I got the little DR chipper shredder and been making a nice pile of wood chips and it's been very hot and dry lately so the wood chips are just drying out. And I'm thinking why not burn them?
Other than being a bit more messy to deal with...why not? Just don't pack them in to where you lose the airflow through them.
Just burning for the sake of burning, or use for fuel? (Poor for fuel until very well dried out.) I'd be more inclined to compost the chips for a couple years, and use 'em on a garden bed.
I'm with @ghrit on this one. mix the wood chips with grass clippings/leaves, dirt and some chicken manure and bam .. you'll have black gold.
type of wood ? I have a 625 veermer chipper , i adjust for fine fir for compost gardens , cedar fine for walkways (toxic) Pine for the birds coups . Sloth
As far as soil improvement is concerned, a lot depends upon what you've been chipping / stump grinding. Some wood has allopathic properties which can have enduring problems for soil improvement, especially with regard to cropping plants, be careful of using wood from diseased trees for, it will only spread the disease to places you don't want it to be... As far as burning chipped wood from yours and other people's properties, be careful of species that are toxic if burnt 11 Kinds of Wood that Should Not be Burned in a Fireplace + BONUS MATERIAL - Down to Earth Homesteaders only seasoned wood chips ought be burnt...unseasoned wood will not burn as efficiently and may contribute to creosote build up in the chimney flue. view from 3mins38secs Woodchips may be useful in filling gaps between logs in Hugelkultur mounds Woodchips can also be burnt to produce biochar which can be used for soil improvement. cook some bacon and eggs while making biochar..... Back to Backyard Biochar | Living Web Farms
Have had chipper for 20 years, takes a long time to compost the chips down and they do attract carpenter ants in my area, haven't had much luck drying them to burn as bark and leaves make it hold water. Tend to use them to fill holes, put a base layer down a couple feet, cover with sand and then loam on top, Seems to hold moisture and act almost like bottom mulch. Lots of my chips are the local weed, wild cherry, and my wife said it would hurt her horses so I don't use it as mulch. Haven't had much luck using chips as surface mulch or for burning. Part of garden was a slab pile and sawdust pile for a saw mill. Took over 20 years for pine knots to breakdown or by that time I had picked them out, anyhow some woods with pitch just don't seem to breakdown and even the ants won't touch it. Enjoyed the video's Chell, I know that in the laterite soils in South America are much improved by the addition of biochar and it seems to have a long term benefit. Have meant to make some biochar but just never got around to it.
It does take a while. I had a head high pile of hemlock chips that now, after ten years, is only about 18" tall with misc stuff growing out of it. Would have taken way less time if spread out and stirred in with clippings and leaves. Hemlock is poor wood for anything I have use for, and those trees were threatening to find my house during a wind storm, so I had a tree specialist come in and take them down, found heart rot in all three of them.
Forced induction will burn them nicely with a ton of heat. Our local Canfor plant makes the heat for the kiln using wood chips and bark.
Well I burned them twice. The fire went out over night so I filled the coal furnace back up with wood chips. They burn better than I expected. Not nearly as fast as I thought they would. They do burn fast at first until they build up a layer of ash. Which is good. Then they slow down burning. Taking about 4 hours to burn away completely. Your results may vary due to moisture content and species of tree. All I have wood chiped is elm. It's the only thing tough enough to grow out here. I was worried that I would have 40lb of wood chips trying to burn up in like 20 minutes. Why this is good. In new mexico I don't have unlimited trees. But the trees I do have burn very good, the wood is lower moisture even when green and drys out fast due to the lack of rain, very low humidity and heat. Also the wood chips go from green to ready to burn in about 4 days. Being able to burn the twigs and sticks increases my wood yield by 10% to 20% because I was saving sticks down to about 1.5 to 2 inches in diameter. That means every ton of round and split wood I now get a few hundred pounds of wood chips too. Also I can burn entire weed/nuance saplings. Normally these small trees I get some sticks over 1.5 inch but most of the tree would go on the brush pile. Now the whole thing goes in the coal furnace. So everytime I burn the coal furnace if 40lb of woodchips burns up, that saves 2 or 3 nice size logs. I burn the coal furnace about 15 days a month, so saving 3 logs every time I light the coal furnace adds up. Yeah I could burn sticks and twigs but it was very labor intensive. Just constantly stuffing twigs and sticks in there takes a long time. An hour of constantly feeding twigs and sticks burns up 20 or 30 lb. This might allow me to build a large surplus of wood and sell some. It would be nice since logging is expensive. My echo cs620 was over $600, but it was worth it, starts easy and has so much power, it's carbide chain $230, f'ed up the carbide chain by hitting a nail, cost $60 to fix, the wood chipper was $800. I originally got the wood chipper to take care of brush piles when we have near year long burn bans in place. The alternative was a burn barrel. Oh and if I ever have to shoot some one, they're going in the wood chipper, Fargo style. Not calling the cops. The wood chipper solves multiple problems. So to recap. Originally bought the wood chipper to reduce brush piles, maybe use the wood chips for compost fertilizer (lame). It's increased fuel harvest and availability dramatically. The green wood I cut won't be ready be burn till next year but woodchips I made 1 to 6 weeks ago are all ready to burn. Honestly when I bought it my plan wasn't to burn wood chips. An unexpected surprise, but a welcome one.
Burned them again today. One coal furnace load of wood chips kept the house warm for about 5 hours while it was about 27F for the high.
When I get the slightest soot build up it burns off. About once a month a little fire races up the chimney after soot builds up for a few weeks and I over fire the coal furnace.
If you have a fireplace or wood burning stove, you can take some of those wood chips, mix them with a little candle wax or paraffin and make good fire starters. I do this for our cabin wood stove, and usually mix in a little birch bark as a wick. Will burn for 15 min or so and get your wood going really well. My FIL used to spend 20 min building a fire, going from twigs to small sticks, to intermediate sized stuff, putting newspaper underneath, and about half the time, the fire would go out before it got hot enough to put bigger pieces on. I showed him how to use a firestarter and did away with the paper and just used intermediate sized stuff. As long as everything is good and dry, no problems with the fire going out.
I use a propane weed burner to light it up and a heat gun to relight when there's a little pile of hot coals.
My Dad would take a few sheets of newspaper and roll it up and put a small rubber band on it,, then put them in a 5 gallon bucket,, he would fill the bucket full,, stacking them in like cigarettes in a pack. Then pour in a half gallon or so of kerosene,, put 1 rolled up piece in between the logs,,, light a match and shut the door.. Never had to adjust the airflow or relight the fire. He would occasionally roll up more paper and slide them in to replace the ones he used. That's been the simplest, most effective way of starting fires I've ever seen.
