I've done a lot of physical stuff in my life..but chainsawing and hefting wood around has got to be one of the most physically demanding. Windsurfing and mountain biking edge it out by a bit..but hour for hour..it is almost a winner in the exhaustion department. My neighbor had 8 or 9 trees taken down by his house and he invited me over to cut some up and take it. We have a wood stove that we heat with in the winter..and this is all super dense oak stuff, so I was thrilled.

Until we moved out here into the "woods" I had never had a use for a chainsaw (or 100 other outdoor implements). The past two years I've made due with my old man's residential light duty Homelite dinky 14" chainsaw. The thing takes 10 minutes to saw through a big oak. Seeing what I was up against, I bit the bullet and headed down to the local hardware store. Glanced at some pawn shops and on Craigslist, but sometimes you just feel like getting something new that will have a warranty and you won't have to trouble with. The little hometown hardware store sells and services Husqvarna merchandise and I've read good things about them. So I picked up one of the mid-range saws - a 455 Rancher.



Man..the thing cuts like butter. Spent an afternoon over at the neighbor's last week and was really impressed at how this thing chews through the wood. It has those nice bucking spikes on the bottom that allow you to sort of lever the saw down against the wood as you are cutting - very effective. The power is pretty impressive too..I'm very respectful of how much more oomph this saw has compared to the Homelite.



Of course, once you cut it, you have to haul it. That is some of the most demanding physical type labor I've come across. Just back breaking lifting. I have the logs cut to around 20" to fit in my firebox..and I swear they weigh 60 or 70 pounds (or more) each. Thankfully my neighbor has a nice sturdy flat bed trailer to haul the stuff over to my place.



So now I have tons of wood to split. I love splitting wood...very therapeutic.





BeachAV8R

Husky makes the best chain saws in the world. I've had two, the first simply got worn out from use, nothing defective, I just beat it into a pulp.

Consider yourself lucky you had a chainsaw versus an axe.

I have never been exhausted from chainsawing and I have done it for about 10hrs before.

*cant find a picture of a backhoe attachment... but this would work too.


Maybe something like this!



The one I used was a saw attached to a backhoe (cant remember what it was exactly) where it had 3 joints with a chainsaw attachment on the end (about 1 1/2 the size of a handheld.

I've read somewhere that American oak is denser than British oak. The Royal Navy found this out when their cannon balls bounced off the American ships.

I have a wood burner and beside burning pine which is good for getting the fire going, I also burn gum which burns real hot.

I thought the issue with the RN frigates was that they were more sparsely framed, with thinner physical thickness of hull planking. (A lot were wartime builds and hurriedly assembled from substandard timbers, and the average age was much higher - making them slower and less sound under fire or in a heavy sea).

The US frigates were nearly single deck third rates, rather than the RN fifth or sixth rate. Even when the nominal number of guns was equal, the US guns were heavier, and there were additional carronades over and above those fitted to their RN equivalents.

Get yourself a gas log splitter.

I actually perversely enjoy splitting wood. I enjoy the exercise (and I need it!).. My neighbor has a gas driven hydraulic splitter..man that thing is nifty.


If I had to use an axe I think I'd just put on more sweaters in the winter.. That said, the wood stove fireplace insert was probably the single most useful upgrade I've made to the house. It heats our whole house..and at night I only have to fill the box with wood (maybe 8 pieces), turn the damper down so it slow burns, and put the blower on. I've never run the blower at anything but the lowest setting. It would roast us out at the higher settings. Nothing beats coming in on a cold, wintry day (we are getting less of those here in NC though..) to a wood stove burning. Our electric bill went down something like 75% last winter.


I was told not to burn pine in my woodstove because it sends up a lot of creosote in the chimney. I don't know if that is true or not. I haven't figured out if I need to have the chimney (actually it is a metal tube lining the chimney) cleaned annually or every couple of years. If you call a chimney sweep they say to have it cleaned weekly ($$$) (just kidding)..but I'd be curious what interval a chimney should be swept.

If I do come across pine I keep it for our outdoor fire pit..

Love the naval aspect of oak wood.. Leave it to SimHQ to go just a few replies and make it a strategic discussion!

BeachAV8R

What are you using to split logs that size? I'm guessing a sledgehammer and wedges? I always hated that. Always made me kinda paranoid, because my dad once (bout 20 years ago) had a wedge splinter and send a fragment into his leg that missed his femoral artery by half an inch.

From what I recall of our wood burning days the biggest issue with pine is simply that it's soft wood and burns faster. So it's simply not as good for heating. IIRC it does make creosote build up faster but you still need to clean the chimney every few years regardless of what you burn. If you aren't adverse to climbing on your roof you can buy a chimney brush and do it yourself.