Wood Management Weekend

For awhile now I have wanted our refinery operations to expand into “Bioheat.”
Not only the home heating work that Bill Knighton is doing, but simpler than that: heating with wood.

My theory is that our operations are on the edge of a massive woodlot, which has more naturally downed trees every season than we can possibly accommodate. Hurricanes, ice storms, and floods all select trees in these woods.

Instead of leaving this fuel lying around to rot, we should tote it out of the woods with our biodiesel powered tractor, cut it into rounds with our electric chainsaws (which are tethered to our biodiesel generator), and split with our electric hydraulic splitter (also powered by generator).

It strikes me that our energy balance on such an operation would not be that bad, and that it could help reduce some ecological footprints in the coop.

Why shouldn’t coop members be able to come out and split or stack wood? Why not have firewood for sale by the pickup truck load? Coop members could fill up with fuel for transportation, and fuel for heating with one stop.

To this end we installed a woodstove in the Princess Palace. That is the only source for heat. And we installed a woodstove in the human habitation part of the refinery.

But no one really paid much attention. Until now. We are on the edge of a cold snap. This winter has been a dream thus far. We had one cold spell that set us back a piece, but it has been unseasonably warm.

Last night Scott ran out of firewood. Matt and I and Rachel tossed a few armfuls into the back of her truck so that he could get through the night.

This is Martin Luther King Weekend. And it’s chilly tonight. Zafer and I started the day by loading the truck with chainsaws and axes, and ear protection, and stuff, and we headed to Janice’s to collect a truckload of wood. On the way we stopped on Tami’s Travail to render an oak bough that had fallen long ago, but had not quite made it to earth.

It had been bugging me for awhile, and I was glad to dispense with it, and to get it loaded onto the truck.

At Janice’s we cleared a trail to a hardwood that is still very much alive, but growing horizontally over the front five. It had no chance of survival. It is downed, but still clinging to life.

We took some rounds from its crown and loaded them onto the truck.

And we went to the refinery. When we arrived, the interns were out splitting wood. Pedro was wearing a vibrant sweater his mother in Guatemala had made. And Forrest was stacking wood.

They threw their implements of destruction onto the truck (wedges and mauls), and we all headed back to Janice’s to cut some wood.

Two years ago a pair of giant white oaks in the bottom between Janice’s and Joe’s came to earth during a wet spell. Everyone has been nipping around their edges ever since.
Their trunks are massive, and require a twenty inch bar. Very few were able to split them when green, and it is tragic to see giant rounds rotting around the place at this point.

I managed to fire up my twenty inch Shindawa this morning. Awhile back I had substituted biodiesel for bar oil in this saw, and I got a really crummy result. Not only did B100 smoke significantly more than chain oil, but the chain was dulled quickly.

With a new chain, and new tanks full of fuel and petroleum bar oil, Zafer and I set out to work.

Janice has obviously been defeated by the white oaks in the yard. She had bought a dump truckload of pallet ends from Dave’s Deliveries. Most of the hardwood in this country goes into pallets. Dave dropped his load smack dab in front of the white oak trunks. Dave is the guy who introduced me to the concept of running on straight vegetable oil. I’m sure he was not trying to make a statement with the placement of his load.

We moved it to make a truck path. And we set up some chopping blocks. And we cut some rounds and split them. And we split some rounds that Matt cut last week.

Rachel showed up and we did a dump run. We hauled away a truckload of construction debris from the Princess Palace renovation, and managed to shed some plastic carboys as well.

Pedro, Forrest, Rachel and I attacked one bay of the Princess Palace, with the overarching goal of establishing a wood management center.

Matt and Seth had left behind some premium fir boards and odds and sods, and it was clear that we needed a lumber yard. Forrest and I ran to town, to the Piedmont Biofuels Industrial site, where we had sorted trash last week.

There we retrieved a series of two by four triangles with aluminum pipes inserted along one side. They were essentially a homemade pipe rack, which we toted to the refinery and repurposed into a vertical lumber yard.

We sanitized the first bay of the Princess Palace. It is now full of well seasoned hickory rounds that Peter rendered, and barrels of kindling from both the Industrial site and construction debris.

We set up a pair of ends: a woodstove that Seth threw into the project, and the kid’s lemonade stand. My guess is that it will be stacked with split wood by the end of the weekend.

I did another dump run at the end of the day. It is amazing how much waste can come off the project when construction begins.

And I came home tired, and happy, and sore from a wonderful day in the “physical layer.” We also drained some wash water, set another wash going, and drained the glycerin from a batch in Alien Baby.

At Summer Shop we made a pair of recycling bins out of detergent drums that Doug had dropped off.

By the end of the day I was relaxed and happy. Tami just returned from a trip to Little Rock. It’s good to have her home.

Tomorrow I hope to jump back into the creation of the wood management system. It involves strategically located chopping blocks, and the right tools, and the ability to drive up to our quarry. We are building a system that will deliver BTUs appropriately, to those of us in need of some heat.

Tomorrow I think I’ll clear the woodshed of the construction debris from our own renovation project, and fill it with some nice green rounds for next year.

Posted by Lyle at January 16, 2005 06:20 AM