[skeptik]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Heineken', ' ') Wood heat makes tremendous sense, but only for local or personal use. As gasoline and diesel grow ever more expensive, this will become ever more true.

[smallpoxgirl]

This is a very interesting thread. Lumber prices have plummeted due to the falling housing market. I wonder is it an issue of too many pine plantations (good for lumber, bad for firewood). Or is it that the value added from finish milling lumber is going away and more sawmills need to close and divert that wood to firewood?

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')he only real solution to the heating problem is to own a bit of land, manage it sustainably

[Heineken]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('skeptik', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Heineken', ' ') Wood heat makes tremendous sense, but only for local or personal use. As gasoline and diesel grow ever more expensive, this will become ever more true.

[MrBill]

Lumber prices are down on economic downturn, reduced demand for lumber, reduced demand for newprint, more competition from faster growing trees in S. America and Asia, in Canada from a strong Canadian dollar, in Canada from softwood lumber duties to the US, etc. Lot's of mills closing. Lot's of consolidation going on. Weyerhaueser just sold a bunch of mills to International Paper. The whole industry needs to modernize and rebuild itself to become competitive again.

I was thinking about getting into Foresty & Wood Products for a long-term play. Interesting if cellulosic technology for ethanol made from wood chips creates a demand for sustainable foresty, but faster growing trees on marginal land. The sector is so out of fashion at the moment that it may be worth a punt. Fash growing poplar trees for wood pellets?

[Heineken]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('smallpoxgirl', 'T')his is a very interesting thread. Lumber prices have plummeted due to the falling housing market. I wonder is it an issue of too many pine plantations (good for lumber, bad for firewood). Or is it that the value added from finish milling lumber is going away and more sawmills need to close and divert that wood to firewood?

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')he only real solution to the heating problem is to own a bit of land, manage it sustainably

[smallpoxgirl]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Heineken', 'I')f you live on your woodlot, that becomes difficult, SPG. Since chainsaws are so noisy. I guess wood could be stolen the old-fashioned way, though, with axes and handsaws.

[dunewalker]

That reminds me of a story about the old mining town of Bodie, in eastern California. It's a ghost town now and a state park. In its heyday in the 19th century, around 10,000 people lived there, high in the mountains. Of course every dwelling had a pile of firewood outside. It seems that one miner noticed that his woodpile was shrinking faster than he was burning it. He took a chunk of firewood, drilled a hole down the center & inserted a stick of dynamite, then put it back on the woodpile. I wasn't long before that problem was solved...

[Heineken]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MrBill', '
')Lumber prices are down on economic downturn, reduced demand for lumber, reduced demand for newprint, more competition from faster growing trees in S. America and Asia, in Canada from a strong Canadian dollar, in Canada from softwood lumber duties to the US, etc. Lot's of mills closing. Lot's of consolidation going on. Weyerhaueser just sold a bunch of mills to International Paper. The whole industry needs to modernize and rebuild itself to become competitive again.

I was thinking about getting into Foresty & Wood Products for a long-term play. Interesting if cellulosic technology for ethanol made from wood chips creates a demand for sustainable foresty, but faster growing trees on marginal land. The sector is so out of fashion at the moment that it may be worth a punt. Fash growing poplar trees for wood pellets?

[frankthetank]

Heineken-

I hate to spoil your fantasy but ive been out in the woods a lot lately, and while i love the forest in the late fall and even in the depths of winter...the forest in the summer is HELL. In my honest opinion i can say that i love being able to come home and lay down in my air conditioned house on my leather chair and type away on the notebook !!! Its just the sweltering heat, the humdity and the GOD AWFUL man sized mosquitoes that are never ending (its been a bad year here). I actually was running in the woods at one point because they were so bad. SO no... i'd never spend a summer in the woods of Wisconsin. Late October...no problem.

I tried taking the wife to the Chequamegon National Forest camping for a few days and we left after an hour the bugs were so bad.

[frankthetank]

Why not grow fruit or nut trees for firewood? Apple is an excellent wood for heating... Not to mention they fruit young. Although on a dwarfing rootstock, your wood amount wouldn't be a whole lot! Cherry is another awesome wood. I was cutting some cherry wood early this summer and could smell the cherry on the freshly cut logs.

[dunewalker]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('frankthetank', 'H')eineken-

I hate to spoil your fantasy but ive been out in the woods a lot lately, and while i love the forest in the late fall and even in the depths of winter...the forest in the summer is HELL. In my honest opinion i can say that i love being able to come home and lay down in my air conditioned house on my leather chair and type away on the notebook !!! Its just the sweltering heat, the humdity and the GOD AWFUL man sized mosquitoes that are never ending (its been a bad year here). I actually was running in the woods at one point because they were so bad. SO no... i'd never spend a summer in the woods of Wisconsin. Late October...no problem.

I tried taking the wife to the Chequamegon National Forest camping for a few days and we left after an hour the bugs were so bad.

[FoolYap]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Heineken', 'T')his is true (at least in parts of the US; don't know about the UK), but the quality of the forest cover today is far inferior to that of a century ago.

[IslandCrow]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Heineken', 'T')he good thing about owning forests is that if the market is bad, you can go to sleep for ten years. Your trees will only get bigger and more potentially valuable.

[dunewalker]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Heineken', '
')The good thing about owning forests is that if the market is bad, you can go to sleep for ten years. Your trees will only get bigger and more potentially valuable.

[vtsnowedin]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Dunewalker', ' ')
Already some folks are resorting to illegally cutting the green trees, as there is little supervision or enforcement.

[dunewalker]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('vtsnowedin', '
')In New England I think even the volume is back to pre Columbian levels. A lot of the second growth is now over 100 years old... The black powder in the stick of wood trick works but the thieves may have sold it to some innocent third party and you might blow up there stove and kill their child or wife. not a good plan.

[vtsnowedin]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('dunewalker', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('vtsnowedin', '
') In reading Thoreau's book about living at Walden Pond and his cultivation of 2 acres of beans, there is a sketch of his cabin & bean fields, in a large open area near the pond. In 1984 I spent a year in New England, and visited Walden Pond, now a state park. The cabin is gone, of course, but the entire neighborhood is now heavily forested in good-sized trees. Those ingenious yankees did an effective job of deforestation with their hand tools.

[Heineken]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('frankthetank', 'H')eineken-

I hate to spoil your fantasy but ive been out in the woods a lot lately, and while i love the forest in the late fall and even in the depths of winter...the forest in the summer is HELL. In my honest opinion i can say that i love being able to come home and lay down in my air conditioned house on my leather chair and type away on the notebook !!! Its just the sweltering heat, the humdity and the GOD AWFUL man sized mosquitoes that are never ending (its been a bad year here). I actually was running in the woods at one point because they were so bad. SO no... i'd never spend a summer in the woods of Wisconsin. Late October...no problem.

I tried taking the wife to the Chequamegon National Forest camping for a few days and we left after an hour the bugs were so bad.

[Heineken]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('IslandCrow', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Heineken', 'T')he good thing about owning forests is that if the market is bad, you can go to sleep for ten years. Your trees will only get bigger and more potentially valuable.

[Heineken]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('FoolYap', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Heineken', 'T')his is true (at least in parts of the US; don't know about the UK), but the quality of the forest cover today is far inferior to that of a century ago.