Hello from new member

[ericmark]

removed

[Alex]

When you refer to 'ride' Eric, what are you meaning?

Sorry if it's a common 'woodland' term, but I'm quite new to this.

Got to agree with OCP, a little over thinking about something most of us see as just a means of getting the house warm.

[Rich]

In case you hadn't noticed, most of the world has used wood as fuel since the dawn of time without worrying about flue temperatures and scrubbers. Woodburners are just a modern efficient improvement.

True, but then again most of the world (those without the convenience of 'cheap' fossil fuels) have used wood by necessity, depleting the local supply of firewood and having to travel further and further each day to collect their fuel (usually the women) . They have also suffered considerable health consequences from the way they burn wood, usually and practically because of the cost of anything else, it is 3 rocks and a cook pot. This is incredibly inefficient and spills smoke, causing respiratory disease to the cook, again mostly the women and the children who play close by. They don't worry about flue temperatures and scrubbers because they are more worried about what they are going to eat tomorrow and how they are going to cook it! There is some good work being done by Non Government Organisations like Aprovecho http://www.aprovecho.org/lab/index.php who are at the forefront of designing efficient and affordable cookstoves using wood. There is so much more to this than just putting a flue in and there are many improvements which Eric has hinted at which could be implemented into our woodstoves here, but as already mentioned it would be difficult to get them past our health and safety legislation.

It certainly can be as 'simple' as 'putting the wood in, lighting it and waiting till the room gets warm, but that's because most of us on this forum have more wood than we could shake a stick at! At the moment, I quite enjoy the process of getting firewood in for the winter, it's good exercise and quite satisfying, however as I get older I want to make the whole process as efficient as possible so I am getting the maximum benefit from my efforts.

Eric if you are interested, have you found this list yet?

http://lists.bioenergylists.org/mailman ... ylists.org

Plenty of useful advice there by people who have devoted their whole careers to improving the way we use wood in our stoves.

[Stephen1]

Hi Eric

I think we must have met - as myself and my daughter are in some of your photos.

Have you actually investigated what a tracked excavator (with operator) would cost to do the work? I think you would find it's much less than you think. In North Wales you would expect to pay about £17 an hour. The amount of work that this would do in that time would astonish you, if you are unfamiliar with their capabilities. You suggest the work done by the three of you over three days could be done in an hour by a mini-digger - a skilled operator with the appropriate kit would acheive that in closer to 20 mins.

I suspect Iliff simply couldn't bear having such a monster in his wood - and I have much sympathy with him for that. If not though then surely the lesser of two evils would be to sell 2 loads of firewood to pay for a days work to fix the track?

[Alex]

Thanks ratcatcher.

On the topic of developing countries, I remember being told once that in some natural disasters the cooking appliances like stoves are actually to blame for a lot of deaths , ie. collapses - leading to fires.

[ericmark]

removed

[splodger]

as half of this post has been deleted, perhaps the mods/admin should just remove the whole post?

i think it is very sad (and worrying) that a new member to this forum (a forum which is supposed to be amongst other things a place for support, re woodland issues) finds it necessary to remove their posts - and i don't think insensitive comments such as yours RC help matters at all

[Rich]

It may be as well to remind ourselves here what the forum is about. It is to encourage discussion and debate amongst ALL those interested in woodlands or woodland issues. Looking around other boards and forums, I see that here, we are remarkably tolerant and well behaved, however we can't always get on with everyone and of course we can't always agree with them and find the subjects they bring up interesting. Liken it to going to a party. If you were introduced to someone and you discovered that you had no interest in what they were saying, you would, probably just move on and talk to someone you have more in common with, leaving that person to talk freely to someone who does share their interest. That's how it should be on the forum here.

It's not obligatory to comment on every single thread that comes up particularly if you are not interested in it and don't have anything positive to add!

There are other reasons why Eric decided to leave the board and remove his posts, but ths isn't the place to go into it. If anyone wants to pm me about this I will happily discuss this off list.