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What to do with old wood?


Pierre ZFP
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At the weekend. I at last got round to tackling an outbuilding absolutely full of wood.  All sorts of stuff from tree trunks and big branches to big joists and roof beams from when a lot of renovation was done.  Its all dry and I set about cutting the big pieces up with a chainsaw (carefully avoiding any nails etc in the wood) and I now have a beautiful pile of 'logs' for the winter - lovely! I should point out that none of this stuff is any good for re-use as there is some rot and a lot of insects in it.  Its only coming in the house long enough to get burnt!  After a few hours work and a couple of metres of stacked wood I have hardly made a dent in the pile.  The problem is that a lot of it is large planks around 2 cm thick by 40 cm and 2 to 3 metres long.  There's just so much kindling you can use so any ideas what I can usefully do with this please?  I don't want to just have a huge bonfire as there is too much and seems like a waste really.  Also, the wood is fairly 'thin' so I think it woulld not burn well or for long on the fire.  Should I cut it up and nail planks together with the old nails?  This seems like a lot of work, so any of you clever lot got a better solution?
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I had loads and loads of offcuts of wood (mainly pine stuff).  I was intending to burn it (in my wood burner) and thought I would check before hand with the guy when he came to sweep the chimney - and he said definitely not.  Maybe use a little to start it going but avoid it for general burning due to the resin (even though it was really old and dry).  He was not selling anything so had no "vested interest".

Ian
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[quote user="Gluestick"]

Get a big wood chipper and invest in a chip-fed fire to power the central heating!

Just a thought.

[/quote]

On a tangent, do you have any idea how much a wood chipper costs (ball park).  Reason is, I have quite a decent area of forest (and am starting more) and have been considering wood powered central heating, etc.  The cost of the boilers seems to be dropping, just with the wood available for free but in the wrong format (i.e. unchipped) seems a shame.

Of course, I suppose I might need a pellets - my (maybe wrong) impression is that some boilers like/need pellets and others chips.

Ian

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[quote user="Pierre ZFP"]... There's just so much kindling you can use so any ideas what I can usefully do with this please?  I don't want to just have a huge bonfire as there is too much and seems like a waste really.  Also, the wood is fairly 'thin' so I think it woulld not burn well or for long on the fire.  Should I cut it up and nail planks together with the old nails?  This seems like a lot of work, so any of you clever lot got a better solution?[/quote]

Have you got any places out of the way where you could just dump it in piles, to become homes for lots of little critters?

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[quote user="Deimos"][quote user="Gluestick"]

Get a big wood chipper and invest in a chip-fed fire to power the central heating!

Just a thought.

[/quote]

On a tangent, do you have any idea how much a wood chipper costs (ball park).  Reason is, I have quite a decent area of forest (and am starting more) and have been considering wood powered central heating, etc.  The cost of the boilers seems to be dropping, just with the wood available for free but in the wrong format (i.e. unchipped) seems a shame.

Of course, I suppose I might need a pellets - my (maybe wrong) impression is that some boilers like/need pellets and others chips.

Ian

[/quote]

Keep your eye open on Ebay.  All sorts of stuff comes up on there, problem is pickup as they can be at the other side of the country and France is a big  country when you want to go a look at something !

The other thing to consider is if your going to be using the chipper on a regular, rather than occasional basis, you  need to be looking at professional stuff, probably tractor pto driven so you're into 1000s and 1000s of euros, but do the  sums and it would probably pay for itself over a few years.

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Most of the big pieces I cut up were oak and (I think) some chestnut.  Seems a shame to do it but it was too far gone to be useful.  I'm not sure the big planks are pine as they are very wide and more dense/heavy than pine.

I can stack some of it so it will rot away but there is so much.   An industrial chipper would be handy but hiring one might be hard to come by.

How about charcoal?  If I can just get a big old oil drum.........

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