For sale: Outdoor Cat Run 3x4x2 with cat run porch and accessories (Surrey GU8)

[Olly]

It also depends on what the wood is. Ash will burn green, but most other woods will be too resinous, as Dogmother says.

[abwsco]

Do you hire him out?

 

Perhaps I should-lol

[The Dogmother]

OK, promised photos of my woodpiles... OK, they are more like wood dumps!

 

I had the day off yesterday and Phil stayed up here so we could really get to grips with the wood issue in the garden; I've found it impossible to say no to all the wood coming my way, what with a neighbour's house having work on it which resulted in loads of new and old wood. Then I had the eucalyptus tree lopped, so they logged all of that up for me to lay-by for drying out. Some of the pallets came in handy for knocking up an annexe to the woodpile, which Phil and I managed in about 5 mins! Now just got to get the rest of the wood sawn up and stacked.

 

New woodpile with some of the eucalyptus logs; it's now pretty full.

 

Old woodpile (this is based on pallets - mainly architectural offcuts). I reckon that I have two winters-worth of wood... better stop collecting!

 

 

 

Phil sorting wood that's still to be chopped/sawn.

 

 

 

It'll take the garden a while to recover from all that wood!

[Daphne]

WOW I like the pallet idea, I think I may be borrowing that in the future!

 

I have an elderly uncle with an even more elderly shed. It is on a severe lean; I believe it is only being held up by a huge assorted wood piled up outside it. I'd love to transport it all to our house, but its just too dangerous at the mo; we need some specialist men to dismantle the shed and remove the asbestos roof. Free wood is just the best isn't it

[abwsco]

Wow, that is a lot of wood

[The Dogmother]

Daphne, old fence panels and shed make excellent kindling wood.

 

The big woodpile isn't too pretty but I don't give a fig, so long as it has lots of wood - all prepared for a hard winter now!

[Aunty e]

It also depends on what the wood is. Ash will burn green, but most other woods will be too resinous, as Dogmother says.

It's ash, we had five ash trees in the garden and lopped two of them down. We've burnt some of the very small branches already. Our chimney is lined as it was in a parlous state!

[Yorkshire Pudding]

Our whopper of an ash tree is due to be lopped back - all the trimmings are earmarked for the woodpile!

[ali-s]

You have a lovely looking wood pile Abwsco

 

We have been let down yet again by some one we ordered logs from This is the fourth let down. Our log store is just about empty. I started to source a load of logs in the early Summer, looking for adverts, yellow pages, asking around, but couldn't find anything.

 

The sweep came and swept the chimneys today and said the only reliable source of logs around here are from petrol stations I have bought bags of eco logs from B&Q for now but it is an expensive way of doing it as is logs from petrol stations. I found a source of eco logs at a good price from down South which didn't charge for delivery up here, I dithered about them for a couple of days and when I went to order an enormous delivery charge had appeared. We may have to start to chop up the furniture if the temperatures get as low as last Winter or just forget about using the stove and heat the rooms with electric fan heaters and hope we do not get power cuts like last Winter.

 

I am now looking into suppliers of Peat which is a last resort.

[abwsco]

Alison, the company I ordered from are in Scotland and don't charge delivery. They were the cheapest I could find to buy from and service was excellent. I did buy semi seasoned though. linky

 

Hope you can soon have a log pile like mine

[ali-s]

Thank you. It looks promising. I will contact them by phone to see what size vehicle the pallets are transported on. Our lane is very narrow and large vehicles have problems getting down it. OH thinks the semi seasoned logs will do us fine and we can manage for a month or two using our small supply of wood and the B&Q eco logs.

 

I feel less worried now about the -18c temperatures we have had for the last two Winters now.

[abwsco]

Thank you. It looks promising. I will contact them by phone to see what size vehicle the pallets are transported on. Our lane is very narrow and large vehicles have problems getting down it. OH thinks the semi seasoned logs will do us fine and we can manage for a month or two using our small supply of wood and the B&Q eco logs.

 

I feel less worried now about the -18c temperatures we have had for the last two Winters now.

 

Hope they can deliver it to you Ali. Mine came in a biggish truck but it wasn't a juggernaut-lol Driver only had a pump truck for getting it out of the truck via the electronic tailgate and he did need help getting it up the kerb. Think that was the driver though

[ali-s]

We sourced a load of hardwood logs yesterday, from a small independant garden centre. A big builders bag 1 cubic metre? for £50. Some of the logs went straight in the log store, others were too long or too wide to fit in our stove. We spent 2 hours getting them to the correct size, OH with the chain saw until it went dangerously wrong and nearly took his leg off and me with the splitting maul.

 

I am hoping the logs from Turf and Stuff will be more uniform in size and fit in the stove without us having to chop them.

 

Our log store is now a quarter full We burnt some of the logs last night. They burn very hot, we had to open a window

[abwsco]

Glad you found some Ali. Re Turf and Stuff, they will cut the seni seasoned to 7" foc if you need it. Most of ours are the same size although there are a few thick ones in. Haven't tried them in the burner yet as that's still not installed.

[ali-s]

That is good to know about them being cut to size. Our stove will take 10 inch logs.

 

I have just received a call from the log man who was supposed to deliver a load of logs at the beginning of the week. He will be delivering them at lunchtime OH, DS and DD are all out until this evening so I will have to move and stack the logs myself. I am not looking forward to the task as my arms and back ache from all the splitting, moving and stacking the logs we bought yesterday. It will be a good feeling though to see the log store looking fuller

[The Dogmother]

It's satisfying isn't it?

 

We spent yesterday morning adding an extension on to the wood pile and chainsawing more wood to length. I hope that the weather holds for next weekend and we get to finish both piles of s"Ooops, word censored!" wood and get it all stacked and off the grass.

[ali-s]

I was exhausted after sorting, moving (using a wheelbarrow with a puncture ) and stacking 2 cubic metres of logs yesterday. The log store is now 3/4 full (most likely actually less than that but I got lazy about stacking correctly) Some of the logs are too thick and need splitting so I put those in one of the greenhouses and split two wheelbarrow loads and stacked those in the log store along with the others. More splitting tomorrow as it is my day off.

 

Using the splitting maul is a very good way of getting rid of anger and bad thoughts Never mind that I can hardly lift the maul as it is so heavy. I wonder if you can buy a ladies splitting maul

[chickencam]

We have a 6' x 4' shed behind the garage packed to the rafters with logs, a log pile by the front door that must contain a couple of weeks worth of logs, then a 6' x 2' bike shed full of scavenged wood cut to length, a 2' x 2' x 6ft tall shed also full of offcuts and kindling, several bags full around the place and a large plastic storage box with a lid outside the patio doors also full. It is so good to know that even if we have power cuts and winter throws it's worst at us we can still have at least one toasty room.

 

I love the excercise that gleaning, cutting and stacking wood gives me, it makes you warm twice

[Christian]

Log delivery due tomorrow and I have no idea where to put it The garden is tiny at my new house.

 

The previous owners left me some wood. Just a pile of carp bit of fencing that are too long and stupidly thin top burn. Think it was done more as they couldn't be bothered to shift it

 

The house is on a no through road gravel track - just 2 other houses further down the lane - and a fair few dog walkers. Might risk it and stack some by the front door. It should be safe.

 

What is it with wheel barrows and punctures?? Mine has one too!

[Aunty e]

We've used SO much more wood this year than last...I know we're not going to last through the winter, even if we burn the Ash, which I'd rather not as it's only been down for six months. I have no problem with buying the stuff, it's more that it can only be delivered to our kerb, then has to go through the garage, up the steps onto the patio, down the two tiers of patio and then 100 foot down the garden to the wood shed. Must borrow one of my younger brothers again...

[Christian]

I agree Aunty e, only been in the house a few weeks and only had logs for a month, but using them up pretty quickly!

 

Might have to order some more....

[chickencam]

We had another load of waste wood from our developer friend at the weekend. There were quite a few pieces 2" sq. x about 4 feet in length and aparently they are what concrete blocks are delivered on and they are then usually just skipped, they have been chopped into log lengths and although they are soft wood, they still keep the fire going for quite a while. We did also get loads of pieces with nails in from some demolition, and these took ages to de-nail and cut to length, but I hate to see waste. Our greenhouse is now being used for storage too.

[The Dogmother]

I don't bother to de-nail them Liz, I just go over the ash pan with a magnet to draw the ironwork out before I dump the ashes in the chooks' dust bath.