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JBinhungary Oct 5th 2018 7:25 pm

Firewood
 
While on the hunt for winter firewood (& yes I have left it late ) I have been told that I will need some paperwork from the seller, in case the police & or NAV call to check its not been stolen & sold on ?

Have never heard/ heard this b4 but our neighbour in the village told me when I asked where he got his wood from ?

Can anyone shed any light on this for me.

Peter_in_Hungary Oct 5th 2018 9:32 pm

Re: Firewood
 
Some time ago there was a statistic produced that said every 3rd log burnt for firewood was stolen from forests by illegal cutting.
Now you need permission to cut wood from forests (even your own) and you can only cut from October to March (or February if like us you have liver wort in your forest,a protected plant) When you get permission to cut this comes with paperwork that shows the amount of wood and the location of the cutting and you need to carry this with you when either cutting or transporting the wood. So the seller should have this paperwork and the police can stop someone cutting or transporting wood to inspect this certification. As a buyer you won't get this paperwork but you should get a proper receipt which will cover you in the event of questions.

The economics of heating with wood have changed in the last few years and if you buy firewood ready cut then it is almost as cheap to heat with mains gas and if you are heating with unseasoned wood then mains gas will be cheaper - if you have access to mains gas. If you buy logs it is cheaper but without the proper machines it is an awful lot of work. Of course if it is a glass fronted wood burner in the lounge the aesthetics outweigh the economics.

Pilis Nemzeti Park Fella Oct 5th 2018 9:54 pm

Re: Firewood
 
Not everybody needs to buy their firewood, we have quite a bit stacked up from the gardens. Always chopping down trees. Luckily for the insects & wildlife it is a lot easier to chuck some of it into a huge pile of waste stuff down the hill to decompose over the years.My neighbour said we've got a fox & badger under it, never seen them.

wolfi Oct 6th 2018 12:27 pm

Re: Firewood
 
Peter, thanks for that info!

Btw the " glass fronted wood burner" is called a kandalló - it really is a very nice kind of warmth, we often light it when at home in the evening though we of course have central heating.
For some people here in the village the kandalló is the only source of heat and others have wood-fired central heating - a lot of work obviously!
A bit OT:
Every winter we see old houses (with old people) and a pile of firewood given to these poor people as a kind of present from the village ...

Peter_in_Hungary Oct 6th 2018 1:05 pm

Re: Firewood
 

Originally Posted by wolfi (Post 12573708)
Every winter we see old houses (with old people) and a pile of firewood given to these poor people as a kind of present from the village ...

Which is more than happens in the UK for those in fuel poverty

Sachina Oct 9th 2018 6:56 pm

Re: Firewood
 

Originally Posted by wolfi (Post 12573708)
Peter, thanks for that info!

Btw the " glass fronted wood burner" is called a kandalló - it really is a very nice kind of warmth, we often light it when at home in the evening though we of course have central heating.
For some people here in the village the kandalló is the only source of heat and others have wood-fired central heating - a lot of work obviously!
A bit OT:
Every winter we see old houses (with old people) and a pile of firewood given to these poor people as a kind of present from the village ...

Everyone in the village where I live is given a gift of 3 cubic metres of logs each year. I have both gas central heating and a kandallo in each room although it's very rarely I have fires in all of them at the same time.

wolfi Oct 10th 2018 7:54 am

Re: Firewood
 
Our neighbour said that here in the village you get firewood or once a year10 000 HUF extra if your pension is lower than the minimum of around 90 000 per month - it may be different in other places.

duztee Oct 11th 2018 7:42 pm

Re: Firewood
 

Originally Posted by Peter_in_Hungary (Post 12573718)
Which is more than happens in the UK for those in fuel poverty

You may be overlooking the £200 annual winter fuel payment, and I for one far prefer cash to a pile of logs!

JBinhungary Oct 15th 2018 6:32 pm

Re: Firewood
 

Originally Posted by Pilis Nemzeti Park Fella (Post 12573534)
Not everybody needs to buy their firewood, we have quite a bit stacked up from the gardens. Always chopping down trees. Luckily for the insects & wildlife it is a lot easier to chuck some of it into a huge pile of waste stuff down the hill to decompose over the years.My neighbour said we've got a fox & badger under it, never seen them.

We didn't last year but do now ..

JBinhungary Oct 15th 2018 6:34 pm

Re: Firewood
 

Originally Posted by Peter_in_Hungary (Post 12573523)
Some time ago there was a statistic produced that said every 3rd log burnt for firewood was stolen from forests by illegal cutting.
Now you need permission to cut wood from forests (even your own) and you can only cut from October to March (or February if like us you have liver wort in your forest,a protected plant) When you get permission to cut this comes with paperwork that shows the amount of wood and the location of the cutting and you need to carry this with you when either cutting or transporting the wood. So the seller should have this paperwork and the police can stop someone cutting or transporting wood to inspect this certification. As a buyer you won't get this paperwork but you should get a proper receipt which will cover you in the event of questions.

The economics of heating with wood have changed in the last few years and if you buy firewood ready cut then it is almost as cheap to heat with mains gas and if you are heating with unseasoned wood then mains gas will be cheaper - if you have access to mains gas. If you buy logs it is cheaper but without the proper machines it is an awful lot of work. Of course if it is a glass fronted wood burner in the lounge the aesthetics outweigh the economics.

Thanks Peter, having looked a prices etc, I hear what you are saying. Had planned to get prepared for this winter earlier but hey, another lesson for next year. We have gas so will be grand, but often just light the one in the livingroom to take the chill off a bit

duztee Oct 15th 2018 7:45 pm

Re: Firewood
 
A factor commonly overlooked by the pro wood burning society is the cost of reducing the logs to a usable size to fit in the burner.
My neighbour has a large lorry load of 2 metre long logs delivered every year, which are craned over the wall into his yard, these he cuts as needed, the result is that 6 or 7 times a day I have to listen to his circular saw running for 10 or 15 minutes. Not loud or particularly irritating, but i wonder if he ever adds the cost of the electricity to his fuel costs.
And of course there is the labour involved with all this cutting and carrying, the replenishing and ash clearance, OK so I am lazy, but ti is a LOT easier to turn the thermostat control on my gas heating!

Pilis Nemzeti Park Fella Oct 15th 2018 11:47 pm

Re: Firewood
 

Originally Posted by duztee (Post 12578037)
A factor commonly overlooked by the pro wood burning society is the cost of reducing the logs to a usable size to fit in the burner.
My neighbour has a large lorry load of 2 metre long logs delivered every year, which are craned over the wall into his yard, these he cuts as needed, the result is that 6 or 7 times a day I have to listen to his circular saw running for 10 or 15 minutes. Not loud or particularly irritating, but i wonder if he ever adds the cost of the electricity to his fuel costs.
And of course there is the labour involved with all this cutting and carrying, the replenishing and ash clearance, OK so I am lazy, but ti is a LOT easier to turn the thermostat control on my gas heating!

Worth remembering that burning wood for heat is one of the ultimate 'green' fuels - you can't release more CO2 than the tree took out of the system in the first place, which was only a few years previously (so not like burning fossil fuels). Obviously helps if the wood is seasoned = more heat, less ash/ soot.

But whereas wood used to be cheap compared to gas, now it's not really any cheaper to buy in, round here at least. Though we have plenty of our own free wood!

Szeged Oct 16th 2018 2:50 pm

Re: Firewood
 
In Szeged last year there was a huge tree cutting around the new development of the riverside. A few miles of trees on both embankments whereby they would leave the chopped logs in piles for weeks. I cycled past on various days and various times of the day and night but never seen anyone stealing them; not even one log at a time. I have also never seen any police checks or authority checks of any kind in the woody/forest areas of the szeged countryside.

I just wonder what is the reality of the police and/or authorities checking for stolen wood and what permissions/rights they would have to come onto your private property for an inspection in the first place? Also, is chopped wood stamped/marked in some way? And would it be worth stamping/marking your own wood?

Peter_in_Hungary Oct 16th 2018 4:45 pm

Re: Firewood
 

Originally Posted by Pilis Nemzeti Park Fella (Post 12578139)
Worth remembering that burning wood for heat is one of the ultimate 'green' fuels - you can't release more CO2 than the tree took out of the system in the first place, which was only a few years previously (so not like burning fossil fuels). Obviously helps if the wood is seasoned = more heat, less ash/ soot

This used to be the case but now there is a growing body of evidence that wood burning causes significant health problems. The issue is the products of combustion and it is not the smoke that you can see that does the most damage but what you can't see. Smoke is particles in the air, the large particles are what you see and the higher the moisture content and the lower the burn temperature the more visible particles produced - which is why it is not good to 'slow burn' wood fires to get them to go through the night.
Along with the visible particles there are the invisible ones. These are generally less than 2.5 µm (you may see the expression PM sub 2.5 µm (PM = particle matter)) These particles when inhaled are small enough to pass through the lung walls straight into the blood stream - and this when they cause the damage. The PM sub 2.5 µm are produced in the same way as visible smoke except that they are always produced regardless of the burn temperature.

Szeged Oct 16th 2018 10:07 pm

Re: Firewood
 

This used to be the case but now there is a growing body of evidence that wood burning causes significant health problems.
Sometimes I think the scientists/researchers/etc over-think and over-analyse. People have been smoking for years and die without lung/smoke related illness. People breath in dirty vehicle fumes, drink dirty water, pass by smelly (god knows what) dustbin lorries, eat unfresh food and so on but still live. In other words, if the scientists, etc think the liver and lungs are not capable of doing a good job, we would all be dead before we reached 7 years old.


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