I started to hijack Jon's thread about his recent trip to the Jemez and thought maybe I should just start a new thread.
In my new house I have a Quadrafire fireplace that provides supplemental heat to the main part of the house so that I don't spend a fortune on propane with the furnace. The FP works great and puts out a ton of heat. I only used 100 gallons of propane Jan-Apr (we moved in Jan 9) to keep the house heated to 58 using the furnace and then all the extra heat came from the fireplace. I could keep the central part of the house at 80 degrees if I wanted to. It also gives me the ability to heat the house if I were ever to lose power for a long period of time. Since the FP got used daily Jan - Apr, I'm suspecting that I will use it about 8 months out of the year. That means I need a lot of firewood to keep it fed. The challenge is getting an adequate supply of firewood to last a whole season without spending a fortune on it. I used about a cord of wood that was given to me this past winter. I'm expecting to need about 2 cords for the full 8 months.
The going rate for a cord of wood right now is in the $250 - $400 range depending on the species mix, who you get it from, and if it's delivered. If I'm paying someone at least $500 for wood, I might as well just pay for extra propane.
I recently bought a permit to harvest wood out of the Mountainair Ranger District, in the Manzano Mountains, north of Tajique. The majority of the wood that can be harvested is ponderosa and fir. Those burn good but don't have the same energy density of juniper/pinon/oak. So I'm trying to figure out how to get my hands on some of those species without spending a fortune. I just bought a used Stihl MS290 for $250 so I'm invested in harvesting my own wood to keep costs down. And I have a friend with a heavy duty log splitter. Any suggestions on how I can harvest pinon and juniper in the ABQ East Mountain vicinity? I looked on the BLM site and their fuelwood areas are all pretty far from town.
The next challenge I have is my trailer. It's kind of small and wimpy but it's what I have. If I added some small stake panels up front I could probably get about a 1/2 cord safely. The trailer is nice in that it is short and relatively good ground clearance so taking it 9 miles up the forest road from Tajique works out fine, other than I have to make a lot of trips to get enough wood. I actually went up there on Sunday to scout it out and make sure I knew what I was getting into. Because of Stage 2 Fire Restrictions, I couldn't use my chainsaw because I was there in the middle of the day (no chainsaw use between 10 am and 6 pm). So I just loaded up stuff that was under 8' long with good burning potential. Load distribution on this trip was terrible. I need to cut the wood and bias the load toward the front of the trailer so it's stable. Thus the logic of putting some small stake panels but only on the front half. And I won't be leaving the tailgate open and hanging it out the back again. If you're wondering about the cost of fuel, I calculated one round trip (90 miles) to be about $20 in fuel (12 mpg X $2.50/gal). The firewood permit was $20 and I'm allowed to remove up to 10 cords. Add the cost of fuel and I'm looking at about $50/cord.
In my new house I have a Quadrafire fireplace that provides supplemental heat to the main part of the house so that I don't spend a fortune on propane with the furnace. The FP works great and puts out a ton of heat. I only used 100 gallons of propane Jan-Apr (we moved in Jan 9) to keep the house heated to 58 using the furnace and then all the extra heat came from the fireplace. I could keep the central part of the house at 80 degrees if I wanted to. It also gives me the ability to heat the house if I were ever to lose power for a long period of time. Since the FP got used daily Jan - Apr, I'm suspecting that I will use it about 8 months out of the year. That means I need a lot of firewood to keep it fed. The challenge is getting an adequate supply of firewood to last a whole season without spending a fortune on it. I used about a cord of wood that was given to me this past winter. I'm expecting to need about 2 cords for the full 8 months.
The going rate for a cord of wood right now is in the $250 - $400 range depending on the species mix, who you get it from, and if it's delivered. If I'm paying someone at least $500 for wood, I might as well just pay for extra propane.
I recently bought a permit to harvest wood out of the Mountainair Ranger District, in the Manzano Mountains, north of Tajique. The majority of the wood that can be harvested is ponderosa and fir. Those burn good but don't have the same energy density of juniper/pinon/oak. So I'm trying to figure out how to get my hands on some of those species without spending a fortune. I just bought a used Stihl MS290 for $250 so I'm invested in harvesting my own wood to keep costs down. And I have a friend with a heavy duty log splitter. Any suggestions on how I can harvest pinon and juniper in the ABQ East Mountain vicinity? I looked on the BLM site and their fuelwood areas are all pretty far from town.
The next challenge I have is my trailer. It's kind of small and wimpy but it's what I have. If I added some small stake panels up front I could probably get about a 1/2 cord safely. The trailer is nice in that it is short and relatively good ground clearance so taking it 9 miles up the forest road from Tajique works out fine, other than I have to make a lot of trips to get enough wood. I actually went up there on Sunday to scout it out and make sure I knew what I was getting into. Because of Stage 2 Fire Restrictions, I couldn't use my chainsaw because I was there in the middle of the day (no chainsaw use between 10 am and 6 pm). So I just loaded up stuff that was under 8' long with good burning potential. Load distribution on this trip was terrible. I need to cut the wood and bias the load toward the front of the trailer so it's stable. Thus the logic of putting some small stake panels but only on the front half. And I won't be leaving the tailgate open and hanging it out the back again. If you're wondering about the cost of fuel, I calculated one round trip (90 miles) to be about $20 in fuel (12 mpg X $2.50/gal). The firewood permit was $20 and I'm allowed to remove up to 10 cords. Add the cost of fuel and I'm looking at about $50/cord.
