Didn't know where to put this, a fire...

[spottedbike]

I have a working fire place. I back onto a woods and have part of that woods within my boundary too.
How can I learn how on earth I make the fireplace work. If I Google it I'm just so scared I'm going to muck up, also I have no idea how I get wood, does it have to be dried first and any particular type of can I hack down a tree and go for it.

I am feeling particularly stupid about it all and don't know who to ask that can help but I know we won't be able to afford heating bills this year and our salaries have not gone up just dreading it.

My local authority is always looking for ways to get rid of wood from the parks. Either chippings or trunks/logs. They can't leave it all where it is. It's hard to get it out. They are happy to donate if you make it easy for them.

I wouldn't bother, they are so bad. We tried using them just to keep fire going in the night during a bad winter, my DH won't even use them on the fire pit 😂

I am amazed how many people think it's ok to take wood from land you don't own.

It might be that in the past some land owners might not have minded but with rocketing fuel prices there will be loads of demand for wood suitable for burning.

Every piece of land in the UK is owned by someone, if you don't own it don't take ( steal actually) wood.

@Nolongera

look at it this way ,the wood that is laying about is usually dead fallen trees ,wind blown , dangerous, diseased trees. That have been cut up , the wood itself is worthless from a business point of view because the costs of removing it from where it is will be higher that it’s worth . Moving logs is heavy work and consists of either cutting them up smaller to move by hand or mechanical means.

we had a large cedar taken down in our garden, it was £320 just to drop it and £1500 to remove it all, one company wanted 2k.

it took me weeks to clear it all. That’s where all the work is.

maybe if your taking it from privately owned land then someone might be bothered, but from council/ local authority land nobody bats an eyelid, if fact the way they chop them up its encouraged.

Our local park country has had signs up for years telling people not to take wood as it's meant to rot into the ground for the flora and fauna. This was long before the current fuel crisis. Everyone and their dog is restarting their old fire places, they are all going to want wood.

Once you have felled, cut, dried and transported your own timber, current and future has prices look good value.

Until recently we cut and dried our own wood, it was an awful lot of effort for a fairly low reward, we still burned coal most of the time.

When there was a big storm locals would be out on the road verges with trailers, chainsaws and axes. Not many people will have those resources.

I have no idea how many kWh there are in a cubic metre of wood, buts it's a heck of a lot of graft.

Anyone thinking they will make significant savings scrounging/stealing wood is dreaming.

I sent the dc down to the edge of our woods today. Yep some fucker has stolen our logs. Our woodland boundary is along a countryside roadway and the fencing is wooden and so it’s possible to climb over.

Im not short on logs but it’s the principle of the thing. Clearly they weren’t stacked there for someone to help themselves to!

That’s a starter log. Like kindling. One little one of those is not meant to heat your home;

There is no sign on my patio plants or car saying don’t take it. Is there on yours? I assume so as you’re posting like that’s a thing; it’s not a thing.

It’s not the norm for owners to put signs on things on their land saying don’t take it. Nor is it a thing to cut down trees in your rental garden or in council woods.

I have cut logs piled in the wooded area of our garden, it’s about the same size as your council one, I certainly don’t expect people to enter my property and take the wood with the justification I failed to put a sign up to say don’t steal it. It’s no different to taking my washing off the line or my patio furniture because I didn’t say it wasn’t for the taking.

I won’t be turning on the heating this winter and I will be traipsing through woods scavenging every scrap I can get my hands on. I know it’ll be stealing but needs must when the devil drives.
I won’t be taking it out of wood stores and sheds, but verges, lanes, woodland, beaches, anywhere where there is fallen branches I’ll be taking them.

I think some people on here have no idea what sitting in a cold house unable to afford to put the heating on is really like . People will be burning anything in the fire to keep warm …. If it’s laying around somewhere people will take it and burn it. And it’s only going to get worse…………,

Here’s some I got down the woods, like a previous poster said it’s hard graft carrying them back but we’ll worth it in my book as someone has already done half the work by felling them and cutting them into manageable pieces.

we have a really efficient stove a small amount of wood gives off an incredible amount of heat , so we don’t use a lot of wood at all.

I think the ones who have fires are fortunate (and I include myself) to have the option. I don't know anyone who lives in built up areas that have a fire. I'm very rural but all my family/friends etc are all in towns, cities, large villages that had gas plumbed in.

Just mentioned to my DH about potentially having wood nicked but we've plenty cameras/motion lights and any CFs have to get past Noone in the house hearing them on our gravel drive.

Honestly, wood alone won't cut it if you want to keep a fire going to heat your home. With a standard chimney you are going to want to use coal.

Wood burners are just that, designed to burn wood and fan the heat out from a enclosed box.

A open fire place with a massive chimney and a possible back draught, get some coal on it.

Coal fires will burn for longer on less fuel than a stand alone wood fire.

Just use fire lighters and kindling to start it then add coal to it once it's started a few bits at a time. Eventually you'll just be able to put it on from the coal shuttle to keep it going.

I don’t think it’s got to the point where people will take it from your house ( mines easily accessible from the drive ) as it’s to bulky to move quickly but if it’s down the woods/forest ,common ground then it’s going to go.

skips are a good place to find wood as well if it’s in a skip then it’s unwanted and freely given. I once saw a whole skip full of logs on someone’s drive !!!!! It would have been a whole lot cheaper to just pile them up and put free logs on them 🙂

We sit on the boundary of an semi abandoned estate..... In the last few weeks alone the manor house has broken into multiple time stealing the copper piping and radiators.

Its also not uncommon for CFs to syphon residential oil tanks round these parts either sadly. And they are generally on the rear of properties.

We're in a built-up area in a town and have a multi-fuel stove, not the only ones on the street either as you can catch the smell of woodsmoke on a winter evening as people light the fire.

I've got a tonne of smokeless coal laid into the coal shed already, plus a stack of wood. Don't normally stock up with so much or so early. But that's at least half the house heated and pre-paid, plus I can slow-cook on the top of the stove.

If the chimney is lined it might not be suitable for burning wood as it burns a lot hotter than coal. If it is not lined then you do need to do a smoke bomb test to see if the chimney is leaking into the house.

We used to have a coal fire and, while it was nice, it was a lot of faff to get it going and then deal with all the ash, and they are very inefficient - most of the heat goes up the chimney. You also have to get it going early enough so that the room is warm by the time you want to sit in there. If you are determined to go ahead then I would get a wood or multi fuel burner, but it could end up being very expensive if you need to have the chimney lined.

If there are gaps around your windows that you can see through, doesn't it make sense to block them up rather than trying to heat all the draughts that are coming in? s

Who's land did you take it from?

There is a difference between dry wood and seasoned wood, this is not the same thing. You have to season wood before burning, this means leaving the wood somewhere fairly dry for a year or preferably two. Burning unseasoned wood causes a sticky build up in your chimney and is a house fire risk.
Dry wood burns more easily, but a well seasoned log will burn even if it is damp, if put onto a hot fire already burning.
You need to get a log delivery, then have somewhere sheltered to keep those logs dry, and a decent hatchet to split the logs for kindling. You need eye protection to wear when splitting wood as splinters can fly off.