I'm with you Tom. We have about 20 acres of mature pine up the back. A lot of it is seventy or eight ft tall. Around here the pine trees do not have to dig for water. They grow very fast and produce small root structures. Every year during wet and windy weather big trees fall in our forest. So many that I can't use them all. So I feel no guilt about burning them. In fact I have removed the oil fired central heating from the three family homes and we now only burn wood.

Wood stove engineering has improved radically in the last decade or so. I burn pine all winter and take out the ash tray three of four times. Only the minerals are left. There is also hardly any soot in the flues. I sweep them once a year in the autumn and take out about half a shoebox of soot.

I am very impressed with the efficiency of our stoves.

I am quite happy to burn commercial forestry timber too. The timber around here is felled and trucked across country to chipping factories, then it is turned into pellets. Then it is trucked all over the place again and stored in climate controlled sheds for distribution to people with wood pellet stoves. Massive carbon footprint involved. The whole added value thing is getting ridiculous.

How much better to get the local forestry to dump a load of logs felled ten miles down the road in my back yard.

To get a head start on stocking my new shed I got the forestry to drop a huge load. It has lasted us four years for the three houses. Heating oil is now coasting around a euro per litre. I figure we would now be paying 6000 euro per year for oil. The wood is costing us 450 euro per year. Add chainsaw fuel, blades , wear and tear etc, maybe 550 all up. That sounds like a good deal to me.

With the savings, in the first year I paid for all the new wood burning stoves, flues etc. in the second year I payed for my lovely new wood and kayak shed. The rest has been gravy.

In addition I get to hump timber around and split logs. I am sure you will agree Tom, that it is a lot of fun, and way more appealing than trips to the gym. I don't know how I will be feeling about it when I am seventy five though.

I am definitely a wood convert. It's either wood or a move to the Carribean at this stage.

I do live way out in the country though. The whole deal would not be possible in suburbia. Can you imagine what the neighbours would say about the chainsaw noise and endless axe noise?

Life is good. I hope it lasts forever.

Et