(Almost) Free Heating

Since we had the woodburner fitted, my lovely hubby has been honing his hunter gatherer skills, collecting free wood has become an exciting frugal hobby ! We currently have a huge quantity of firewood seasoning for next year our 12' x 20' wooden garage is filled to the rafters with wood (stacked off the floor on pallets to help airflow). So where did it all come from? well the first lot came from freegle, I put a "wanted" ad on and offered a man with a chainsaw in return. We had 4 responses from people who had trees which were either fallen or that they wanted cutting down. This filled our trailer about 10 times over , and he spent lots of time chopping and sawing the smaller pieces. Some of the smaller piece dried quite quickly and we have been using them.

The larger pieces were stacked under the eaves of the workshop canopy to be chopped at a later date. Next our landshare owner approached us for help pruning and removing some apple trees in the orchard, in return we got to keep the wood from 3 apple trees, this has mostly been processed now but we won't burn this until next year. In addition to "tree" wood hubby has perfected the art of "pallet hunting" and if we have to go into town for anything the trailer comes too and we scour the industrial estates for unwanted pallets , anything too good for burning is kept for future construction projects. some of the pallet wood is chopped into short planks and the rest is cut into kindling, pallets dry out much quicker than trees and can be burned within days/weeks. pallet wood also burns hot so is ideal for when the fire is first lit , then chunkier logs are used to maintain the heat .

We have one of these , a handy moisture testing device that tells you if wood is safe to burn , you split a log and insert the probe if the reading is 20% or less it is safe to use(it was about a fiver of Ebay) . Burning unseasoned wood produces poisonous gases and can cause chimney fires, however just to confuse matters Ash can be burned green! We have not had to buy any wood so far and have been favouring the woodburner over the central heating as its free, and if we open all the upstairs doors and close the kitchen one , it heats the whole house. We go through about a trug full of wood in 5 hours (the flexible garden type ) although windy days use more ! We only have two rules when it comes to free wood........................always ask permission when taking pallets, and never burn anything that has been treated as this is bad for you and the environment.

We have been surprised how easy it has been to source free wood although it is time consuming, it is good for the purse. We only turned down one offer of wood and that was a 60ft tree which blew over in a pub car park.....................it was just too big for us to cope with as the landlord wanted rid of it quick !