The Workshop

[DaveW]

I have only seen that much rain in Scotland.

We've had a pretty dry year this year. Must be climate change.

-Dave

[GT40_GearHead]

I use mainly a pellet stove for heating

well that is a neat way to heat your house but it is a bit complex, isn't it,

i just have to throw the fire wood in, and close the door, as for the smoke it does make i light white smoke until it gets hot, after that.... nice and clean


<edit> talk about climate change, two days ago we had a bit of a snowfall

[Airbozo]

well that is a neat way to heat your house but it is a bit complex, isn't it,

i just have to throw the fire wood in, and close the door, as for the smoke it does make i light white smoke until it gets hot, after that.... nice and clean


<edit> talk about climate change, two days ago we had a bit of a snowfall

Not hard at all. I just buy a bag of pellets and dump them in the pellet stove, push a button and the thing starts up (my in-laws pellet stove is thermostat controlled). The pellets are made from the waste of the lumber mill. They take all the sawdust, dry it out, add a miniscule amount of wax (less than .1%) and press it into pellets. Stuff burns hot and clean. Our pellet stove got something like an 85-90% effecincy rating and the newer ones are getting 90-95%.

The process:
http://www.energex.com/common/images/process_large.jpg

Our stove (similar to this one):
http://www.avalonstoves.com/product....pt_id=7&sku=56

Back to the topic:

Dave are you putting in a different floor in that shed? How tall is it? What kind of wood is the deck made from? Are you allowed to use treated wood in the UK? (they are heavily restricting it's use in california due to the arsenic content, but they do have a "green" alternative).

[Zephik]

I have a friend who is half Finnish.



You gonna run a business of some kind?

I have a friend who is full finnish

ha ha.. no... actually... I think its just in spite of my brothers wifes father... who tends to have alot of neat things that we like... lol so we're getting back at him ^^

We need it too... lol We wouldnt spend that much money without actually needing it ^^

In the US people stack wood outside of buildings because of brown recluse infestation. Brown recluses LOVE wood piles and most people don't want to give them a nesting ground in their buildings.

As for the person that split the wood he probably did it with a hydraulic wood splitter and not by hand. I don't know many people who use a maul these days besides me.

I love splitting firewood. I've done it every winter for 8 years now for 2 families with wood furnaces. About an hour a day starting next week until early spring.

I have a shed in my backyard. It is small and holds my lawn maintence equipment. The compost heap is near it.

Ah... I bet that is it. Brown recluse... grrr...

hmm... well he was kind of old... lol so that is a pretty valid option. He built everything here... the full 4k sq ft log home, all the sheds, he did the road, he was insane I think. lol

I use mainly a pellet stove for heating. No splitting and very LITTLE pollution. The only visible pollution/smoke that is emmitted is when it first starts up. Once it is running you never see smoke coming out of the stack. Clean (reletively) and functional.

The info about the spiders is true, although in my area we get so much rain that you need to keep it in a shed or something. The blue tarp barely keeps it dry enough.

Little sideline: Where I live we have a different name for those blue tarps. We call them "Boulder Creek roofs". Yes I live in a mountain town that gets more rain on average than seattle. Second year I lived here we got something like 130" of rain from october to may. Hell that year i think the wettest storm we got dumped ~30" of rain in 3 days. at one point it was coming down at a rate of an inch an hour. I have only seen that much rain in Scotland.

Ha ha... we actually use alot of pellets too. I really dont know why we have all that wood.... I think it might of came free with the house? lol

That is alot of rain. lol I live on a mountain and I get like close to none lately...

-SF

[nil8]

Nothing wrong with spiders, even the poisonous ones. They do useful things like kill bugs. Spiders get a bad rap.

That is a lot of rain. That's rainforest conditions.

Modern wood furnaces don't pollute as much as older ones. Filters for the creosote, which makes the smoke less damaging. Requires more maintence, but makes cleaning easier. Causes less exhaust fires too.

Splitting wood is becoming somewhat of a lost art. It's quiet, cold, hard work. That's why I love it. No one bothers you when you're splitting because they don't want to be in the 30F(-1C) weather swinging at blocks of frozen wood. Gives you time to think and enjoy the world in peace, without distraction.
I use an 8lb maul on the end of a 36" hickory handle. I have a 6 inch and 4 inch wedge. I love to split wood. Cutting down the tree is an entirely different matter.

Planning on insulating or running electricity to the shack Dave?

[DaveW]

Planning on insulating or running electricity to the shack Dave?

Hell yes, it's going to be a fully blown workshop. I might even install a painting corner like MDCS has. Tybrennis, you built one, didn't you? You ever fix it, or am i thinking of someone else?

I'm even thinking about trying to build a computerised router. Security's a big issue, so we're working on ways to make it hard to break into at the moment.

-Dave

[nil8]

Bars over the windows, 2 deadbolts and a solid wood door should do it.

[DaveW]

It's not going to have any windows, just massive doors that open all the way and plenty of lighting.

-Dave

[ajmilton]

pfft. go all the way. remote-disabled electrodes on the door knob, large, scary looking metal objects hanging above the door, looking like they're about to fall (i think a fridge would be a nice touch )

oh yeah. and a large dog. or at least, a motion-sensor detector to play an audio recording of one. with a good subwoofer to make it feel like you've got a huge beast inside there.

>that< is security.

[jdbnsn]

You can keep a wild dingo hungry and high on angel dust locked up in there. (just kidding by the way, I have never advocated dogs using drugs). By Dad built his own shop and set up a nice alarm system using two motion activated flood lights with the bulbs removed. He mounted them inside to cover the only entrance and the main floor and wired them to a simple circuit which when triggered sounded an external siren (pulled from an old car alarm) as well as a buzzer mounted in his bedroom (right next to his boomstick). He mounted two kill swtches, one in the house to turn on the alarm when he goes in for the night, and the other using a breaker switch hidden within the shop. He also mounted motion activated flood lights on a separate circuit with lights on all 4 sides of the building as a deterrent (no siren, just lights up the area). So if someone bypasses the floodlights (or ignores them knowing you are out of town) and walks in the fron door, the motion sensors trigger both the outdoor siren (very loud) and the buzzer in his room. Works pretty damn well and you can build it for very cheap in comparison to retail security systems. Only thing it won't do is call the police, but really, who wants the police around when you are running through your yard in your boxers firing your double barreled 12 gauge boomstick?