Wood Gathering

Seakay

Discussion here with a few ideas:
http://itsnoteasybeinggreen.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4411&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0

Hapless_2

Easymoney wrote: »

Its interestimg that the link you provided is from a company that sells firewood, slightly bias dont you think

You will also find the same info on any wood burning /real fire site. that was just the first one I came across. In fact the same info is in many books on self sufficency. Different woods have different seasoning times. If you are going to burn wood you must LEARN about wood.

And no a forestry worker won't just tell you off these days. chances are you will get minimum a fine, especially if you take more than one branch from an area. Some branches are left there intentionally.

As for willow. Willow is rarely burnt as a fuel wood. Ash, Beech and Oak is preferable.

ukjoel

I remember a couple of years back some council took a guy to court as they spotted his dog walking out a public park with a stick in his mouth.
I dont think the case went very far once the papers picked up on it as council were a bit red faced. The bloke also had a pretty good defence. He claimed the dog had the stick before he went into the park.

My take on this kind of thing is that its all ok as long as your sensible (and dont get caught). The police arent hanging around local woodlands but if you start filling up a tipper truck or wandering into the new forest with a chainsaw then the locals quite rightly will complain.

John_3:16

Sitting next to a very hot wood burner as I write. It has a lovely piece of willow on it. When dry willow burns well pine when dry burns well. We have a burner with a secondry burning process. Find the best is to mix the your wood as it burns. I am aready collecting wood for the season after next,

moo2moo

I'm having similar problems with an affordable log supply. Several places locally are charging £60 for a 1 tonne builders sack which lasts about a week. Even by the tipper load at £130 I get less than 3 weeks heat from it.

My local tree surgeons all drop off unwanted loads as they pass which is far too infrequently. I've also taken delivery of a log maker (x-mas prezzie from hubby) which converts waste paper and other burnable items into compressed logs which supposably burn for an hour each. Seems like quite a time consuming messy business but I have access to an unlimited supply of shredded paper so I thought I'd give it a shot and it'll ammuse the kids over the holidays.

HugoSP

Some of the best sources for firewood are timber merchants.

We recently got two loads of firewood free from this crowd as they had more than they knew what to do with.

http://www.tavistockwoodland.co.uk/

Each load was around 1.5 tonnes but came in 8 ft long slabs. They were basically the irregular sides from trunks that were cut down to cut into 8ft long sections. The only problems are that:

1) you need the means to collect it
2) you have to cut them into useable logs. But the advantage of this is that they could be cut to the size you need for your woodburner/fire etc, rather than cut up too small/big by a third party.

Unfortunately they are now selling most of it to a biomass plant, so although it is still available it is now £10 per 8ft long bundle or £20 per 16ft long bundle.

One of the tips close to me actually give away old wood for firewood. It's worth asking.

Wanted ad in freecycle

Builders' skips, they are usually happy to let you take firewood, but I would be careful of the following:

1) Woodworm/dryrot etc
2) paint - some of the older gloss had lead in it and burning it could be hazardous.
My next door neighbour used to live in town and regularly raided skips for firewood.

Zazen999

Hi
As Hugo, plus tree surgeons; we bought this house from one and the wood shed was fully loaded.
We also make little logs out of paper, but use the carbon neutral's tool which is dry not wet; newspaper round the outside, inside stuffed with any junk mail/paper etc. We supplement it with real wood and use a mix. Basically, anything that will burn ok goes next to the fire for using up. Then all the ash goes on our soil/in the composter.
What about when the locals are pruning, loads of branches going spare; and every little helps. You can pile these up until dry for the next season.
I know you were never thinking of stealing, otherwise why ask the question on here; so perhaps ask the council - they may have to pay for clearing up some parks and perhaps would bag it up for you to take away; saves on disposal costs. It's worth asking around.

OddjobKIA

most land owners will bite your arm of if you ask if you can pick up the dead wood.

Zazen999

Not around here they aren't - bit of generalisation that.

OddjobKIA

Zazen999 wrote: »

Not around here they aren't - bit of generalisation that.

well as i do have my location in my sig then it prob is a little localised.

if you live near the coast go get some drift wood