Wood fetish

[Marmoot]

Anyone with woodburner care to share how much wood they run through per month?
Just want to work out approximate cost and compare it to electric heaters.

(yes I know it is more efficient than electric heater so no need to elaborate on that here please. I'm interested in numbers)

Also, where is a good place in Auckland to buy wood these days? I know winter is almost over, but us yellow asians are used to live in a more tropical places, you see....

[canarlee]

Also, where is a good place in Auckland to buy wood these days? I know winter is almost over, but us yellow asians are used to live in a more tropical places, you see....

you got a car?

go out to the countryside and find your own wood!

[Swoop]

I go through two cubic metres per winter. Started the fire season 2nd week of June.
Now is not the time to be buying wood......... and what they sell you will be wet.
T&D Holdings in Henderson supplied mine.

The day of Aucklands major powercut... Soup on the stove!

[bungbung]

Soft Jafa

HTFU!

[ManDownUnder]

Yup about two cubes and the cheapest way to buy it is to pop on down to the chainsaw shop.

My $400 chainsaw has seen me through about 10 years of wood collecting and I reckon it costs about $4.00 a cubic meter by the time it's cut, transported home, split and stacked.

Let's see ANY electric heater compare with that!

[The Lone Rider]

you got a car?

go out to the countryside and find your own wood!

I also know you just drive around some of the slightly more rural areas and there are usually signs outside drive ways saying "Free wood". Usually they've pulled down a shed or felled some trees.

My mums old place it was cheaper and easier to run two heat pumps then her log burner. BUT.. her old place is like 5 floors depending on how you count it (hill property) so it wouldn't have been easy for the one log burner to heat up the place.

My place I don't have a log burner, but I have two night stores and for a two story three bed room house my power bills hit less then $100 a month. I get a lot of sun here, especially upstairs, and that helps warm the place.

[vifferman]

I reckon it costs about $4.00 a cubic meter by the time it's cut, transported home, split and stacked.

Let's see ANY electric heater compare with that!

That's all very well. Our woodburner was very effective (and would've - sorry; wood've - been nice during the recent powercuts), and the fuel was cheap (mostly free) but I got pissed off being the only one to cut firewood, light the fire, clean out the ash etc etc.
Plus the dust/smoke was a nuisance.
And it was useless in the summer (unlike the aircon...)

[ManDownUnder]

That's all very well. Our woodburner was very effective (and would've - sorry; wood've - been nice during the recent powercuts), and the fuel was cheap (mostly free) but I got pissed off being the only one to cut firewood, light the fire, clean out the ash etc etc.
Plus the dust/smoke was a nuisance.
And it was useless in the summer (unlike the aircon...)

LOL that's where we differ then.

I find opening the windows work well in summer, and cleaning out ash once a month does me through winter. Additionally you can put a wetback on the bastard and you're really on a winner!

[bungbung]

Gas goes on
Gas goes off
Gas goes on
Gas goes off

[PuppetMaster]

how much wood they run through per month?

Im alot further south than you, but we bought 5 cubic metres this winter, and we have used over half that already.

[Marmoot]

shite....9 replies and only 3 answers :?

Thanks to the ones answering my questions. Still seeking for more Answers.

[judecatmad]

We've gone through one and a half cords so far this winter.

We generally buy a mix of pine and gum - pine for easy lighting and gum to burn longer and hotter (normally keeps the fire going all night when you stoke it up and turn it down low before you head off to bed).

The place we get our wood from always supplies dry wood, regardless of the time of year. They're superb. But we're in Wellington.....

We also have a heat transfer system above the wood burner which pulls heat from above the fire into all of the bedrooms. Means you get heat right through the house.

[Coldrider]

I bought 2 cord for $170 each, looks like it will last 5 months, that would be $68 per month.

[The Pastor]

we bought about 5 cubes (so my old man says, i will measure the pile and confirm this it seams alot) and we generally use it all. we buy wet wood in the summer and then it dries in time for winter.

[Timber020]

HOW TO GET (nearly) FREE FIREWOOD



Ring your local arborists and ask them if they have jobs near your place and need to get rid of the wood that they can dump it at your place. Offer them wine or beer as a bribe. Theres a good chance they will want to unload on a job near you and you will end up with alot of wood, but it will be off all sorts of lengths, wet, and you dont know when its going to come.

Or you could ask if you could help out on a job carrying the wood out and load it in your own trailer/boot or possibly there truck, whatever. This way you can be more picky about the wood you take, you'll get a good workout and the guys you have just helped out are more likely to drop some more at your place sometime later.

I supply dozens of people wood every year, and we burn a fair bit ourselves (mainly pohutakawa, I have the luxury of being picky)

Getting your own saw could be the most expensive mistake you make your life. I have seen more chainsaw cuts from 6 years living in wellington than the couple of decades I spent living in forestry areas, and they are always epic.
Like bikes they are incredibly dangerous, you should learn to use one first from a proper course (not from the mate whose "had one for years and not cut myself") get the gear and then buy a saw. I have about 20 saws, use them every day and at no point do I think that they dont want to get me.

Open invite to anyone out there who wants to learn how to use a saw (properly) I will give them lessons for nothing. (Other kiwibikers have got lessons and firewood from the deal.)