Anyone else split wood for their fireplace?

[a]

As long as it doesn't sit around long enough to rot and thus become unusable, it's never too much. Covering the woodpile with a simple roof or even just a tarp helps keep the rot at bay, as does stacking the wood on something slightly raised off the ground. A simple pair of parallel 2x4 or 2x6 set on end is enough. Just so the bottom layer isn't actually touching the ground.

Yup, For yrs I topped my wood piles with sheets of 2x8 corrugated sheet metal. Light and didnt trap moisture like a tarp does.

[Tyler H]

We supplement with wood heat. I have a decorative fireplace on the main level, and an Osburn 2300 wood stove in the basement/den. Nothing heats like wood. When we moved in all of the appliances and furnace were LP. We had to fill that sucker 3x a year at $1200 a pop. Nope! Obama bucks for a 22 seer heat pump and high efficiency water heater yielded a 2.5 year break-even.

I got the Osburn from an ex-Michigander that used it 2 seasons and moved to East TN; had it in a storage unit. $620 and I moved it. New wood stoves are so much more efficient than the old ones. I can burn all night on 5-6 chunks of oak, with nothing but talc powder in the morning.

I hand split to release some corporate aggression, but go to the hydraulic splitter for real production. I have 8 acres and just culling dead stuff meets my needs. My father has 40 acres, so we can't keep up and mill a lot of it.

[pleasefixitup]

I've got about a cord and a half in my backyard, I love splitting lumber but when you put that in your car--put a towel or a plastic tarp down! ahhhh!

[oldskool]

I've got about a cord and a half in my backyard, I love splitting lumber but when you put that in your car--put a towel or a plastic tarp down! ahhhh!

I would go so far as to suggest a few packets of well placed rat poison when you get to stacking as wood piles are rat condos most of the time. If you're a cross stacker, possums like to come and set up shop in there as well. The poison will take care of both.
Thank me later.

[T_C_D]

I've got about a cord and a half in my backyard, I love splitting lumber but when you put that in your car--put a towel or a plastic tarp down! ahhhh!

I would go so far as to suggest a few packets of well placed rat poison when you get to stacking as wood piles are rat condos most of the time. If you're a cross stacker, possums like to come and set up shop in there as well. The poison will take care of both.
Thank me later.

I had not thought of that. It's stacked far from the house.

[Jeremy]

We've never had that particular problem, probably because rats don't live around here. Chipmunks, mice, and squirrels, yes. Rats, notsomuch.

[Karl Grau]

I started in my new patrol area last week and I had high hopes of finding lots of wood lying around for the taking. The realty is that it's about what it must have been like outside Leningrad in the winter of 1943. I brought home the few logs I found which leads me to ask (and you DON"T want to know why I'm asking), what are the signs you need your chimney swept and what should it cost?

[Jeremy]

what are the signs you need your chimney swept and what should it cost?

It's a bit like an m20 timing belt. If you don't have records of exactly when it was last done, put it on your short list. I have no idea what an inspection/cleaning costs, but they should both be done if you're the least bit unsure. Damage to the chimney lining is as hazardous as resin buildup or obstruction.

[Duke]

[rmiddendorf]

What Jeremy said. I've covered enough chimney fires in my day to know that you should do it often- I would do it once a year if I burned wood frequently. Soot and resin buildup can catch fire and take the whole house down with it. You may also get one of the companies that shove a camera up there but beware- they can use scare tactics to make you think you need a really expensive treatment. Make an informed decision there and I recommend more than one opinion if the cost starts to soar.

[a]

Can you look up the clean out with a mirror? Unless you have an air tight wood stove, you wont have to worry , anyway.

[1st 5er]

I hear pine is a good way to burn all the crap out of the chimney.

[ahab]

Like Jeremy said, the signs are, if you don't know when it was done, DO IT. It's not hard and I've never paid anyone so I can't help there. I'm sure you can get the gear online for a nominal cost, I got my stuff at either a flea market or yard sale. If you can look up your flue and see vanes built out from the walls it's high time. It's messy but only takes about 1/2 hour to run the brush through a few times. Don't twist. If you ever hear what sounds like a combination of a hurricane and a freight train in your chimney, it's too late.

[mechacode]

Wherever the gf and I set up for good, it's going to need a fireplace. Where were at now, both neighbors have wood burners. One has two in the basement, the other has one in his garage and both of them burn all the time. I've flown out of bed a few times to the smell of smoke.

[Bill in MN]

I wait until it's about 40 below and then get out the splitting maul. Seriously. Wood splits like nobody's business when it's that cold. It puts hair on your chest, too

[T_C_D]

I wait until it's about 40 below and then get out the splitting maul. Seriously. Wood splits like nobody's business when it's that cold. It puts hair on your chest, too

This is my plan for the difficult logs although it won't get that cold here.

[davintosh]

I wait until it's about 40 below and then get out the splitting maul. Seriously. Wood splits like nobody's business when it's that cold. It puts hair on your chest, too

This is my plan for the difficult logs although it won't get that cold here.

You could always move further west.

Oh, wait...

[vinceg101]

I started in my new patrol area last week and I had high hopes of finding lots of wood lying around for the taking. The realty is that it's about what it must have been like outside Leningrad in the winter of 1943. I brought home the few logs I found which leads me to ask (and you DON"T want to know why I'm asking), what are the signs you need your chimney swept and what should it cost?

I know others have said you can clean these yourself, but if you've never done it before and, as this house is relatively new to you, it's never been inspected, hire a chimney sweep. They can scope the chimney with a camera and asses the condition of the grout joints, smoke shelf, and more importantly the parge coat. The older homes here in SoCal have been known to have some poorly built and maintained chimneys. Not to mention what the seismic activity has done to its' integrity over time.
After the first professional cleaning, you can probably easily maintain it yourself.
You can call around for quotes, but I can't imagine they're too many chimney sweeps in SD. Most newer homes built in the last 20 years have been using sealed metal flues, not many full masonry units built anymore.

[Karl Grau]

Thanks for all the comments. I guess my next step is going to be checking the chimney out from the roof.
The house was built in '48 and other than the addition of a spark arrestor, I think it's pretty much original. What's weird is that it looks like there are two flues on top, one with an arrestor and one without.

[vinceg101]

Thanks for all the comments. I guess my next step is going to be checking the chimney out from the roof.
The house was built in '48 and other than the addition of a spark arrestor, I think it's pretty much original. What's weird is that it looks like there are two flues on top, one with an arrestor and one without.

I'd bet it's the exhaust air vent for the HVAC. Given the age of the house, the original likely had a floor furnace or other type of gravity heat system. The second flue in the chimney is for that. I'm sure the HVAC system has been replaced and updated with a more modern central air system (correct?) and if so, they abandoned that flue when they ripped out the floor furnace. You could get adventurous and go spelunking under your house to check it out. Or you can hire the smallest kid in the neighborhood to go deal with the spiders...

My house originally had a similar system; of course my house is about 20 years older and had a California basement (small mechanical cellar accessed through my closet floor) before it was moved to its' current location. I used the flue to get my coaxial cable from my satellite dish on the roof under the floor and out to the TV's.

[Karl Grau]

Vince, you're a genius! I completely forgot that it used to have a floor furnace, that has to be it.

[euro635gas]

I burn bills in my fireplace. No wood

[Karl Grau]

I have an update.
I was able to pick up a surplus Monistat 7 class unmanned probe and sent it down the chimney. The telemetry coming back showed a flue damper that failed to fully open (or 'deploy' as we say in the fireplace game) and all is well now.

Monistat 7 class Deep Chimney Probe (DCP) in it's heyday

[gidgaf]

Waay back in the day, as a welder, I used to make up a bunch of "C" shaped tubes from exhaust pipe, and make them into a 3D fire grate. The room air would come into the bottom, get heated up, and blow out the top into the room. They're cheap and easy to make, but for some odd reason they're expensive to buy. If I had thought of it mine would have had a provision for a fan.
And yes, without fresh air for the fire it sucks all the warm house air and blows it up the chimney. We had an ash dump that went out side from inside the fireplace; it was a simple thing to rig it up as a source of fresh air for the fire.

[vinceg101]

Waay back in the day, as a welder, I used to make up a bunch of "C" shaped tubes from exhaust pipe, and make them into a 3D fire grate. The room air would come into the bottom, get heated up, and blow out the top into the room. They're cheap and easy to make, but for some odd reason they're expensive to buy. If I had thought of it mine would have had a provision for a fan.
And yes, without fresh air for the fire it sucks all the warm house air and blows it up the chimney. We had an ash dump that went out side from inside the fireplace; it was a simple thing to rig it up as a source of fresh air for the fire.

We had this setup in my house growing up in NJ; complete with the homemade rigged fan unit (my father nicknamed it the Dusenberg). It worked amazingly well and was able to pump a lot of warm air back into the room. It wasn't very pretty, but it worked.
They were pretty popular back in the early '80's; you could buy the kits from the local chain hardware/home improvement centers (Channel Lumber was our local one at the time).

[Xenocide]

http://www.wimp.com/chopwood/

Anyone else suddenly feel like a complete idiot? I've split a lot of wood, all we had was a wood burning stove at my grandfather's house up in elijay and I used to spend summers up there. Never seen one of these before, it looks brilliant to me. Just have to avoid hitting the strap, but I think it'd save tons of time!

[1st 5er]

http://www.wimp.com/chopwood/

I'll have to remember that 'lil trick.

[Jeremy]

I used to be rather good at splitting wood, but either that guy was extremely practiced or that was the "magic log". I've experienced very very few pieces of wood that split that easily.

What kind of tree was that log from? Anybody know?

[a]

I used to be rather good at splitting wood, but either that guy was extremely practiced or that was the "magic log". I've experienced very very few pieces of wood that split that easily.

What kind of tree was that log from? Anybody know?

Black poplar, if there were no knots in it, would split like that. But, It has about the same BTUs as newspaper

[WilNJ]

We had this setup in my house growing up in NJ; complete with the homemade rigged fan unit (my father nicknamed it the Dusenberg). It worked amazingly well and was able to pump a lot of warm air back into the room. It wasn't very pretty, but it worked.
They were pretty popular back in the early '80's; you could buy the kits from the local chain hardware/home improvement centers (Channel Lumber was our local one at the time).

My father was a masonry contractor and had built the chimneys in our house with a similar set up, except they were masonry airways adjacent to the firebox on either side. There was an inlet on either side at the hearth and outlet about midway up the wall.

Convection did the work.