mmcoal wrote:I think the issue here is what each person has experienced personally, meaning if you have to go outside "everyday" and lug wood long distances into the living areas of a house then you might be more against wood then someone who just went out every couple of days and spent maybe 20 minutes to bring a couple wheelbarrow loads of wood into a basement or garage and place the wood in a very convenient location. Same can go for how you get your wood. Personally, much of our wood either came from tree removal jobs where the tree company was more than happy to let us take the wood off their hands(already cut to size also) or we would get a load of logs at a very reasonable price and just spend a week or so cutting and splitting. I personally wouldn't want to go out and fell trees and skid them around since cutting logs that were skidded through the dirt is a bad idea unless you don't mind going through chains and bars on your chainsaw at an unnecessary rate. We in no way ever looked at wood burning as something that took over our lives, it was just a part of life which is why I personally don't mind it.
these are good points. If you have access to wooded acreage without any competition from other family members or relatives or ? strangers, then you can cherry pick the seasoned dead trees, many still standing and not ruined with moisture- that are relatively small in diameter and don't have to be split. That makes it a lot easier, just cut to stove lengths and stack, now it's ready to burn. If I could find 8 cords of wood a year like that for free, I'd burn wood.
those get picked fast by seasoned wood burners though, what's left are monsters and leaners and what we call "widow-makers" hanging on other live trees, that become unpredictable when you cut them down.
those big monster oaks and maples, are another story, sometimes they're a danger just to drop them, and then they have to be bucked, and sometimes the trunk size is so large your home chainsaw won't get through it in one cut, it will have to be cut from multiple sides
for instance, this oak on our property had to be professionally dropped when half of it fell during a windstorm, and what was left was threatening a neighbor's yard and shed with destruction if it fell.
it took a 4 man crew to bring it down, and the boom on their truck was fully extended to get the top off first. The wood has been sitting on the ground for over a year now, should be fully seasoned by now. Old red oak. It was that big 45 years ago when I was a kid, just fuller at the top- and it was hollow from age and rot. Well over 100 years old. I measured the width at stump, it was 60" i.e. 5 feet wide at the bottom
burning wood turns into an adventure far beyond just having the coal guy drop 3 tons of coal into the bin. Very time consuming, at times challenging, and even dangerous.