Splitting Wood and Simple Living
I love splitting wood (I get envious of big, stacked, seasoned wood piles I see when out and about). It is good exercise and thinking time for me. It allows me clear the property of downed trees and limbs. It is a very frugal activity-- it offsets the oil bill.
From an exercise perspective, it gets you out in the fresh air and very physical. A good one to two hours is a good workout-- at that point you need to do something different because fatigue kicks in and swinging an axe or a maul is dangerous when tired. It also allows me to think and clear my head-- much like lawn mowing.
We have lots of trees and woods on the property, there are always limbs and some trees that come down and need to be cleared. Converting this waste to firewood and kindling is the sensible thing to do.
Finally, it allows me to offset our oil bill. When my wife returns home in the afternoon, she starts a fire in the woodburning stove-- this warms the house dramatically. We maintain the fire until we go to bed-- around 11:30 PM, but the fire continues to throw off heat for another two hours (the fire keeps the house in the 70s). In the early AM, the oil kicks in and keeps the house warm when we wake up and get out to school, work, and activities of the day. This limited use of the oil burner, thanks to wood heat, saves us considerable money. The people we know who don't wood heat use 2, 3, and 4 times as much oil as we do (we used about $1,200 worth of oil last year-- just think about what our friends spent).
I am splitting more wood this weekend-- October is coming!
Categories: Free Resources, Homesteading, Self Sufficiency, Frugality, Health/Fitness, Firewood, Green Living, DIY, Simple Living
Tags: Free Resources Fitness Homesteading Self Sufficiency Frugality Frugal Health Green Living Firewood DIY Simple Living
I'll soon be off of power company supplied energy for heat. We heat with nearly 100% wood, and we'll be augmenting that with solar power as well. Everything will be homemade.
The big concern for me is keeping the house warm into the night, so I'll be building an outdoor underground furnace that will feed a hydronic system. The furnace will burn in an inverted gasification manner, so it should be efficient and clean.
It should supply heat for several days and keeps all the fire hazard outdoors away from the house. I won't mind going to sleep or leaving the house with it burning.
I collected free scrap wood a couple years ago and managed to get about 10 years worth on the property. It is amazing how much wood you can accumulate if you put an ad in the paper for free removal.
I estimate that our use of wood stoves now saves us somewhere in the neighborhood of $800 a year in fuel bills. Our living room, kitchen and office are heated with wood appliances. I'll be adding more as well to the sunroom and basement.
Wood has its drawbacks, but then everything has its price. I'm willing to pay the price of the drawbacks, but not the prices the power company wants me to pay.
Clair
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Sounds like you are well on your way . . . solar is very intriguing to me too. Something about the power company being forced to buy back my excess power really lights my fire if you will pardon the pun!
I too get free wood simply by offering to haul it away-- I just put signs up at the supermarket.
A keen eye helps when driving around-- we have gotten some good hauls for free.
-DDFD
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