I have been thinking about this recently and I have to agree with Steve U. and Johnny C. Setting a dollar value for wood, especially in correlation with the BTU equivalent of Dino is counter to why most of us are doing Woodgas in the first place.
For people who aren’t getting their wood for free, I could see putting out a sign saying “This I’m my dollar cost that I put in per 100 dry lbs (X) and that is the base price for a traveler coming through. This is the time/effort I put in per 100 dry lbs (Y), please tip appropriately.”
Once I had a full wood processing setup like Wayne, had a free supply of scrap wood, and had a healthy pile of chunked wood, I’d change the sign to just “This is my time/effort input per 100 dry lbs (Y2), please tip accordingly.”
Note: Those prices are for a TRAVELING WOODGASSER AWAY FROM HOME. I suppose those prices might apply for a local friend woodgasser, assuming they followed the same rules.
Say a local full-time Woodgasser that I’m not really acquainted with comes to me and wants me to process his/her woodfuel for him/her. At that point the equation becomes something like [Dollar Cost]+[(Time+Effort) times (Minimum Wage, 9.32$/Hr here)] + or - 20% based on circumstances. For example, if it is an elderly or (more)disabled person that can’t process their own fuel, I’d work cheap. If it were a well-off healthy person that can afford the premium and just wants it for the “Prius Effect” of being Carbon-Neutral, I’d be charging more for the premium.
If a random person came to me and said “I want 200 Dry Lbs of processed chunked wood. No, I don’t DOW/GOW.” then I’d charge a “comfortable living wage”, about 17.50$ around here, for my time and effort, including delivery time+distance (in terms of how much wood I use to deliver, round trip), on top of base wood price.
PS: I would accept applicable barter values as much as possible.
Ha! Ha! BrianWA I like that “Prius Effect” of feel good of self-delusion thinking you are being carbon-nuetral.
BillS. that one Mount Rainer picture that I’d put up on Laurie Hunts topic was taken from a distant 2nd cousins balcony as viwed from the University District in Seattle Washington. He just retired from the city planning department. Both he and his wife are good hearted, smart, very intellegent, educated people. They both bought and drive Saturn 1st generation all North American made gasoline cars.
NOT prius effect folks at all. Still Urbans though.
Thier WA county of KING, Snohomish to the north, and Pierce to the south with Tacoma WA in it are now under Stage 2 total wood burning bans for the second time in this last 30 days of this regional artic cold air spell. These counties extend clear to the top of the eastern distant Cascade mountain crest divide. This means that all rural living in the eastern halves of these forested counties (with no access to urban cake eaters imported natual gas lines) to be legal, MUST stop wood heating off of trees harvested off thier own properties. Any residence contsruction here in the last 20 years MUST have a primary heat source other than wood installed.
So . . . we MUST wood burn squeeky visible chinmey clean to not get Green/Neigbor reported and fined and told to cease our “selfish polluting ways”.
This same “Wood Burning Air Quality Restrictions” has been true in the Oregon state urban core counties of Multnohma, Washington and Clackamas.
Voter bases out of these Urban cores based counties drive our States policies. Bluntly they Can, and often Do, out vote and over ride the rest of our states counties and populations combined at the voters boxes. Why many of our silly laws and regulations.
AND our very high costs keep it ALL Clean and Green regulations. WA State now all current comercial contruction must now register and prove all roof, sideswalks and parking lot construction rainwaters run off quailty will be less affecting down to levels Before the whiteman arrived. Really. The Urbans working for Boeing, Intel, Microsoft; and directly or indirectly the Ports districts of Seattle, Tacoma and Portland can afford these higher costs.
Lots of Greens moved here living Urban from the rest of the US of A now with outside brought-in moneys and tele-neworking incomes. Californification moved up north.
It may seem I am promoting unfriendliness here to those in urban areas towards woodgasification.
Not at all.
In these areas wood sources are from shipping pallets. Demo debis. Urban cull trees.
Use what you have for sure.
But . . . . only ever be a limited amount of these. Just like restaurant waste vegetable oils it doesn’t take too many getting on the bandwagon to demand drive these once “free” souces costs up then being supply and demand “value” driven up. Then contracted bid on. And then controlled, and even regulated as untaxed revenue sources.
Even get fought over. Never, ever wanted to get involved with that.
My gasifer wood supplier requests got then filled by Bernie who worked urban warehouses with lots of access to shipping pallet woods and the willingness to “cough”, “cough” dusty saw chunk it up. One man operation he could fill the needs of a quite a few small engine system users.
A SINGLE vehicle user would have choked him availability and capacity-wise and gobbled it all up.
Do not think friendly rurals with our grow it ourselves wood capabilites will save Urban “needs” from this except at the point of a cop gun and tax confiscation of our properties.
Push come to shove if even my wonderful Seattle 2nd cousin and wife, or other urban family could ever make it out here to us rurals they’d be handed handsaws, axes and hoes and told to pull thier own weights. Rurals out of necessity have to be practical. The treasured cow having given 12-15 good calves and now barren gets humanly put down and cut up into wonderful grass fed free range whole cow ground burger meat.
This is our the real. Ate some just last night. Keep 'yer Kobi.
We each must live out our own chosen realities.
Bio-mass energy cannnot be the answer to All.
ALL; now want too much anymore. And there is too many of those ALL’s who no longer know the value of voluntarily facing into realites Before there is the actual needs forced onto them to do this.
The Grasshopper and the Ant. In real life the ant doesn NOT save the grasshopper.
It isn’t what you have; but what you do with what you do have.
Less is more.
Mesquite and Juniper are both really good stuff. People always ask me where Im going to get wood in AZ. You just gotta look around. Tons of mesquite and juniper this way. Ive been looking at the web leafed hackberrys too as they seem to be able to grow in the low arroyos pretty well.
Wow Allen, That’s cheap. If he lived near me, I would buy some from him. The seasoned veterans here say, 16lbs of wood equals a gallon of gasoline. Of course I’m sure that depends on the efficiency of each engine.
Unfortunately I’m outside the free delivery zone but might call him. I’ve been searching for material to get started so not a big need for wood right now. Hope to get started welding after holidays.So it figures out to4+ gals for 8.00 bucks , 2.00 dollars per gallon?
70 to 100 lbs would be 4.375 to 6.25 gal of dino equivalent assuming 16mpg and 1lb/mi, so $1.83 to $1.28 per equivalent gallon. Attractive price for our usage, especially for those without the means for preparing their own fuel.
It had been set aside for internal base filling in another 32" tall 2.5’x9.5’ raised bed planter box.
With six already; and now three added 17" planters; the Wife said we had enough for this year.
So it was either toss these crumbly chunks over the bank into the black berry bushes; or dry, and burn for some now needed moderate heat.
Burning good solid wood cleanly, efficiently is easy. It makes its own hot charcoal. Pillow fracturing that charcoal and out-gassing from the interior out thru a reduction layer of it’s own made hot charcoal.
Burning-up bug chewed, converted to fine paper pulp poop “wood” is the pits.
Smoky. See my glass. It will not make sustainable charcoal. I have to mix with the good solid wood to replenish my burnt out char bed.
It only “looks” O.K. But I’m having to door unlatch open to force draft to keep it blast forced hot and burning. Then my interior house heating is like an open front fireplace. Poor heat.
So any still convinced by Internet repeated “All Biomass”; and having read too many published books and articles saying “All Biomass” need to get to actually burning-using to experience the true realities of using wood for your powers. These other concepts are bogus bullshit. Distractions. Long twisty narrow pathways ending in leap-off, fall-off cliffs.
Think not? Just you go out and try burning actual bound books!
Yeah. I revived and old, old topic to show some of us have been doing this for a long time.
And to get to see the names of many now passed-on; moved-on.
Regards
Steve Unruh
I wish I was paying $5.17. Today it was $5.65, and I know it will be going up a lot higher this summer. If it was not for the government holding the gas prices down because it is a election year, and the government subsidizing in millons and millons dollars of more debt for the tax payers to pay later, we (wood) be paying closer to $7.00 plus for a US gallon of gasoline. (WOOD) my pun for the day.
Steve, l too know this all too well. Last year l did the same “mistake” of hauling in some punky aspen and lime. Dry but wuldnt sustain a fire, for reasons you described. Burnt better when mixed with some harder wood, even if it was semi dry!
I burnt all my punky wood making maple syrup. It burned after it dried. Lots of ash though lol
We will see what happens, the russian boycotts arent helping, but there are a lot of EVs on the market now. We aren’t as completely toasted economically as we normally would be with high gas prices. And in reality the whole ev thing was designed to alleviate the 15 year oil glitch in 2035ish, not this one. EV sales seem to balance out oil prices to some extent.
Drive on wood if you can or get an ev if you can justify it. I think our gas is 3.80, but i doubt it is going down.
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