Burning Softwoods

[Nyboy]

Thanks guys I really learned a lot from this thread.

 

[baymule]

@Nyboy you need to cut and pile that wood for yourself. It is obvious that you have not been the host of "bonfire". Bonfire is a marvelous winter/night past time that involves friends gathered around the fire in the cold and dark. Sometimes it involves marshmallows and hot dogs, it can also involve alcoholic drinks, scary stories, general BS and looking at the stars. It is a great way to relax and share your firewood with friends.

 

[canesisters]

...... bonfires also make you a very visible target for the escaped convict who USED to have a hook for a hand ... until he lost it on the bumber of a car.....

 

[Smart Red]

Oh, @canesisters, we don't worry about him. He avoids bonfires now that he can't catch fiery branches tossed at him anymore.

 

[canesisters]

 

[Pulsegleaner]

Because we are suburban and at the mercy of a bunch of extremely restrictive Manor association rules (basically we can't cut down, or even trim, a tree (even a dead one*) without inspection and approval from the Village tree commission (which tends to take several YEARS to come by, and usually won't give approval unless the tree is basically rotted sawdust) we tend to burn whatever we happen to get, good wood or not. For I while I guess most of our fires were mostly hemlock, since that is what we had coming down. Now, it's probably who knows, since most of the pile is from times we've split purchased cords with out neighbors. The commission has gotten even slower as the years have progressed and most of the dead trees we have (again, primarily hemlocks) have long since passed into the rotten punk stage (okay for tinder I guess, but we have plenty of waste paper for that). There are a few crabapples on their way out, but they are, rather puny and will probably yield little wood, maybe one or two fires worth. Some of our neighbors have had trees taken down over the last few years, but because firewood IS so valuable, most of the people licensed to cut down trees around here automatically haul the wood away (from their point of view they make a killing, they get to charge for hauling AND get the wood to sell. And if you demand they leave the wood, most leave it in chunks too big to move without a block and tackle, so you get fined by the village when they haul it away themselves.)


* and yes, if a tree falls down and causes damage you are still fully liable. Basically once a tree dies here you have two choices 1. try to take it down yourself (no professional tree service will do it without village approval) and get hit with $5,000 per tree fine for doing it (not to mention the fines for doing work you are not certified to do, and the near certainly of personal and property injury. or 2. do nothing and HOPE the trees do not fall down of their own accord and leave you suable for hundreds of thousands. The catch-22 is so bad you often end up spending a fortune trying to save dying trees you really want to take down (to make room for trees you actually want.)

 

[canesisters]

Good grief!!!
Which planet are you on?
(remind me never to visit)

 

[baymule]

View attachment 4833 Good grief!!!
Which planet are you on?
(remind me never to visit)

X2!

 

[Pulsegleaner]

The real kicker is that those rules only seem to apply to private homeowners like us. When the lot next to us got subdivided and a new home started it was made perfectly clear that all tree removal had to be cleared by the Village, and those trees actually ON the road were to be worked around. You guessed it, they clear cut everything and never had to pay one red cent. It was all we could do to keep out above ground power (the developer didn't like having to work around a utility pole, and his solution was that they should rip down all the poles in the neighborhood and run the wires underground (which would have cut all power to our neighborhood for around a year, plus turned outage repairs from a matter of hours to a matter of weeks) they compromised and moved the pole to the center circle (which is public land, since that's where the fire hydrant is). That clear cut cost us a lot of really nice trees like a very well developed Paulownia (big enough to have a tree house in it) and a whole glade of spicebrush (bye-bye swallowtails) Luckily I managed to get a slip of the tree into our yard, so they'll be another Paulownia eventually (if the gardeners stop chain sawing it every chance they get.)

 

[catjac1975]

We use soft pine to start a fire. I find it produces a lot of quick heat and makes a great fire. We would be loading the stove too frequently if that was all we used. I weep for you NYBoy re: snake.