Seeking advice on selecting a firewood supplier (Searsport, Dixmont: rental, how much)

[Eric-M]

Apologies in advance for the length of this post, and I know I should've posted this three months ago when I got to Maine, but I didn't, and now I'm feeling the pain.

How do I go about finding a good supplier of firewood for heating my home? The former owner of this house left us the name of his firewood guy, but it turns out that guy no longer sells firewood. He recommended Dysart's and maybe that's who we'll end up using, but I wanted to see if anyone had any advice on finding someone local. Long term, I should be able to harvest some of the trees on my land, but that's at least a year or two down the road and even then, I'm pretty sure I won't have enough to meet my full demand. In the short term, I'd prefer to give my money to someone local and help boost the community's economy, even if it's just a small boost.

I'm in Corinth and driving on Rt 15, I see people selling cords of wood. Should I just stop at those houses and talk to those people? Is that how it works? Is it really just as simple as that?

Also, what's a good price for a cord of seasoned wood? Dysart's has it for $225, which seems really high, but it's consistent with what I've found on Craigslist. I guess the price goes up as the temperature goes down. I also don't know how much wood we'll need. Should I start with 1 cord and see how long that lasts and then make another larger purchase later once I have a better idea?

[inthetrees]

Prices seem to vary greatly across the state for good hard wood. We dont have a wood stove here, but I did buy a chainsaw last year to cut wood, we also have campfires outside regularly all spring, summer and fall.

We have a local neighbor that sells his wood for 240 a cord, seasoned. Seems pricey to me, but he is almost 80 years old and still splits all his own. There is another person around the corner that sells it for 200 a cord.

[bangorme]

The thing that's tricky about firewood is the "seasoned" part. How seasoned is the question. There is a meter that can tell you the moisture content in the wood, and I'd expect Dysarts to have one. It should have 20% moisture or less. You can't really buy too much firewood as it can be kept for next winter. If you buy too little you won't be able to get seasoned wood later in the winter, or will have to pay a mint for it.

[Zymer]

I used to get wood from Dysarts, either tree length, or (toting it myself) the 4' lengths that they used to have, which they stacked in metal racks and you could see that it was a true full cord (4'x4'x8'). Unfortunately, they stopped doing the tree and 4' lengths and now do only cut & split- there is a minimum number of cords for delivery (more than one). I was taken by surprise when I found out, and lacking other options I ordered four cords.

It did not look to me like four cords when the driver dumped it, and I questioned him. He said it was "by weight". Weight is not an accurate measure, it varies by species and moisture content. When I stacked it out it just barely made three cords- that is far too much of a shortage to be acceptable. I went to the office and politely told them that I was not happy at the amount of shortage, old man Dysart was there at the time. *Nobody*, but *nobody* said a word, they just looked at me like "Yeah? So what? What do you think you're going to do about it?"

So, what I do about it is, I no longer get wood from Dysart's, I stopped buying gasoline there, and propane, and fuel oil/diesel, and I no longer eat in their restaurant.

Last year I found a local logger (Dixmont) who was cutting near me. he sold me four cord of tree length for $110/cord. I think it was more than full measure and I still have some of last year's left. I got four more cords from him this year. Next year he'll be cutting more up toward your area, I can PM you his name and number if you like...of course, you'd have to cut and split yourself.

Talk to other people, use Dysarts if you have to but it won't necessarily be seasoned as much as it should be. The higher the moisture content, the less heat you'll get out of it (because some of the heat is wasted converting the water to steam).

As far as how much you'll need- that depends on whether this is going to be your primary source of heat, how big your house is (and how well insulated), and how bad the Winter is. If this is to be your primary heat source, one cord is no way going to cut it, even in a small house. Some folks say that this Winter is going to be tough, you may need a lot more.

[221B]

I just rented a log splitter here in SoCal, the heavy duty kind you tow behind your truck, and it was about $78 for 8 hours. Is it about the same cost to rent them in Maine?

As an aside, I only split about 3/4 cord, but towards the end of the job, the main hydraulic piston sprung a leak, and shot about 2 gallons of fluid all over my driveway. When I brought it back to the rental company, they didn't charge me anything, so that was cool.

[inthetrees]

Originally Posted by bangorme

The thing that's tricky about firewood is the "seasoned" part. How seasoned is the question. There is a meter that can tell you the moisture content in the wood, and I'd expect Dysarts to have one. It should have 20% moisture or less. You can't really buy too much firewood as it can be kept for next winter. If you buy too little you won't be able to get seasoned wood later in the winter, or will have to pay a mint for it.

If you look at the side of the wood, you can tell if its reasonably seasoned by if its cracking or not, I dont mean the cracks where it was split, i mean smaller cracks on the end of the wood itself. I am fairly certain only dried/seasoned wood does this.

[Eric-M]

Thanks, Zymer. That good food for thought. It's unfortunate that Dysart's would be like that, but it certainly reinforces the idea that I'd prefer to give my money to someone local for their services.

The house is ~1500 sq.ft. and there are baseboard heaters (hot water, not electric) in each room. Our intent is to use the wood stove as the primary heat source, but whether or not it works out that way remains to be seen. This will be our first experience with a wood stove and I'm hoping the learning curve won't be too steep. I know we'll need far more than one cord, but don't have any idea how long one cord will last. We'll just have to start burning it and find out. I guess that kind of ties back into my original concern about finding a good supplier and your story about Dysart's - I'd like to buy 3 or 4 cords and be somewhat confident that it'll last a while, but of course, I'd also like to get what I pay for.

Given the other "interesting" issues we've discovered in the three months we've lived in this house, I'm not holding out much hope that it's well-insulated. But maybe that's the one thing the previous owner got right.

[slyfox2]

Originally Posted by Eric-M

The house is ~1500 sq.ft. and there are baseboard heaters (hot water, not electric) in each room. Our intent is to use the wood stove as the primary heat source,...... I'd like to buy 3 or 4 cords and be somewhat confident that it'll last a while, but of course, I'd also like to get what I pay for.

In MAINE WINTERS, in my house, I use about 4 cords. I have about 1400 square feet that I heat. In the winter of 11-12, I only used about 3.25 cords. I expect this year to be at least 4.5 - 5 cords. While I have back-up propane for the music room and back-up electric in every room, I use wood primarily(except when I have to go south to visit relatives during winter).

It will depend on how new your stove is(does it do serious secondary burning), and how much insulation, and how much you are willing to put in serious R-5 insulating shutters on the windows when the temp drops below 20 degrees F. If you can't get dry enough wood, and this will be hard for you since you waited until October 1(I buy mine in May of every year, from a guy who starts seasoning it in November), you will need to be burning it in much smaller split pieces. My Pacific Energy Summit burns so clean that after burning 4 cord last winter, my chimney guy said my SS liner in my chimney really didn't need to be cleaned every year. But I will anyway, just to be safe. He's actually a firefighter from Searsport, and he installed the SS liner in the first place.

I suggest you consider buying a Bailey Smart Splitter. I have one of those in my family room on a 18 inch by 14 inch log slice. Google it. It allows me to split smaller pieces in the house down to just 1/2 by 1/2 or even smaller. This is essential when your wood in not really dry. Who likes to be outside splitting wood with an axe in very cold weather? Beats having to worry about using an axe too. Check it out.

I've been burning wood to heat my houses since 1979. I sort of know what I'm doing after 34 years.

[Eric-M]

I don't know how new the stove is, but this is what we have: FW2700 EPA High Efficiency Wood Stove |*Century. One of the carpet installers that we had in here a couple months ago told us that if we got it going at it's max potential, we'd need to open the windows. A bit of hyperbole perhaps, but by all measures, it seems like a pretty good stove. I had to order a couple of replacement refractory bricks for it, so I haven't been able to test it out yet...

The Bailey Smart Splitter looks like a valuable companion to the regular log splitter that the previous home owner left for us. Maybe Christmas will be coming early this year!

[namder1]

I use K's Firewood in Monson. $250 a cord cut split and delivered. Went up $10 from last year which I kinda expected because of gas pieces. I like the wood , its very well seasoned and a good mix. I also have a friend that sells it green for $200 delivered.