)

[9ball]

Something of a young James Whale about you I think Wulf

[Thomzo]

Ooooh, I wouldn't want to meet you in a dark alleyway at night!

(especially in those trousers!)

You're welcome in my garden at any time of the day or night with that axe (and whatever trousers). I've loads of logs to split as my tiny little fire only takes tiny little bits of wood and I have some HUGE logs.

I'm far to chicken to go near a chainsaw and far too lazy to wield an axe myself.

Zoe

[Thomzo]

Another tip for burning wood.

When you are pruning in the garden, keep any woody prunings that are a quarter of an inch thick or more. Cut them into straight lengths suitable for your log burner. Then store them for a year to dry (hung up in carrier bags is my preferred method). They make fantastic kindling. Put some scrunched junk mail underneath, then your kindling and the fire will start in no time.

You can also use it to pick up a flagging fire.

In my opinion, you can never have enough kindling.

Zoe

[Millymollymandy]

We did that our first year here, with the apple tree prunings, but then found that we had so much kindling just falling from the trees that, er, sorry Zoe we have far too much of it so now the prunings go to the dump!

(It helps having a bit of woodland in your garden!)

[Thomzo]

Very useful.

I have a row of poplars on my boundary. They're actually in the field next door but the wind blows the leaves and most fallen twigs into my garden. So I get loads of kindling too. Sometimes though I just sit in front of the fire and feed it kindling all night. It's soooo relaxing (if a bit pointless).

Zoe

[Annpan]

We have quite a bit of 'woodland' around our garden, it is really just over grown hedge but of wonderous variety and my is it over-grown , if we ever get around to cutting it back properly we'd gain about 6 feet more all round the garden (it's just under 1/2 acre) Plus it would keep us in fuel for a few weeks... if not months.

We managed to erect a log stor the other day, well... I say log store... it is an old metal ladder laid on the ground with the logs laid on it and a tarp streched over the whole lot secured nice and high to our swings, so if it is raining you can run over from the house and be dry while you fill the basket and run back. We did not too badley and until we get a hold of some pallets it'll stay that way.

Thanks for the pointers everyone, sometimes you don't half feel like an eejit asking other people, it can be frustrating, people can be very patronising but how else are we supposed to learn

[red]

how are you enjoying the woodburner then Ann?

[Annpan]

Oh I'll go and take a phot of it while it is burning to post, it looks loverly

It is starting to dry out the house a bit (but we found another roof leak yesterday...grr) the roof is still not insulated (at the top of the to do list) and because of that the bedrooms are still pretty cold (they are in the attic) we still have the elcrtic heater on in E's room but we have had ours switched off since the day we got the wood burner, so it must be keeping the chill off a little.

[Cheezy]

As ever our own Mr Stonehead has a rather good "how to" in his Blog

http://stonehead.wordpress.com/2006/10/ ... ting-wood/

Of course being Stoney it's all very low impact on the enviroment, ie hard graft

[Annpan]

Cheers Cheezy, we have been on stoneheads site quite a bit but havn't come across than yet.

Here some photys of the beast


Before


After


Unfortunately the rest of the room looks like this

So we don't use that room, we spend most of our time upstairs as the bedrooms haven't been touched by the building work, or in the kitchen with a stew on... it is most frustrating that we can't use the lounge but we will get there, soon I hope.

[red]

ah you will ge tthere.. specially when driven by the need to be warm!! and you can see how great its going to be.

stove looks good!

[Thomzo]

Oh Annpan, you are brave taking this project on. I can sympathise as I've been in your position in the past.

Believe me it is worth it. When you get a beautiful house that is just how you want it rather than how someone else designed it you know you did the right thing.

The only problem is that it is addictive. When you've finished you'll suddenly find yourself with time on your hands and wanting another project to start. So you move and start it all over again.

Zoe

[Annpan]

I know Zoe, I have also been here before.

I am not depressed about it, I am very excited about the kind of house we will have. I love designing it all and doing the work ourselves.

Didn't like having workmen in and it isn't great for E when she wants freedom to crawl around, but she'll thank us when she's older (I hope )

Still it can only get better from here on in and, we are here for the long haul, so we can take our time over some of it - at the moment, I just want a livingroom, so we will work towards that and then see what the next priority is.

[Millymollymandy]

Thanks for the pointers everyone, sometimes you don't half feel like an eejit asking other people, it can be frustrating, people can be very patronising but how else are we supposed to learn

Tell me about it! When we were new to wood burning, or rather, new to buying in wood in bulk, I got a lot of grief from patronising plonkers on another forum. At least here you get helpful and friendly advice!