Cut down about 10 trees in my yard last weekend. Cut up into logs and hauled it to a spot to be split this weekend.

The hard part is done. Had to sharpen the chain a couple of times. The dremmel tool with the chainsaw sharpening attatchment is great.

Good work! That's a nice pile of bucked up logs. Personally the splitting and stacking for me is the hard part. Cutting down the trees and bucking up the logs is the fun part. I heat my house with a wood-burning insert in the fireplace and last year built a wood shed to store the firewood. Never tried the dremel way of sharpening, I always did it by hand. Then last year I brought about 8 chains to be "professionally" sharpened. Happiness really is a sharp chain when it comes to doing a lot of cutting!

ummm, I'll have to get that dremel attachment

Maybe I was being optimistic about the hard part being done. But my neighbor has a new by-directional splitter that I get to try out.

What I like abought using the dremmel is the speed. So if nick a rock it is no big deal to take 10 minutes and sharpen it back up then get back to cutting.

 

TJ, what kind of setup do you have for your furnace? I would like to supplement my oil furnace with wood. I was looking at one at tractor supply last year but it cost $1600. Then there would be installation costs. I thought that was a little steep to see a return on the investment in a reasonable amount of time.

Maybe I was being optimistic about the hard part being done. But my neighbor has a new by-directional splitter that I get to try out.

What I like abought using the dremmel is the speed. So if nick a rock it is no big deal to take 10 minutes and sharpen it back up then get back to cutting.

 

TJ, what kind of setup do you have for your furnace? I would like to supplement my oil furnace with wood. I was looking at one at tractor supply last year but it cost $1600. Then there would be installation costs. I thought that was a little steep to see a return on the investment in a reasonable amount of time.

 

Bi-directional splitters are "lift up the log and put it on the beam" affairs a.k.a. "horizontals". I've split wood on both horizontal and vertical splitters and if I'm splitting giant logs, verticals are better and little stuff, the horizontal is better. Let me know what you think on that bi-directional but I suspect that if you're doing big logs it may not be as convenient as it would seem, specially since all the ones I've seen have more force in one direction.

 

As to wood burners, I heat my house almost entirely with a fireplace insert. It was purchased in 1993 for about $1500. I try to cut and split roughly half of my wood each year and I go through 6-7 cords from Oct 15 to May 15. I buy 3.5 cords x $160 = $560 + $100 splitter rental = $660 = $110/month + $8 for the insert (16 years / 1500) for a grand total of $118month during cold months for heat. Add a few bucks for saw and gas and chains...call it $125/month then add in another $75 extra for electric space heaters and I pay $1200 a year for heat. Is that a lot cheaper ? Probably not. One thing about it though, it doesn't change much and I've got heat when everyone else is cold. I use a 12v deep cycle battery and an inverter I bought at Walmart for short term power outages. I have a genset too. Basically, I can stay warm no matter what.

Damn thats a lotta logs.

 

Hows your back?

And do you know a good chiropractor ?? :mrgreen:

And here I always thought happiness was Belt Fed.

Damn thats a lotta logs.

 

Hows your back?

 

 

It hurts. Advil and 12 year old scotch helps.

I could get you a nice 34 ton Swisher for a decent price