Here's an idea to save a lot of money that you may not have thought of if you are using a wood burning stove for heating or cooking. I have already tried it and it worked out just fine. There are tree trimming and landscaping companies working in most communities all the time and they generate tons of wood chips. They have to drive miles in many cases to empty the trucks which fill up pretty rapidly. I obtained a truckload for free and dried them out by covering them with a cheap plastic tarpaulin for several weeks. I then used them for fuel in a wood stove and they were terrific fuel. I also experimented with used cooking oil by pouring it over the wood ships in a plastic pail very sparingly letting it soak in outdoors first and it burned for hours. I wood not store oil soaked wood chips indoors. The combination generated a great deal of heat and it works just fine in an air tight wood burning stove.
Landscapers and tree trimmers generate a great deal of organic waste that they will give away to save hauling it many miles to disposal sites. We also compost a great deal of this material for our gardens.
Walt Barrett
