Sunday 30 October 2022

The Firewood Pile In The Old Stone Shed.



The ever dwindling firewood pile in the shed.

 You can never have enough sheds can you?  I keep this stone building with a corrugated sheet roof just for firewood.

Already it seems to be dwindling but I will use every bit until we buy some more firewood.  The old building keeps the firewood dry and it easily burns.  Damp firewood struggles to ignite and gives off very little heat.  

Do have a shed for firewood?  We still haven't turned the oil heating on yet and Ireland is a very wet climate but also very mild.  

Do you harvest your ow own trees for firewood or do you buy it? How much is a trailer of logs this year near you?  I have been known to buy logs or "blocks" even in 'manure'  or fertilizer bags even.  The cheapest I have paid is 2 .50 a bag.  I know someone who paid 6 Euros a bag  last week.  Think we are all starting to feel fuel poverty?

The Irish monsoon season is getting us a bit down at the moment.  We watched Paddington 2 on Netflix yesterday and he cheered us up.  Have you seen it?  


27 comments:

  1. Love the Paddington films.Barbarax

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  2. We do also Barbara. I saw Paddingtons bronze statue at Paddington Station in August. I posted a blog about it. Thanks!

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  3. Monsoon is about right for us too. The rain is incessant, everywhere is waterlogged and we now have new leaks.
    No firewood for us now in this house but the hot water bottles are doing a good job.

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  4. Hot water bottles are great if you need a drink in the night. I think we are getting webbed feet.😄

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  5. No, no and yes. I would love to have an open fire again, just to feel cozy when stocked up with wood.

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  6. Sheffield is a smokeless zone. No one is supposed to have log burners but a few do. I have no idea what logs or firewood might cost. My brother in France sources all of his own wood and never pays a penny or a centime for any of it. There are many more woods in his area than can be found in south west Ireland.

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  7. Our wood pile is just protected by canvas but we do keep a week's supply under a roof where it stays dry. Still haven't lit a fire yet. Very nice warm weather still.
    A truck load of olive wood here, which they day is a ton if it's piled high is around 150-180 euros. Depends if you buy from a friend or relative, or not

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  8. Yes it's good to enjoy the flickering flames, warmth and coziness of a real fire Tom. There's plenty of trees that could keep us warm this autumn and winter.

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  9. Hi Linda. 150 euros a ton sounds reasonable. We have to have small logs to fit in the stove. Large logs are too big to fit in. So sometimes I have to split them with the axe again. It keeps you warm chopping and burning them.😄

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  10. The weather has been mild here for all of October. I light the woodburner for when I sit down in the evening. I buy kiln dried logs by the cubic metre and my brother brings me kindling, or wood I can chop for kindling. I am not sure of the weight of the logs but I think it is about 750 kgs, i.e. three quarters of a tonne. I pay £175 for this. It lasts three months approx. I collect firewood whenever I see it and throw it in the car, twigs, fallen boughs etc. It is all stored in the garage next to my car. Sometimes firewood is cheaper in the summer but this year it wasn't. I have never seen Paddington films.

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  11. Thanks YP. I have beach combed and found driftwood and dried it and dried it out. Not sure about the smokeless zones. They don't ban diesel or petrol cars and there is 200 years of coal underneath Britain along with ma y old trees that could be used for firewood and new ones planted in their place.

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    1. Over half a million people live in Sheffield. If the houses were all pumping out fire smoke, people's health would once again be greatly affected.

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    2. You would love the Paddington films Rachel. It's been very wet in the West lately. Kiln dried logs are a lot more expensive than ordinary softwood logs. I also use twigs, branches and any timber offcuts to burn in the stove.

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    3. I'm not saying go back to coal containing sulphur. Smokeless fuel would suffice.

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    4. Thanks Dave but I will stick to my eskimo outfit.

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  12. You can burn smokeless fuels in smokeless zones so wood burners are allowed. Kiln dried logs and modern stoves are smoke free.

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  13. I believe so Rachel. I know some states in America have banned woodburners.

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  14. There are no states that have banned them, Dave, however there are places in every place where they ARE banned, usually in more urban areas. We just had two dead trees taken down, and we cut our wood from those two trees (they were big ones). They will supply us for the winter. Our stove is in the library, a fireplace insert. During cold snaps, we fire it up, and close the doors to the office and the hall, and use the stove to heat the livingroom and the library. It is cozy and it is nice to watch the flames dance as the wood snaps . Our house is an old one, designed to close off rooms so that you can simply heat the room you're using. We have central heat, but try to stick to using the wall heaters and the wood stove. It is much more cost effective.

    We heated solely with wood when we lived in the woods. We cut our own from our property. We used an HS Tharm hot water boiler system and it was very efficient. My sister and brother still heat their log cabin solely with wood, and we spent the day helping them split and stack wood in their basement. Their wood stove is not efficient and they use a lot of wood. They have a friend who is lumbering a property near by and hauls the 'tops' to their property to cut up for firewood, a real blessing. They also have 60+ acres of woods to cull from.

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  15. California in particular doesn't like them Debby. Yet cars with diesel and petrol engines and exhausts are still allowed. Thanks for what you have just said and going to the trouble of typing it out Debby. I find how people heat their properties very interesting. Thank you.

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  16. A lot of urban areas, I imagine, but there are a lot of rural areas in California. Wood stoves are a way of life for some in those areas. They have EPA restrictions, and California especially, is known for being more restrictive than the EPA. But they are not banned. It was actually fear about the EPA restrictions that caused us to buy our first HS Tharm. At the time, it was ordered from Denmark and was shipped over. It took months to get it. It burns it's own smoke, which was an amazing innovation at the time. It was a hugely efficient system, the idea being that you fire it up in the morning. The fire burned until it went out (which took hours) and the super insulated water tank held the hot water until it was needed.

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  17. PS: Can you tell us about your wood stove? We also find how people heat their properties to be very interesting. Is your house stone as well? Does it hold the heat in the winter making your house easy to heat. (If you have answered these questions before, I apologize. PS a triaxel load of logs is about $1000. To buy it by the cord is about $200 a cord.

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  18. Our stove is a solid fuel stove made by Stanley. We are just burning wood at the moment. Smokeless and coal is very expensive this year and the government is not allowing people to sell turf or peat unless it's for their own use.

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  19. our wood for 4 tonnes was £200. Our own wood is not dry yet.

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  20. Good to hear from you Sol. 200 Pounds sounds reasonable enough.

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