Firewood Processors

I moved into my new house last year with a wood boiler that goes through 20+ cord per year. Eventually I am going to add a propane boiler to offset the wood, but for now I am cutting and splitting most every weekend.

I didn’t have a seasoned wood supply when I moved in last fall which, I hope, is the primary reason I burned as much as I did last year. I purchased 24 cord last spring and split some of it, but cutting wood in the spring was not high on my list. I still have about 18 cord of 8′ timbers to split. I know… not good for my heating efficiency.

Now as we get into heating season, I am looking at options to finish up my cutting and splitting. Work has me traveling almost every other week so I would prefer to spend the weekends doing something other than cutting wood. Does anyone know of a place that rents firewood processors, either skid steer mounted or stand-alone? I’ve talked to a few places, but they only sell the processors. I don’t have the volume to buy new or used.

If I found a rental place, I’d likely take it for a week and share it with some other people around that have piles waiting to be split.

I did find a place in Pennsylvania that rents a Halverson HWP-140HD Wood Processor. Not much help here, but it did give me an idea of what to expect for a price. They are asking $1200/week including the skid steer. I have a skid steer so if I can rent the processor for $600/week, I’d do it in a heartbeat.

Lars

Lars,
Place an add on Facebook and get some high school help! I will bet in one weekend you could have it pretty cleaned up!

Wow, 20 plus cords a wood for one year??? Do you have windows your house? Must be a huge house. That sounds like an awful lot of wood for a boiler. Sorry, I don’t have any info on a processor. I just saw you burnt 20 plus cords. I heat entirely with wood also, but not with a boiler and I went through 6-8 cords last year from November thru April.

I will say though that processor looks like the ticket, but they sure get a lot of money for them new.

sticker wrote:

Wow, 20 plus cords a wood for one year???

Yep… I did make some plumbing changes to the in-floor heat this year that I hope cuts down on the wood consumption. It had obviously been a few years since the lines were cleaned out as there was a lot of rusty water coming out and some of the lines were plugged. I didn’t have time to do it last year before we needed heat. I wish I was more confident that these changes would make a significant impact.

sand-burr wrote:

Lars,
Place an add on Facebook and get some high school help! I will bet in one weekend you could have it pretty cleaned up!

Not a bad idea Shannon!

20+ cords a year??!!

That is wayyy too much. If I burned that much in 1 year, I’d quit doing it.
You have some problem(s) you need to get checked out and just some plumbing changes to the in-floor ain’t going to do it.
Seriously, I’d call one of the guys that sells them and see it they will give you a once over.
I burn as much as Sticker quoted (I have a Central Boiler) and I burn junk wood in November and April.

Good luck!

That sounds like way too much to me also. What size and type of wood are you burning? The people I know with them are using pretty good size chunks, like 6 to 8 inch around by 24 inch split once. I second calling a boiler installer and have them look at it.

Since we’re talking about how much wood I am burning, I should clarify my house is a pole barn. It was originally a barn built in the early 80’s that was remodeled into a house and shop area over the past 10 years before I purchased it.

About 4,500 ft2 of the structure is shop space with 13’6″ ceilings heated by the wood boiler via in-floor heat. There is a lot of concrete to heat and then a lot of air to heat. The exterior walls are 2×6 studs covered with tin on both sides. The walls are insulated and have a vapor barrier to the inside. The house itself is a separate system heated by propane.

By my calculations, I need between 16 cord of dry red oak and 24 cord of green red oak to heat the shop for 5 months (Nov-Mar).

Heat required: ~106,000 BTU/hr
x 24 hrs x 150 days = 382 MMBTU/season

Dry red oak: 24 MMBTU/cord –> 382/24 = 16 cord
Green red oak: 16.8 MMBTU/cord –> 382/16.8 = 24 cord

This agrees with what I burnt last year.

This guy is on Lake Mille Lacs so he is within driving distance I assume…and does a fine job–cheap enough.

http://brainerd.craigslist.org/for/5285684504.html

Well a pole barn is a different matterI suppose. That may be a reasonable amount considering the amount of concrete, height and the R value of the insulation. What temp are you trying to maintain?

With ceilings that high ceiling fans might help your efficiency. My shop is just as high and if the fans are not on the temperature difference from floor to ceiling is 20 degrees. Fans on about 10 degree difference.

Are you talking about Face cords or Full cords?

It gets delivered on a truck like this. I believe it is 6 full cord per load.

Attachments:

1. 

   sep22-8.jpg
   

shoot-n-release wrote:

It gets delivered on a truck like this. I believe it is 6 full cord per load.

Did you check with the “processor” in the link? Is it still around $40-$45 per cord–cut and split? I assume the logs you buy in bulk are less than $100 ( should be around $85/cord at the rate you buy it!)per cord so not touching a piece of wood is pretty cheap compared to buying per cord fully processed?

Just curious…as I sure wouldn’t cut and split a cord for $40-$45.

You’re numbers are right on Steve. For $900, I was hoping I could rent a machine for a week and sub it out since I have some friends and relatives with piles of wood also.

Check these out.

http://embmfg.com/Forestry/Woodprocessor/