I'll bet you dont even need to make an A down through the wood pile with the pallets. If you just stand up a row of pallets down the middle the air will flow. My opinion listed in case you wanted my 2 cents worth if comments.
The nights of sleep I have lost worrying about the huge mound of Ash is officially up to Zero! It will be just fine and is just like money in the bank! I do like your wire idea. It will make disassemble very easily compared to nails or screws!👍 Something I do worry about, and it is because I know nothing about it. On my old Kubota tractor. The hydrostatic pump is a little weak from a decade of abuse and use. I have to run it in lower ground speed, with rpms maxed in order to build enough pump pressure to lift the heavy tongue on loaded trailers. My worry is that with your sand bags on constantly and lifting these heavy trailer tongues versus having a removable ballast box. Is it maybe prematurely wearing out your pump working so hard?
@In The Woodyard It would be a good question to bring up on one of the tractor channels...I honestly don't know but my gut feeling is the pump is working very hard with all that weight. The dump trailers have alot of tongue weight to start with alone.
I was gripping yesterday that it 60 and breezy. 😂 In a month or so it will be 80’s maybe 90’s with high humidity. Then I will be wishing for 60 with breeze.
Hi Greg 😮 we have had a brutal southerly storm and snow, freezing and whatnot🥶 southerly winds are bad here because that's the direction of Antarctica 😂
Hi Chris, I agree with some of the comments about drying that huge pile. In my experience with firewood, is the dryer the better. I believe that I commented before three years plus on drying will give you no creosote problems in the chimney. I have a book called NORWEGIAN WOOD by Lars Mytting, it's a very interesting read. You are very busy so you might not have time for reading. Take care, stay safe
I have the book. Not all wood or all wood drying conditions are the same. I have talked to several big firewood producers, one sells and delvers 2 full semi truck loads EVERY day and all his wood is in tall cones on the ground for 6 months at most before it is sold..
Farm supply stores used to sell "baling wire" in large rolls. About the same size as "electric fence" wire much softer and easier to work with. FYI Electric fence wire higher tensile strength but much stiffer......
Does the firewood still dry in the middle of the piles? Why did you switch from stacking to piles is it cause of time? And does the piles dry just as good as the stacks?
Nice video for us Chris. Not so nice for your gloveless hands though. Change the subject, what do you think of the Demco ball hitch on Bert's PJ trailer? I have a PJ trailer with one of those and I love it. GNI
For what it’s worth, you could take a sharpie (indelible marker as daddy likes to say) mark the tank and then add 5 gallons mark it again, and again, and again. Then average it out and mark the rest of the level tube. Just an idea. The weather is wonky here too.
Wise method of trying different ways to dry wood. After a season you'll have the answer and then can use that. Maybe 4 pallets is too wide and 2 is too narrow and 3 wide is the answer? We will all find out soon enough's.
As long as it's no more then about 5 feet to the center it will still dry. You make a pile say 14 feet high, without the pallets. drying time would be massively slowed. . Only other thing I'd do is put a old tarp on the under side to limit sinking in to the ground and ground moisture. And one over the top. . Bit I'm in a very very different climate with little freezing, many feet of rain, and a average of 2.5 hours of sun a day over a year.
That is a great idea, creating a little tunnel for air to flow through the pile. That's the issue I had with this technique, the wood in the "core" of the pile will never get any air or sun. I was also doing this with oak and pine, which both hold moisture and mold easy. I bet it works fine with ash for sure Looks like it's gonna work for ya!
An A-frame tunnel would create air circulation and reduce the volume of wood contained in the rack, maybe as well off use the same pallets and build another narrow rack? or perhaps try 3 pallets wide so that he can end dump the trailer rather than throwing wood over the top? so many combinations to consider.
@@InTheWoodyard I MEAN IT NICE IF U NEW HOW MUCH GAS IS LEFT IN THE TANK AND SORRY BEEN UP OVE 24 HR NO SLEEP REALLY SICK AND PAIN IN MY HOLE BODY HOPE THIS HELP
Good morning Chris, that processor sure can make a pile of wood fast! Just a thought, every time you go out to the pile, scoop a bucket full of resplits. Adds ballast for pulling the trailer plus dump it right in the bins. Stay warm!
Hi Chris, Wilfried here from Belgium in Europe. another suggestion to have less work : i cut my logs on 1 meter, than split and than stack the 1 meter pieces in a pile. The wood can dry with the same speed but the big advantage is that you can stack much faster en much higher ( 10 feet is no problem) before it gets unstable after drying. Desadvantage: you can not do it with ugly stuff, which are difficult to split on that length. When you have to deliver you cut the 1 meter pieces in 3 . Not with the chainsaw, but with a circular saw ( pto behind tractor, or electric). Let me know what you think about it.
That is a very cool idea! I like it and have seen other people in Europe do that too! Can you send me some pictures, that would be great to see and share here on the channel??? My email is chrisinthewoodyard@gmail.com
I gotta say i am getting nervous watching you move those giant trailer loads with the Kioti. We have 2 very comparable medium size hydrostatic Kubota tractors. Came out one morning, the one tractor wouldn't move. $6,000 transmission replacement job at 1,000 hours. ( comparable to 50,000 miles on a car ) Not good! Shying away hydros now. Just one man's opinion. Oh and the dealership lost our gps receiver that was in the roof of the cab! And when is Tony coming back? And what happened to that 100 acre property you guys were riding around with the land owner?😁
@@InTheWoodyard Kubota L 5030 Hydrostatic. Says 50 horsepower on google but i thought it was more. It's probably a $100 nozzle that goes bad inside the trans but of course they can't just rebuild that for you. Nowadays i use Medium gear all the time and really only use high gear on the road that was the advice of the dealer, don't use high gear with half peddle, use medium gear instead. Hopefully they are getting built better these days.
Luckily you don't live in California. For just my truck(I have 4 work trucks besides mine) and the same size gas cans. It would be $350+ depending on which gas station I go to
Because it was split in my firewood processor a Eastonmade 22 mb and depending on the wood (log) size 6" up to 22" the splits can vary a lot and my customers want pieces that can be picked up with one hand so we split them down if they need to be.
I'm facing the same problem your old best friend Tony has ,a old mature hard maple woods with a high crown ,wood definitely drys better thru the winter when the leafs are down,love your videos and incorporated some of your techniques to keep moving along.
What a shame that the longhair nasty orange cat disappeared and was never seen on the farm again. Oh well, all the remaining woodcats lived happily ever after
@@InTheWoodyard U NEED THEM IT MAKE YOUR LIFE SO BETER NICE TO NO HOW MUCH U GOT LEFT I P;LAN ON USE MY SELF HAVE IN THE PASS LAN MOWER AND STUFF HOPE THIS HELP U OR SOME ONE
You should Look into getting a big barrel and having the diesel fuel delivered and getting it off road fuel which would be ruby red around here it's called anyways then you don't have all the taxes on it you just can't run it In a diesel pick up R if you get caught you're in trouble
They can also deliver gasoline at a discount also most places will anyways around farmfields if found a couple of About 250 gallon tanks. It may seem like a lot.
Could always add fuel stabilizer they make it for diesel fuel also. 200 or 250 gallons May seem like a lot But if you use 10 gallons a week that's only 20 weeks not even 6 months for 200 gallons
You seem to handle the same wood many times.Lots of back breaking work.Why not cut and split then use the conveyor to put the wood in the pallet cages to dry.Then load once when dry to sell.
Although we stack all of our wood I do think the bins will work out. There is something really satisfying watching you just chuck it in there without stacking🤣 If I had more room we would definitely give it a try. Well done Sir Chris👍🏻👍🏻GNI
If your water's only built the bottom as you were going you wouldn't be able to back the dump trailer up and dump it right in and then just extend the sides and the bottom out as you go this way. Here you're gonna have to toss it off the. Other? Thing is. Is that back row in there? Maybe you could stack it at the very back?😊
G’morning Chris. I think I saw your truck almost explode…. Sweet idea fer moving da air. I’ve heard of people using stove pipe in the center of a beehive stack as a chimney fer da air. GoodNightIrene
Another possibility for a cheaper drying bin is to consider making a partial enclosure consisting of 2 parallel strings of fencing made with steel fencing posts with the strung wire (possibly just barb wire) spaced maybe 8-12" apart (I know that some of wood might "leak-out", but since your wood length is 18", probably not much would come out before a "plug" would be created). As the upright posts with their strung wire have to prevent the piled wood from pushing them over, you probably can't space the posts more than maybe 6' feet apart. At least you might start with that spacing and you could always infill with a tighter spacing if needed. You might need to support some of the posts with a 2"x4" x 8' piece of wood at ~45 deg angle from the post top back to the ground if you find the piled-up firewood is causing the fence to bow out excessively. An example might be a 50' x 8' corral with the 8' sections open so you could dump and retrieve the wood and hopefully 8' would be narrow enough to still get adequate drying? Of course, you'd probably want to put down your pallets onto the ground prior to dumping the split wood into your wood corral.
Hey Chris, just wondering if you have a Venmo or PayPal account. I tried sending you a couple bucks for hard drive recovery, but I don’t think you ever got it. If the hard drive issue is long over, you could buy more food for the kitties.
Good day Chris! I believe you have a great drying area with that massive open field constant air flow no matter what the weather. I know for ultimate drying stacking would be the Best. But in your case with the quantities and saving time you are most efficient with piles cheers 👌🏻🔥🇨🇦
Hey there Chris! I’m liking the wood bin set up, thats gonna work well for sure! Like that tunnel idea also for firewood mountain there! Great vid that day really enjoyed it! Take care! Andrew from NB :)
Has Andrew contacted you about a 12 or 16 way wedge for the processor to reduce your resplitting? That would make a difference I'd bet. Years ago I got into TONS of hackberry, (hackberry is about the only tree I'll cut down live, they're more like weeds in my neck of the woods) and I made big piles like you have here... but no pallets. I just piled it on the ground. The bottom layer of wood was basically sacrificial, but everything that wasn't touching dirt stayed in pretty good shape. I had no problems getting it dry in a year's worth of seasoning time doing it like that, and I think ash dries even better/easier/faster. I've even done big piles of oak like that and it will dry pretty well in piles also, it just takes about 1 1/2 - 2 years. That's a really good idea about the "air tunnel", but I don't think you'd need to do that unless you were making a Really big pile, like 3-4 pallets wide -Air Tunnel- then 3-4 more pallets. It would be an interesting experiment! Good night Irene, wherever you are!
Im with you on the weather! I'm so frustrated, we cant take salt spreaders out of our trucks because every 5 days or so a stupid low pressure system from Canada meets up with these damn systems coming from California and we get rain, rain and more rain then drops to teens for a couple days and freezes up everything which means we cant transition to spring/summer mode and I dont like working in 30's and below. People in the south don't know how lucky you have it.
Hey you know Chris. You could make a few concrete box's. Fill them with concrete. Some 2 by 4's and plywood on the inside. Mabe 3by 3 wide and 3 foot high. Put a piece of 2 inch pipe up and down sticking out the top 6 inches or whatever. Have a hole in the top with a shackle on it. It's your rigging point for your tractor to move them around. A couple of these around would help you secure any corners that are giving you a pain in the ass for falling over. Oh and weld a couple of pieces of metal on each side of that pipe. 2 down low and 2 up at the top. Mabe a foot on each side of the two inch pipe. This way the concrete will have something to grip onto when you pour that concrete slab. Keep your eye out for some free pipe and metal. Your making you're own personal jersey barriers for wherever you need them. I know this is easier said than done. And concrete isn't cheap. You could mix your own concrete to. The mixers don't cost that much either. Here is the basic mix my dad tought me back in the 60s. It's 4 buckets of stones. 2 buckets of concrete sand. I bucket of Portland cement. And one bucket of water. If it looks to dry give it a little more water. All this can be adjusted with whatever you want in it. Don't make it to weak. I know this sounds like to much. But there's nothing worse than when you build something and part of it falls down. All right we need some warmth and I hope you keep making money. See ya. And I do like watching your videos. I forgot about the one bucket of lime. We were doing sidewalks and his driveway. It's in case you want a extra smooth finish and look. I don't thing you need lime though. Bye
the first shot of you taking out the pallets looked like the "frozen tundra" those cribs, using the wire turned out pretty good. March has been fickle this year. its been unseasonably warm here in the Chesapeake Bay/western shore area of Maryland. We received only one day of measurable snow and that was only about a 1/2 inch. we've had temp swings from 20s (occasionally) to 70s. it would be warm for a couple of days then cold for a couple of days. i only went through about 1.5 cord of wood when i normally go through @ 3 full cord. you needed your BIG coat today with that wind. the other day i asked you about what was on the back of the tractor and you said they were tractor weights. obviously not in the traditional sense. Are they sandbags?
You could go 2 1/2 pallets wide placing the center pallets on top of the outside pallets making a shorter tunnel than you were talking about but still making a better air flow.
With fresh cut live wood, would you stack it as normal or pile up wood that is greener than green? I have access to an unlimited supply of free pallets. Am going pallet shopping today. Yep, unlimited pallets from one pallet store.
Yes, fuel is still expensive but you can save on your diesel. Check around for a gas station that sells "off road diesel". It is the same stuff but you don't have to pay the road taxes. My local shell station sell s their regular diesel at a discount for off road use and all you have to do is sign a form. This is what I use in my tractor.
Chris better put something across every so many feet or the middle will eventually bulge out. Love the dea of not stacking everything as before. Save a lot of time. Might not look as "orderly" as before but agree it will dry because it won't be "stacked" so tightly as before. Looking good!
With the impending spring thaw, I am curious that if you have though of using geotextile or larger gravel such as 4" minus on the soft ground before putting in the smaller gravel on top?
