Somebody posted this vid of last month’s CRFG swaps. Look at this wild scene:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=dU88E7oQG-Y
What a jolly free-for-all. I’m jealous of you west coasters.
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Yes, it’s a lot of fun. This year, I went to CRFG swaps in San Jose and Santa Rosa, so didn’t go to the one in Berkeley. I liked the one in Santa Rosa the most, since it was in a very large hall and felt least crowded. Unfortunately, Santa Rosa is the longest drive for me out of these three.
I wish my parents would have said to he## with Wisconsin winters and moved to So Cal in the 80s…
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Don’t let your kids say that! 
Nice looking cuttings matt. It’s fun to check them to see how they are doing as the root. It’s about all you can do at this time of the year in the North. I’ll be rooting some figs shortly too.
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promising!
No work today because the lumber yard didn’t ship lumber so I did a load of firewood and took this picture of the boiler.
first pic is just after opening the door. second is how fast it rages into a bonfire with all the oxygen. The smoke stack hasn’t even been smoking because the wood is dry and burning hot and efficiently. I took that picture first because I wanted to show no smoke then opened the door to get the fire. I want to show the guy I’m helping to clear his lot that it can burn efficiently too. He thinks it’s a smoke bom all the time.It only smokes when it shuts down for while putting the fire out with the dry oak and cherry I’m burning.
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Those are banned in some areas around here. There is one on the other side of town here that its like a house is on fire when you drive through that neighborhood 
Probably burning green wood.
I have a Drolet Eldorado wood stove. Only issue is its not connected as of right now. Its a newer very efficient model. Got a steal on it. I’ve been holding off because wife didn’t want the young kids getting burns from it. I’ve got to build up a better wood pile.
What is the boiler for?
Yes if you put green wood in this one it will burn all day with smoke. This is dry wood with ten deg air getting fed to it. I’m two to three years ahead on wood so my piles have been covered for almost three years that I’m burning. I make seven to eight foot tall piles cover with 2x4’s plywood and then clear plastic. After that roll out tyvek house wrap and it stays nice and dry for years. I also put all the wood on pallets so it doesn’t sit on the ground. They outlawed these everywhere and even regular wood stoves unless you by the new ones. The people who have the old ones are grandfathered in. Other than that there is still places that have outlawed them. I live out in the country. My nearest neighbor is through the trees behind my stove.
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@mrsg47, It heats my house, water, and hot tub. So when I shower with hot water at the end of a long day working outside I can take my time and soak up the hot water on my back and so forth. Plus wash clothes with hot water. My sister lives with me and she keeps the taps hot because she runs it enough to make cups of coffee right from the tap all day long! Oh well.
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It holds 385 gallons of water. the door is 30x21".
Wow. What about night time?
I load it when I get home from work. Then I check in the morning. On cold winter days I have to ad some in the morning usually two or three logs. Our house doesn’t hold heat very well. I have aluminum clad windows with 19 foot ceilings. I have 2x6 rafters with drywall on the other side and mice and flying squirrels have made it through the overhangs at times. The house is almost fifty years old. It’s a split level so there is four levels. It’s 72 foot long with a three pitch on the roof. when it’s fifty out I load it light once a day or if it was fully loaded it would go three days. You dont’ want to let it smolder and build up tar on the inside so you build fires depending on the temp. The idea is to have a fire that burns out in 24 hrs. Right now I have four inches of ashes with nuggets of coals six inches deep in the middle. I’ve only took out two wheelbarrows of ashes this year so far, but I’m dew for a good load now. A good bed keeps the fire going good and keeps the temps up. It has a four inch ash tray five foot long and three foot wide. I cant let the coals get higher than that except in the middle so it doesn’t hit the side walls.
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It takes three wheelbarrow loads to load it. Those logs are bigger than they look. The one in the middle I put in last night and it was a 14"dia oak log two foot long. The top right log is almost that big and as long, I put it in this morning, the others are eight to six inches in dia. I took these pictures around 2:00 pm. I don’t split anything. I roll 30" logs in 20" wide. turn them and have added another the same. Thats 40" of 30" dia wood! The stove is 3’ by 4’ by 5’ on the inside. That works great to burn up the coal in the ashes before scooping them out, or adding one big one with no little wood.
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You can see my boiler on the left opposite side of the driveway from the garage in the front view. I just painted it this summer while my back was getting better but still couldn’t sit or my back would go out. It’s better now but the disc is gone in l5 - si.
That is a large house to heat! Can the boiler be converted to coal?
What style do have? The wood stove with the double glass doors? I bought my best friend one similar to these in a small scale for his garage. I got an old used one for $100 through Craigslist but you had to feed it tiny wood all the time. It worked great for his garage for the time spent out there till his insurance got involved. Plus once he found out that my wood pile isn’t his wood pile! I figure that he can get while I’m cutting it and just haul it from there. I hate hauling wood to my house to give it up.
I don’t think they use coal in these but they do use dual fuel like oil and wood or gas and wood.