This was just something I was wondering about as a drove down an endless freeway... today's mind teaser.

Let's say that for whatever reason, there is no electrical power to your town or any of the towns around you.

You used all the stored gasoline for running the generator, trips to collect water from the river, and get some basic supplies from FEMA in the nearest town. All the gas cans are dry, and you can't beg, steal or mooch any from neighbors because they're in the same fix you are.

You've got a working wood stove and a cold winter coming. How do you plan to cut wood? In The Olde Dayes, people had those long, two-man saws with handles at each end. What's the plan today, now that the chainsaw is just a decorative item?

Sue

Not that there are many trees around here -- but I would use an axe.

Depends on the size tree. Bow saw & hatchet if it's small enough or to clear limbs on a larger tree. Ax or piece together several chainsaw blades to make a larger bow saw for a larger tree.

We have numerous bow saws, axes, hatchets, and splitters, and I use them when I use my chainsaw too. It's an AWESOME break to cut down a tree or limb in silence after hours of chainsaw

Hope I owned the right tools -- or had foresight to quickly buy before gone from the shelves: good double-bit axe, trimming axe, bow saw, maul and wedges ... then hope enough time left for it to season. Oh, and several pairs of appropriate gloves!

How about Demo'ing an abandoned House/structure/barn,etc. The wood is dry & seasoned.You could split 2x4's into 2x2's & smaller,then use Loppers to cut the size that's best for your stove.A Splitting wedge & 3lb sledge will suffice for the splitting part,A 28oz.woodframing hammer&A wonderbar, can do the Demo work.It's Hard work but, It would be the least amount of Hard work,with the most Beneficial outcome,Especially with Winter fast Approaching.

Bingo! There's your reality check.

Anybody who makes quality heating wood fells, bucks and splits green trees at least 12-18 months before it will be needed.

The only stuff that will dry out fast enough to use within weeks is really small stuff. Plan to have someone feeding the stove 24 hours a day.

Alternatively, plan to burn an outbuilding. (Far from ideal.)

As others post, it would be well to be prepared with the proper hand tools for obtaining wood.
Freshly cut wood wont burn well, though it is better than nothing.
Remember though that in any widespread emergency there will be intense competion for the available wood, and the owners of the trees might well shoot people stealing them.
It would therefore be well to have several years stock of firewood.
If utility service is available, but you fear it will go off long term, then use gas or electric heat whilst available so as to conserve your wood until it is needed.

How about charcoal? I doubt it would be the first thing to disappear from store shelves.

What do you mean had? My dad usually leaves the big two-man saw up as wall decor, but it isn't rusty nor dull. He pulls it down a couple times a year with my brother or I on the otherside. There are also the axes, hatchets, hawks, mauls, wedges, smaller saws and an adze. He also mows the fenced area and around the heating fuel tank with a scythe and sickle, and is rebuilding a push mower.

Neighbor has more of all of the above, and his horses are a logging team- they specialize in nice, clean surgical cuttings in areas that are too fragile or tight to get in skidders.

And we can turn any chain blade into a one direction "pocket chainsaw".

I should point out, my folks heat with wood and they buy a year ahead. It means stacking it twice, but it means even in the spring, there is still a winter's worth of wood. Have to mix some greener stuff into it, but... *shrugs* you do what you can.

My neighbors cut their fallen limbs into 12-18 in lengths and stack them beside the road. I pick those bundles up and add them to my wood collection along the back fence. I'm slowly building up a supply of firewood in case I lose power.

I won't be expending gasoline then because of the work I'm doing now.

It's come to my attention, yesterday, that I'm not the only one in the neighborhood that is prepping in this regard.

I've never tried that. In theory it could work, but in practice I suspect it would take a LOT of effort and be quite inefficient.

A bow saw would be my choice every time. A couple of these saws and a good stock of replacement blades will get you through a big pile of wood.

They aren't as effective as a properly designed, bi-directional pocket chainsaw, no. But they do work- and you're right, they can be made into a bow saw in theory.

Mostly I was extolling the very excellent bow saw for its merits in this situation. Inexpensive, efficient and effective even in the hands of a novice.

I never thought of putting a chainsaw chain into a bow saw frame. If it were put in an oversized 2-man-operated frame, with a turnbuckle tensioner, it might work. Better still, cut the chain in half and rivet the two sections together so each person had a cutting section on part of their pull stroke. It's just crazy enough to work.

Well, for one, if you have a wood stove, you cut wood all spring summer and fall...or at least you should.

Each time I cut up trees/logs, I make sure I ax-cut some of it. I also have this neat tool, made by Sandvik, called a Sandvik Brush Ax: http://www.terratech.net/product.asp?specific=jqjngon0

This thing is AWESOME and it's a great way to collect small branches and stuff, which work fine for burning.

I would go after lumber and pre-dried material to keep "wet" wood burning. There is always some new construction somewhere near by and if I was desperate enough, I would leave a note saying, "I took this due to the emergency, Please call me to settle the debit"

The issue of how to cut it, is answered by the three axes that I keep in my truck at all times (which is odd because I am a computer geek) I also keep a small folding bow saw. If the wood was too big for that, then I can use one of the Axe's that I have.

keeping all of this in mind there is always a way to turn a table saw into a foot saw that could cut wood. (attach a large spinning wheel and a peddle and you are good. for that matter why not retro fit a chain saw blade to a bicycle to cut wood if you think that the issue is going to be that long.

while I am very proud of my ax collection, I have to add that once a log is chopped you have to split it and the ax leave a very pointed end so you cant really easily split the wood thus making it harder to burn the wood. So you are rather stuck with smaller pieces that can be cut with bow saw.

Having actually heated a cabin with a bow saw and ax I can tell you that it is no small feat. So I would again go back to a bow saw and nice kiln died wood that you find at construction sites. I don't condone stealing and advocate that you try to find lumber by other means, but if push comes to shove I would be going to the lumber pile for my supply of wood.

Here's the problem: green wood won't burn. You need to have left it out a season for it to be dry enough to start a fire with. You need a supply of various sizes of tinder that is old and dried out and smaller logs and limbs that are dry, then a nice green log as your backlog.

I suggest this as an alternative:


I suspect this guy will have a nice fire in his house pronto.

"Here's the problem: green wood won't burn."

Wood has been my sole source of heat for the last 12 years. I know that green wood doesn't burn.

But to get seasoned firewood, you have to plan ahead. Planning ahead STILL entails cutting down a tree. In a long-term, no-power situation, all the lower branches will have already been removed, and all the old buildings either demolished or are being lived in.

After all, in this kind of situation, I will not be the only one with the problem.

Now THAT'S the acerbic Sue we've come to know and love. You've been so silky nice recently that I was getting paranoid and looking over my shoulder.

Back on topic:
While it's true that green wood doesn't burn well, it can be burned in a hot fire if it's split very fine. But because of the moisture, a lot of the heat will go out the chimney as steam. And that cooling action leads to very rapid deposits of creosote. A chimney fire is pretty much a disaster, so if you're burning green wood, you need to run a brush or bundle of evergreen branches (pioneer trick) up the flue once a week or so.

Green wood has a lot more heat value if it's even half-cured. When I prune green branches in spring and leave them in a pile in the sun, I can burn them passably well in 2-3 weeks.

If I was stuck with a lot of green wood and an oncoming winter, I'd probably build a sort of enclosed outdoor dryer with a small, hot fire slowly pulling the moisture out of finely split green wood. If it had maximum sun exposure, all the better. Neither ideal nor efficient, but if there's no other option I believe it would work.

With green wood you could always convert a proportion along with waste scrap wood from construction sites etc into Charcoal.

Making Charcoal

The ratio of green wood to waste scrape wood would be chosen to get the charcoal process to be self sustaining.

Then use the Charcoal as a direct replacement in your wood burner.

That is what I envisioning when you said bow saw, but in one-person sized model with part of the chain, with a tensioner like a hacksaw (which I guess is kind of turnbuckle-ish).

Hmm... once the hubub with halloween shows die down, I think I need to talk to my mechanical geeks about a prototype.

"Hmm... once the hubub with halloween shows die down, I think I need to talk to my mechanical geeks about a prototype."

And you'll post the results here, right?

Sue

i tell the gang at Classic Camp Stoves that being a collector around here is hard because not very many people used Primus stoves for camping or like Europe at home for heat and cooking.Minnesota is "ax and saw country" and i have plenty of both.who said the wood pile heats twice?..once when you chop and again when you burn.
as a thought experiment i did mull over that problem.with the last of the chainsaw gas i would cut down the 60 foot pine in the yard and cut as many rounds as i could and then start splitting.
i assume every stick of wood would be cut down at the river early on along with wood fences and such by those who wanted to winter over and not pull up stakes and treck South.i have at least ten good axe's and hatchets i could trade for whatever..ok Sue now you have me drifting over the line in survivalism!!!!

Following Susan's no-power scenario, someone is going to steal the wood you so tediously have cut down, split and stacked.

Seasoning wood for the next season requires several cubic meters of volume. Along with unseasoned wood comes insects. A wood stack is the most perfect breeding ground for mice and rats you can think of. How many of you are willing or able to drag that stuff indoors?

A lot of people will think of stealing a few logs for heat as "bartering" - after all, wood grows on trees, so who will notice if they take a few logs? It doesn't take many freezing people with that attitude to make a big stack disappear.

I once helped a relative salvage some mesquite fence posts for firewood. He was using a chain saw which required frequent sharpening ( about every other fence post). A nice Swedish bow saw actually cut faster than the chain saw. I'll go for a bow saw every time, as well.

"Seasoning wood for the next season requires several cubic meters of volume. Along with unseasoned wood comes insects. A wood stack is the most perfect breeding ground for mice and rats you can think of. How many of you are willing or able to drag that stuff indoors?"

You aren't seeing the Big Picture! The mice and rats eat the insects, and then I trap the rats and mice to feed my cats, thus saving on cat food!

OR, I train the largest rats to defend the woodpile. You've heard of 'ankle biters', right?

It isn't usually suggested to stack wood against the house, but maybe it would provide extra insulation.

Sue

i would bring the wood into the cold rooms of the house to keep it close and dry...but the chance of this for real is so tiny as not to really plan for..but--that generator to run the gas furnace and a couple lights is something i do take for real.every time i go to the Big Box hardware store for a can of paint or 2x4 i look them over again..and what Sue said about bugs,plus if things are that bad a bug is the last thing you will be worried about.and--will you have a plan on which of the furniture will be chopped up and in what order??..this could get complicated!!!!

I heated an old farm house in Kansas one winter with old lumber
from the dump cut with a bow saw.

We did spend a lot of time downstairs by the stove. Couldn't
heat the whole drafty house.

Putting aside wood-gathering for a moment, and addressing the broader "fuel-gathering" challenge ... seems viable to consider cow-, horse- and poultry-manure as potential solution (assuming one lives in an area where sources are reasonably plentiful). Granted, there are some drying/seasoning issues.

But, low-tech, no specialized tools required. Used everyday in some parts of the world.

The pioneers used dried cow pies all the way across the country for fires. The kids used them as the first frisbee.

But I'll bet stacked cow pies have more bugs than wood...

And keeping them dry here in the PNW could be a trick.

Keep the chickens in the house for safety, keep the wood in the house for safety... NOW I have to keep the COW in the house? Darn, it's getting crowded in here. ROOSTER! -- YOU! -- OUT!

Sue

If I sense of humor kept one warm, you'd be forever toasty!

> Wood has been my sole source of heat for the last 12 years. I know that
> green wood doesn't burn.

My use of "you" was the generic you of all readers. "One" is so pretentious: One should have a mix of aged wood for one's fire, shouldn't one.

> After all, in this kind of situation, I will not be the only one with the problem.

And one mustn't assume that all those others have a clue about green wood.


:->

C'est la vie.

I suspect there are people praying the two of us never meet IRL.

-Blast

My dad and a neighbor used mainly wood to heat their homes. The neighbor had the best system, a woodstove in his basement, allowed the heat to come up into the main floor thru vents.

Dad had a woodstove in the living room that would kick you out of the house if you fed it too much.

The wood mainly came from local construction sites - free for the hauling off; golf courses that were expanding - not only free, because they all knew Dad, most would deliver; and friends who would donate downed trees.

The two of them rigged a high speed wood splitter -"the other one took too long", they had 2 bucks for cutting wood to length and about 3 chain saws, all of indeterminate age/origin. I don't remember a time when there wasn't at least 10 cords of wood out back, cut and ready, and probably 4 or 5 more drying.

Kept them busy and out of trouble.

True, but wood can be seasoned in 8 to 10 foot lengths and then bucked and split to fireplace cords as needed. Makes theft more difficult.

[/quote] A bow saw would be my choice every time. A couple of these saws and a good stock of replacement blades will get you through a big pile of wood. [/quote]

+1 on that. I would also agree that a person should stock up on blades, as you can always make a traditional frame from electrical tubing or scrap wood and wire.

If you dont know, there are two types of bow saw blades. One pattern for green wood, and another for seasoned wood. You won't find them differentiated at the local orange or blue store, but you can order online from a Bahco dealer, the successor to the fabulous Sandvik Swedish bowsaws.

Ah! I've been wondering why I don't see the Sandvik branded blades any more.

I've done that with softwood and soft-ish hardwoods like poplar, but they seem to go punky before they dry out. SOP up here is to split them while they're green, otherwise you lose most of the heat value.

Willow seems to fare better. Our local 'Manitoba Maple' too. And I don't know about really "hard" hardwoods. I took out some old ash trees two years ago and the small stuff (lingering in a big brush pile) is utterly dry and solid; I haven't cut the big stuff yet.

Any thoughts from southern neighbours?