Site Discussions

I am on my third year with an Eko 25 gasifier. One of my concerns was getting it installed at a reasonable price.  I am running it with no thermal storage for now.  After having it piped in, it does not appear all that difficult.  You could set up that econoburn the same way any plumber worth his salt can easily tie it into your oil furnace. Had mine done for 2G, 1 for parts and 1 for labor.

I hunt up in Walden ,Near Coles Pond up on Stannard Mountain and one of the residents there, an accomplished woodsman,hunter and logger has sighted them several times in the area.  He stated that he was with his mother and saw one in a field on Noyestar road.  He was in a clearcut with his machine in a very remote area and has seen one.

The information provided by you is very good. Further details needed of species of plants which will shows particular pollution load….

We bought an Econoburn last year to suppliment our existing fuel oil heating system. The dealer then presented us with an estimate of $8,000 to install the unit 8’ from the oil boiler. We’ve been trying for a year to figure out how to tie this unit into the other.  Apparently the installation requirements are top secret and the manufacturer does not wish to assist homeowners. The only other dealer within 100 miles has declined to help us. It there someone who can help us understand what the requriements are?  We’re willing to pay for help - just not $8,000!!

Hi Sam,
The majority of the CCC plantings occurred between 1933 and 1942. States had different tree planting subsidy programs after that. Check with your county forester to find out exactly when they happened in your particular area.

I have a question: how do earthworms react against the sunlight inside a box?

hi i am doing a project for school, and i was wondering when exactly the government subsidized the planting of red pines?
thanks,
Sam

any suggestions about root killers such as copper sulfate or rock salt is appreciated for roots in sewer lines—trees are in Havre, Montana

Great article! We live near a power line corridor and see a mix of the pluses and minuses described. Our local company, CVPS, seems to have the same attitude as VELCO—at least on the surface. Nice to know that companies are thinking and doing.

My Dear Mr Anderson,                11/5/2010
  I just read & reread your fine article.  It takes me back to a time in my childhood in the mid 1950’s and early ‘60’s when I was priviliged to see some of the remainings of the old days.  I grew up in a little town in the cumberland mountains called Spencer.  On weekends, me and my younger brother would spend the weekend with two other brothers that lived “down on the creek”.  Their family lived on one of the biggest farms that I can remember.  In fact one of his corn fields was once a town called Billingsley. Although I did not know it at the time. I can only remember playing and running through the fields and woods, until I read you story, and then the memories came flooding back. I now remember there were a few old houses and paths that lead to them and on into the woods.  We discover long forgotten gravyards, and sometime single graves out in the forest. I found all kinds of old machaniery and old iron tools and home made devices.  And now another 60 or so years have passed, I find myself wanted to revisit that place.  I guess your story awoke some strong feeling of wanting to return to yesterday in me. Maybe one day soon I will take a ride in that direction.
  And again, thank you for such a fine and inspiring story.
         
              Sincerely,
              Bill Davis

Hi Shaun—

I’d direct you attention to the hearth.com user forums, especially the ‘boiler room’: http://www.hearth.com/econtent/index.php/forums/viewforum/21/

There’s lots of good info here about back drafts and achieving optimal gasification. It took me a good solid year of running my gasifier and reading the forum to really get up to speed. Good luck!

“The smoke should not be ‘biting, or rancid, or foul’ , but the sweet smell of properly burned wood”

I have a Alternate Heating Systems Wood Gun brand wood gasification furnace and suffer from just the fowl smelling smoke described above.  Does anyone else experience this problem?  I also get a lot of back-puffing of fresh air through my fresh air intake duct, as if the furnace can’t handle all the fresh air being delivered.  I have to shut off the manual damper to make it stop, which seems like th ewrong thing to do.  This fresh air back puffing also seems to have a little exhaust mixed into it as it does smell up the house when it happens.  What is the chemistry of the exhaust from wood gasification?

Thats an interesting tid bit about using the sap to make birch beer ! I wonder what it was mainly a remedy for.

What a wonderful story! If every timber sale in New England was supervised by a forester like Bob Perschel, our woods would be much more beautiful and valuable.

If Doug Watts thinks that civilization as we know it should cease to exist and he wouldn’t mind waiting a few centuries for New England forests to revert to something like their condition prior to a few millennia of human impact, I have no argument with his point of view. Likewise, if he thinks it’s OK that New England should continue to import more forest products than it produces, thus exploiting the resources and workers of other parts of the country and world, then there may not be much to discuss.

If, however, we want to grow more of our wood locally as many of us want to grow our food locally, we need to manage our forests wisely. That’s not playing God, that’s playing human. We should focus our ire on those who bulldoze forests for shopping malls and suburban housing developments. Those artificial and engineered landscapes will never grow any kind of forest again.

Thanks to Irwin Post for a particularly helpful article. I have a small woodlot in Royalston, MA that has been totally neglected since heavy logging about 30 years ago. While there are some nice red oak and white pine on the property, beech is the predominant tree species along with plenty of striped maple in the understory. As I begin timber stand improvement, it’s pretty clear that I won’t get much oak or pine regeneration with a combination of vigorous beech sprouting and heavy deer browsing. The information in this article will give me at least a fighting chance.

Today in Passumpsic, Vermont I saw a catamount!!! It was about 7.30 am. My dog has been going wild sniffling and growling for days. I took some pics, but they are not too good.

Nice.

Great to see the involvement in conservation of the woodcock. My husband and I run a a hunting preserve , which cover is an old farmfield bordering the river.  The woodcock is plentiful and the hunters that come to preserve enjoy seeing them.  We raise our own pheasant and quail to release, and hunters are pleasantly surprised when seeing woodcock.  They are in pursuit of the pheasant and the viewing of an accasional woodcock is a bonus.  My husband has worked very hard with his small john deere skidder to bring back the abandoned fields.

Hi Doug—

Thanks for your comment—it gets right to the heart of the matter. We intentionally used ‘native invasives’ to create a useful distinction between species like hay-scented fern (the so-called ‘native invasive’), glossy buckthorn (invasive exotic), common lilac (non-invasive exotic) and, say, red oak (native, non-invasive.) Your point that deciding which natives are classified as “invasive” is nothing but personal preference is exactly to the point - it’s a utilitarian argument, as the author points out in the early going: “The real problem with native invasive plants is that they conflict with our human desires.”

Chuck Wooster, associate editor