Eco Earth Manor Blog

If you are thinking about cutting your trees for lumber to use in building projects, here’s an article with some great tips to save you time and money, and get the most out of your efforts.

By David Boyt, posted on Mother Earth News

Salvaging dead or dying trees, and milling the logs into lumber is a great experience. It is part of the powerful connection I feel with the land, and I am always delighted to share it with my friends and customers. If you have it in mind to hire a sawyer with a portable sawmill to cut lumber for a chicken coop, front porch, or a full-sized home, there are some things you can do before, during, and after the milling to make it go more smoothly. Finding a good sawyer can be challenging. Woodweb and Forestry Forum are common hangouts for sawyers with internet connections. I’m frequently on Norwood’s Town Hall forum, where I pick up (and occasionally offer) ideas, advice, and opinions. Some custom sawyers even have their own web sites. Of course, if you know a sawyer, or someone who has had a good experience with one, you’ve got a real head start.

If a portable mill is coming to your place, a certain amount of preparation will save you time and money, and will yield more usable lumber. The mill needs to be fairly level (straight is more important than level), and there needs to be plenty of room to work around it. I’ve had my Norwood mill in some pretty tight places, but a 30’ square area should give you and the sawyer enough elbow room to work.  Also think about how you’ll get the mill to the site. Could you get a 20’ trailer to it? More than once I had to cut down trees to widen a trail so I could get the mill to the “level” cutting site. You’ll also need a level place to stack the boards that isn’t too far from the mill—or a nearby place to park a trailer if you’re going to stack the boards for drying somewhere else.

The logs need to be stacked in such a way that they can easily be loaded onto the mill. If possible, move the logs to the mill site on a wagon or carry them with a front end loader. At least lift one end of the log off the ground when pulling it. Dragging logs behind a tractor will leave you with ruts, and the logs with grit embedded in the bark. Sawyers don’t like grit in the bark—it dulls the blade, and you may find yourself facing an additional charge if they are too dirty. Don’t cut any of the logs shorter than 8’ long, unless you’ve checked with the sawyer! A lot of mills have trouble clamping down shorter logs.  Anything less than 8” diameter is generally best left for firewood. They take too long to clamp down, and you just don’t get much lumber out of them.

Be realistic in your expectations. A good sawyer can do a remarkable job converting rough logs into straight lumber. But if you ask a sawyer to cut 1” by 8” lumber out of a log that is 6” diameter, prepare to be disappointed. I have actually had that happen. If you are supplying your own logs, the sawyer has very little control over the finished product. Small and crooked logs take longer to cut per board foot, because they are harder to clamp down. A sawyer who charges by the board foot may balk at cutting logs under 10” in diameter, or charge more per board foot, simply because it will take more time.

Plan ahead of time how you will handle the lumber. Stack some of the poorer logs at the front of the pile. These will be cut into blocking to hold the rest of the lumber up off the ground. They just need to be big enough to 6” by 6” cants, and don’t need to be pretty. Plan to have enough of it to cut 4’ long and lay about 20” apart to hold your longest boards. For example, if your logs are 12’ long, you’ll need nine square 4’ long blocks to hold up your stack of boards for drying. You could make them out of four 8’ logs or three 12’ logs.

You’ll save time and board handling if you arrange the stack to start out milling the longest logs, and work your way down to the shorter ones. I advise my customers to arrange the stack so that the best logs get sawn first. As we work the pile down toward the smaller and more crooked logs, we  may reach the point where it is too much work for too little lumber. The remaining logs go for firewood.

If you know what you want ahead of time, you will be much more satisfied with the outcome. One of my best customers wanted to build a large chicken coop. The logs were neatly stacked and ready to cut, and she had a cut list. This gave me the chance to get the most out of each log. The posts, beams, and siding all went onto a trailer which she pulled over to the construction site with a tractor. While I was milling the lumber, she was busy building the coop!

Listen to the sawyer’s voice of experience. For example, if you ask for lumber cut 2” thick, that’s what you get. But if you ask the sawyer for lumber for a 2” thick table top, he (or she) will probably recommend cutting the boards 2-3/8” thick so that after they are dry and surfaced smooth, you’ll have your 2” thick table top. It also helps the sawyer cut more efficiently. I take the time to look for interesting grain patterns and keep a sharper blade on the mill when cutting furniture wood. For trailer flooring, I cut for speed and efficiency without worrying about appearance. I don’t want to get too long-winded, so I’ll continue this blog a little later with comments about paying the sawyer, how to help during the cutting process, and taking care of the finished pile of lumber.

With Winter here, and bad weather and snowstorms that can leave us without power, maybe it’s time to consider a woodstove?

Follow this step-by-step advice to find the woodstove of your dreams. By John Gulland

Why not heat with wood? It’s a green heating option that also makes you more self-reliant.

Have you considered heating with wood? In many parts of North America, firewood is cheap and plentiful, so wood heat could potentially save you money. Not only does a woodstove give you a re­liable source of heat even when the power goes out, it’s also a green option, because wood is a renewable resource when har­vested sustainably.

Deciding which woodstove to buy can be tough, however, even if you’ve been heating with wood for years and are simply looking for a replacement stove. You’ll find a huge range of options in sizes, shapes, materials and technologies. Also, there are few recognized woodstove experts and no reliable ratings that use consistent criteria to fairly judge all the options. So how do you choose the best woodstove for you?

I recommend finding a good dealer first, then selecting from that store’s stock. Working for more than 30 years in the wood heating business has taught me that no one can tell you exactly what stove to buy, because all kinds of personal prefer­ences influence the final choice. However, a good dealer can be a great resource. Look for one who has been in the business for a number of years, heats his or her home with wood, and has burning models in the showroom. Keep in mind that only people who burn wood regularly can give you reli­able advice about woodstoves.

Next, pay attention to woodstove brands. In my opinion, the ideal stove is built by a company with at least 20 years’ experience in wood heating because it’s more likely to honor the warranty and continue to carry replacement parts.

For example, the stove in my house is a Super 27 built by Pacific Energy. The model has been on the market more than 20 years, and its combustion system has been revised at least twice during that pe­riod, mostly to make it more durable. I’ve rebuilt three older versions of the Super 27, one of my own and two for friends who own them. The current parts found in new stoves fit perfectly in older stoves that were originally sold with quite differ­ent internal parts. You can certainly find other stove manufacturers that follow the same thoughtful approach when they up­grade their products.

In fact, a sizable group of North American stove manufacturers has been around long enough to learn what makes people happy with their products. These are the makers of mid-priced steel stoves, a category that dominates the market. Over the years, I’ve watched these com­panies and been impressed with their corporate stability and product consis­tency. These brands include Quadrafire, Lopi and Avalon (both made by Travis Industries), Regency, Pacific Energy, and some regionally popular brands including Buck, Harman and Blaze King. In addi­tion to this group of mainly steel stove manufacturers, the Jøtul brand of cast-iron stoves merits a mention because this company’s products seem to consistently satisfy people’s needs.

Of course, this is just a sample of the many good brands you can choose from, and even among these brands there may be stoves that do not meet expectations. The brands I am most familiar with have all, at one time or another, produced a dud stove that didn’t perform well or that had features people didn’t like. I have also heard users complain about stoves that I think are among the best, which just goes to show that tastes differ widely.

To choose a woodstove you’ll be truly happy with, you should also review some com­mon features of woodstoves and consider how they will affect you during your day-to-day use of the stove.

Materials. Most woodstoves are made from either welded steel or cast iron, and with today’s stoves, there’s no difference between the two in performance or du­rability. The choice is strictly one of per­sonal preference.

Soapstone stoves are a special case. The stone on the stove absorbs heat and re­leases it slowly, thereby evening out the normal fluctuations in woodstove output. While this has some advantages, it also tends to mean that soapstone stoves are slow to respond when heat is needed. If you’ll be running your woodstove con­stantly all winter, and will rarely need to start it cold, a soapstone stove may be a good fit for you — or maybe you just love the look of a soapstone stove. In any case, you’ll want to be aware of its particular characteristics before buying one.

Combustion System. Some stoves use a catalyst to clean up smoky exhaust, and others use special firebox features to do the same job. The basic trade-off is that catalytic stoves can burn cleaner on aver­age than “non-cats” and can be more ef­ficient under some conditions, but “cats” are also more complicated to operate and their maintenance costs can be higher.

An experienced dealer of catalytic stoves once said that cats work well for techni­cal types — the kind of people who tinker with antique sports cars. But for users with little mechanical aptitude, a non-cat may be a better choice. Non-cats normally have only one operational control, and they’re more tolerant of various firing techniques.

Heating Capacity. Selecting the right size of woodstove for the heating load is a challenge, because manufacturers’ perfor­mance specifications are not standardized and can be misleading. For example, one common measurement is the maximum heat output rating, but knowing this number is about as meaningless as know­ing the top speed of a car — you should never use it. Heating capacity in dwelling square footage can also be misleading, be­cause regional differences in climate and home construction make for a wide range of heating loads per square foot. This is where an experienced dealer can be a big help. Dealers learn how each stove be­haves and know how satisfied customers have been with various models.

Log Length. Some manufactur­ers’ specification sheets imply a firebox that takes long pieces is an advantage, but you’re unlikely to need this feature. Commercial firewood dealers usually cut wood to a standard length of 16 inch­es — with good reason. Most people find pieces longer than 16 inches too awk­ward and heavy to handle comfortably.

Handling Coals and Ash. Look for a stove in which the firebox floor is at least 3 inches below the doorsill. This drop will help keep live coals inside the fire­box — and off your floor — while you’re doing normal fire management.

Ash pans are a common optional fea­ture, but many stove shoppers demand an ash pan on the assumption that it will make ash removal easier and neater. This may be true in some cases, but many of the ash pans I’ve seen and used are worse than not having one. Some are so shallow they can’t hold more than a day or two of ash production. Some involve removing a plug from the firebox floor, which can be a fussy, time-consuming job. Others are designed so poorly that when they’re removed for emptying, ashes are likely to spill all over the hearth. Compared with dealing with badly designed internal ash pans, the regular use of a small bucket and shovel isn’t so bad — I haven’t used an internal ash pan for many years and am a happier woodburner for it.

Woodstove Shape and Door Features. Manufacturers like to offer stoves that are wider than they are deep. These stoves project less into the room compared with other shapes, and they offer a wide ex­panse of glass for a panoramic view of the fire. Both of these advantages may seem attractive in the showroom, but they can have unfortunate consequences when you start using the stove. For example, a wide loading door can be awkward be­cause you have to move back from the stove to allow it to swing open.

Also, the wide but shallow firebox gives a so-called east-west firebox ori­entation, meaning that when looking through the glass door, you see the sides of the logs. East-west loading limits the amount of wood per load because logs can fall against the glass if you fill the stove more than about half full. North-south loading, in contrast, tends to be best for full-time winter heating because more wood can be loaded for the coldest nights, and there is no risk of logs roll­ing against the glass. The best of both worlds is a firebox with a roughly square floor so you can choose which way to load logs.

Top Loading. This can seem like a great feature when inspecting stoves on the showroom floor, but top loaders can be messy to maintain. Also, the chim­ney must produce strong draft to keep smoke from rising out of the open top. If you have an outside chimney or must have elbows in the flue pipe, a top load­er could contribute to poor indoor air quality by spilling exhaust whenever it is loaded. Finally, top loading does not allow for precise log placement, which can lead to serious frustration when try­ing to load firewood.

Final Thoughts for Choosing the Best Woodstove

Here’s a three-step process to go through when determining how to choose a woodstove that is right for you. These steps virtually guarantee your new stove will meet your needs.

1. Go through the discussion of fea­tures in this article and rule out the woodstoves that don’t make sense for you and your family.
2. Of those left, match the stove’s heat output and features to your needs based on your climate zone, house size and house configuration (using advice from a trusted dealer).
3. Of all the stoves that meet the first two criteria, choose the one most attractive to you.

Follow these steps, and you can’t go wrong.

Read more: To get more advice from John Gulland, check out some of his previous MOTHER EARTH NEWS articles on energy efficiency and safety.

John Gulland is a wood heat consultant and educator who has been working with woodstoves since 1974. Visit Wood Heat, John’s online organization, to learn more.

Intriguing idea from the UK!

London (CNN) — What if buildings had lungs that could absorb carbon emissions from the city and convert them into something useful? What if they had skin that could control their temperature without the need for radiators or air-conditioning? What if buildings could come “alive?”

Science fiction? “Not as such,” claims Dr Rachel Armstrong, senior TED fellow and co-director of Avatar, a research group exploring the potential of advanced technologies in architecture. “Over the next 40 years, ‘living’ buildings — biologically programmed to extract carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere — could fill our cities.”

Armstrong works on the cutting edge of “synthetic biology,” a relatively new science devoted to the manufacture of life-like matter from synthesized chemicals, and is something of an evangelist for the discipline. The chemicals Armstrong works with, concocted in the lab, are engineered to behave like organic microorganisms — with the added benefit that they can be manipulated to do things nature can’t. Armstrong refers to them as “protocells.” “For instance, a protocell could be mixed with wall paint and programmed to produce limestone when exposed to carbon (dioxide) on the surface of a building,” she said. “Then you’ve got a paint that can actually eat carbon and change it into a shell-like substance.”

So, just as iron rusts when it comes into contact with oxygen and water, protocells can produce simple chemical reactions when they come into contact with carbon dioxide (CO2) molecules, turning the CO2 into calcium carbonate, or limestone, which stops the greenhouse gas from rising up into the ozone layer. In effect, we are living in (buildings’) waste like we were living in the effluent of animals during the Agrarian revolution,

As a by-product of this process, the British scientist says that limestone produced by protocells could naturally “heal” micro-fractures in walls, channeling through tiny breaks, helping to extend the life of any structure it was painted on to. “And not only that,” added Armstrong. “The thickness of the limestone will grow over time, creating insulation and allowing your building to retain more heat or indeed sheltering it from heating up underneath the sun.” The layer of limestone could take anywhere between a year and a decade to form depending on the concentration of carbon dioxide in the surrounding air. However Armstrong says that “eventually we will see protocell technology become self-repleting (able to replenish itself) and (it) will be considered alive.”

Dick Kitney is professor of bio-engineering at Imperial College London and co-director of the Centre for Synthetic Biology and Innovation. He says that, while the concept is sound, moving it into industrial production is a different story. “It’s a question of scalability,” he said. “Getting the process to work in the lab is one thing, but after that you need to work very closely with major industrial manufacturers to understand if it is at all possible to produce on a mass scale. Sometimes it’s just not possible.”

Kitney says that nobody has yet managed to get any synthetic biological product to the manufacturing stage: “The science is being taken very seriously — particularly in the UK and U.S. … but it’s still early days.” While Armstrong says the science has been proven in the lab, she too acknowledges that commercial applications are still some years down the road. “This is bulk chemical manufacturing we’re talking about, so the process is slow,” she said. “If it were pharmaceuticals it would be much quicker.”

But Armstrong’s work is gaining interest from the industrial sector. “There’s a traditional paint manufacturer here in the UK that is looking into it, but we’re all under non-disclosure agreements,” she said. Armstrong admits that, at present, the paint would be capable of absorbing only a tiny fraction of the carbon dioxide emitted in a city like London, which spewed out around 42 million tons in 2009, according to government figures. “The primitive paints we are developing are not very efficient yet, ” she added. The idea is that carbon is absorbed by a building to create light. Can you imagine a whole city lit by the walls of its own buildings? Armstrong doesn’t think the paint will be ready for market much before 2014 and, at this stage, she cannot comment on how much it will cost to produce commercially. Despite this, she says a major Australian property developer has already placed a future order for it.

Award-winning British architect Richard Hyams, who worked for 12 years under internationally renowned architect Norman Foster before setting up his own practice, is also an advocate of self-regulating building materials. But, he says, attitudes will have to change before this technology makes it into the mainstream. “As with any significant step-change, it’s slow to take off,” said Hyams. “From developers, to agents, to buyers themselves, people generally don’t want to be the first to risk investment in a relatively untested industry when the costs are high.”

In addition, says Hyams, legislation is slow, “slicing off the worst building practices from the bottom, rather than advancing the best ideas at the top.” However, Armstrong and Hyams agree that, as the burden on cities to reduce their vast carbon footprints intensifies, the market will look to more radical solutions. “We’re also currently experimenting with the process of bioluminescence,” said Hyams. “The idea is that carbon is absorbed by a building to create light. Can you imagine a whole city lit by the walls of its own buildings?”

Whatever the future has in store, our relationship with cities’ megastructures and the carbon they produce will likely change. Armstrong concludes with a sobering thought: “At present, buildings are big machines that take our resources and turn them into poison. In effect, we are living in their waste like we were living in the effluent of animals during the Agrarian revolution.”