After a decade living in the PNW, I finally have an actual cord of wood. I’ve had some trees cut down before they fell down, and they provided enough wood for a couple of Winters. Having burned the last of the maple tree that was cut down last year, the SO got onto craigslist and bought a cord from somebody. They dumped it in the driveway. She didn’t want to pay $20/hour to have it stacked in the back. Besides, there was no place to stack it.
Which means heavy work for me. I had gravel put down in the parking area in front of the house. When I had some drainage work done in the back yard (French drains), there was an excess of gravel. They put it in the parking area. Too bad it’s drainage gravel (round) instead of the chunky kind that’s good for parking cars on that I had previously put down for the purpose. Anyway, I loaded up three large wheelbarrows full of the stuff and moved it to an unused area between the deck and the patio. Freakin’ heavy! And it didn’t help that the tire on the wheelbarrow needed air. I bought all of the 12"x12"x2-¾" pavers the hardware store had (22), and put them on the gravel bed I made. Today I bought 17 more pavers. And an air pump. Those buggers are as heavy as the gravel. With a full tire, and stacking the pavers in the barrow for a better cg., it was easier this time.
So now the gravel is down, the pavers are laid, and I have six 2"x4"x8’ pressure treated boards on top of them to put the wood on. Now I just have to move that enormous pile of wood to the patio, and stack the logs neatly and compactly. Oh, boy.
I bought wood for this winter back in December. I procrastinated stacking it and a couple of weeks later it snowed, and then snowed, and then snowed, and then … I’ve been able to dig through the snow and burn probably 2/3 of the wood, but the other 1/3 will have to wait until probably the end of March when the snow melts.
On the plus side, April is cool enough here and so is the occasional day in May.
I assume you mean a full cord, and not a face cord? I bought 3 face cords at $120 each. What’s wood cost in your neck of the … woods?
A guy I know lives out in ‘The County’ (i.e., more rural area than Bellingham – more rural than here, too). He has a friend who sells wood for $200/cord delivered. But other people are selling it for $160/cord. I don’t know if that’s delivered or not. And it’s a full cord, 4’x4’x8’.
Temperatures this week are frigid. Might get up to 30ºF today. But it will warm up starting this weekend (probable snow on Sunday, but warmer than it is now) and Spring is just around the corner. This wood should last until next Winter – certainly more than four hours.
$200 delivered! Holy crap. Three face cords, is a full cord and mine was $360 delivered, which is pretty much the going price around here. I can maybe, maybe find it at $100 a face cord if I get it early enough. The last time a face cord cost $65 here was about 15 years ago.
About 30 years ago my parents bought a new house, our first with a fireplace. It was an entirely new neighborhood and we were one of the first families to move in. The day we moved in a truck was driving around selling wood, and my dad bought a cord, and my brother and I helped stack it up in the backyard.
Turns out my dad wasn’t really a fan of having a fire. He considered it a lot of trouble for not much in return.
Anyways, probably some 90% of that original cord would still be piled in the backyard today, had it not almost entirely rotted away over the years.
Right now firewood is hard to find in these parts. The Milwaukee paper ran an article yesterday on the shortage. I’ve got a woodshed full, probably a cord and a half, but I’m not selling. I thought about sawing and splitting some long-dead trees in my woods this weekend, but prices still aren’t high enough to justify my labor and time.
The wood from the trees in the yard warmed me thrice, then. Once when I stacked it, once when I chopped it, and once when we burned it.
Friggin’ Cascade Gas won’t put a gas line down this street – despite there being a gas main at each end. So people use baseboard heaters or propane or wood. The friend I bought the house from had a propane heater put in. Prices are nearing $3/gallon though, so it’s expensive. The wood stove can heat the entire house, and we’re using it to supplement the propane furnace. Besides, it looks pretty having a fire. Not sure how cost-effective it is, but we’re getting a benefit.
Fireplaces, as opposed to wood-burning inserts, seem to be more for looking at than for heating. They probably are more trouble than the benefit they provide.
According to Wikipedia, it’s
[QUOTE=Wikipedia]
the amount of wood that, when “ranked and well stowed” (arranged so pieces are aligned, parallel, touching and compact), occupies a volume of 128 cubic feet (3.62 m3).
[/QUOTE]
You’d have to be a Settlers of Cataan player to get it. In brief, there are 5 different resources that can be used to build things, and if you need a resource you don’t have access to, or that hasn’t been distributed recently, you can trade four of any other resource for one of the needed resource. There are special “ports” that let you trade on a two for one basis. Wood and Wool (sheep) are two of the resources.
I’m going to start stacking the wood after work today. I’m sure it will look less and less daunting as the chore progresses. But I doubt I’ll get it all moved today. Not a lot of light left in the afternoons yet, and we’re expecting a high of 33ºF.
I worked all day yesterday. (Yes, I work harder when I telecommute than when I’m at the office.) Then I had to see about that big pile of wood in the driveway. Remember that this is the first time I’ve actually had a cord of wood. With the trees that needed to be cut down, there was less wood. I wasn’t looking forward to stacking it, based on my previous experiences of stacking the wood from those trees. See, that wood was round. I couldn’t make nice rectangular stacks, instead having to make pyramids.
So right after work, I went out and loaded up the wheelbarrow. I’ll tell you, moving wood in it is a lot easier than the gravel and pavers! I dumped the wood on the patio and started stacking. I didn’t like making the first row, or the second. I dreaded the rest of the job. But as the stack got higher, it got easier. I thought about it before I started, and quickly figured out an easy way to stack to the end of each row. Take a couple of the squarish pieces, and lay them lengthwise at the ends. There’s a nice base for the next row, all the way out to the end. (OK, it’s not rocket surgery. But I’ve never done this before and wasn’t taught this.) I have a nice sturdy stack eight feet long and about 4-½ feet high.
Today I get to move and stack the rest. Two more rows to go.
(OK, it’s not rocket surgery. But I’ve never done this before and wasn’t taught this.) I have a nice sturdy stack eight feet long and about 4-½ feet high.