We Got Wood

[kevin_standlee]

We're in a high desert autumn weather pattern right now: pleasant, warm days, and cold, below-freezing nights. With no furnace in The House, we only have the wood stove for heat. As an initial stop-gap, Lisa salvaged fallen wood from around the property, but that of course was poor-quality wood and there was only a few stove-loads of it. We need firewood, and we're not in a position to go cut our own. So we need to buy some.

I happened to notice a sign in the window of a local Mexican restaurant offering firewood at $100/truckload. I called both numbers on the sign; neither of them worked. I went to the restaurant and inquired about the sign. They gave me two other numbers. The first didn't work; the second was to someone who gave me a fifth phone number to try. That fifth number finally got to the guy who is selling the firewood. He claims that his pickup holds 1/2 cord of wood, and later than day he drove over with a load of elm he cut last year, so it is fairly well-seasoned, if not really the best of wood.

He was able to back up to the fence and toss the wood into the yard. travelswithkuma, all costumed up for Halloween night, asked if we expected him to stack all of this, and we told him he could supervise.

Kuma Bear watched from the porch as I got my gloves and denim shirt (this wasn't enough to justify my coveralls) and stacked the wood against the outside wall of the house. Eventually when Lisa has a chance, she plans to build a proper wood rack to keep the wood off of the ground, but in this case we don't expect this to last long enough to worry about it being stacked directly on the ground. In this case, we had to make two piles, as about a quarter of the load was in pieces that are too long for the fireplace and that Lisa will have to saw in two to use. We'll try to get that done while I'm here because on safety policy, Lisa doesn't like using the chainsaw except when there is someone else around, and sawing wood by hand is a pain.

While in Fallon this weekend, we noted a place that was offering nicely-cut-and-split pine at $275/cord. I don't know if that includes delivery to Fernley, though. We don't have a way to transport the wood if we bought it. The utility trailer is still in Oregon, and even if we had it, there's no place to easily park it on the Fernley property.

Comments

[galtine1.livejournal.com]

While in Fallon this weekend, we noted a place that was offering nicely-cut-and-split pine at $275/cord.

Hmmm, I think the going rate for a cord of firewood has been ~$300 for as long as I can remember. That's via private sellers not lumber-yard/retail. Sometimes with delivery, sometimes not.

And depending on burn rate, house's R-factor, thermal curtains on windows (I know of a steal for some eh-colored ones online), ad nauseum...that cord can last a while.

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

Lisa has been putting R-Tech insulating sheets in the windows until she decides what she wants to do with curtains.

My father laid in six cords of wood when we lived in Bishop, but certainly didn't use it all. We won't know until this winter is over just how fast we'll have to go through it. And this winter will use more wood than next because we won't have the gas furnace fixed until next year.

I know you generally can't burn coal in a wood stove, but I laughingly suggested to Lisa that we go over to the grade crossing near the cement plant, where they take a unit train of coal once a week, and see if we could pick up spilled coal as an economy measure. Old Time Radio aficionados like Lisa recognize a reference there to a joke from The Jack Benny Show.