Putting yard waste to good use

Added: 2026-05-10

[00:00:01]Hi everybody. Welcome to the thumb. It is like May 6th and it's 42 degrees and I was just kind of looking for something to do. I last few days I've been kind of working in the kind of prepping the fields for uh planting, but it's so darn cold. the I want to say it's only like I would guess the ground's only like 60° so I'm not in a big hurry to plant anything but I did do some spraying and kind of like I said some prep work and whatever but so today this afternoon I should say when I got home I was like I there was a big pile of sticks my wife had picked up from uh basically all the yard waste through the winter but she stored it or put it for whatever reason put it way over on the other the barn and that I was going to put it in the the firewood burn pit and uh I don't know. I thought, well, it's so cold I not throw it in the in the boiler. And so that's what I'm doing.

[00:01:10]So, here's what I'm working with. This is just a bunch of uh basically it's all the yard trash from the winter. And uh for whatever reason, my wife threw it here. We usually throw it in the the burn pit or the uh firewood, the bonfire pit, I guess you would call it, and then we just burn it. And whether there's people over or not, we burn it. You know, that's just the way it goes. But for whatever reason, she was throwing it here. And I was going to throw it in the burn pit and burn it.

[00:01:40]And then I thought, well, I might as well get some BTUs out of it as cold as it is. So, here I am throwing this stuff in.

[00:01:52]So, when I fired it up, it was only like I want to say it was 64° or something like that. Yeah, now it's up to 96. I just went in the house and turned on some of the floor heat and stuff and uh um yeah, it's I don't know. Well, the reason I actually the reason I came in the woodshed is my wife kind of uh pointed out that there was a little bit of a woodchuck. Looks like a woodchuck had been uh kind of like burrowing under the You can see where they're like looking for places to to like make a home or whatever. I don't know what they're doing. I don't know if they're looking for a place to have babies or what, but anyway, she'll she pointed out this thing. And uh so anyway, that's kind of why I went in the woodshed and I like, you know what?

[00:02:42]I'm going to start burning some wood because I've got I've got some kind of got started cutting wood for the next year. Um there's some that's got to be split. There's some decent birch and there's some more popppel there. Really what all this is is well like that big big maple there that somebody gave me that and uh this was a neighbor's property across the road that um he that kind of fell into one of his little trails that he has and he had to mow around it and stuff. So this fell on my fence and uh so yeah, there's always a reason to start cutting wood, but I've got a lot of cutting to do. Um, yeah, I've got uh what, almost 218 of uh of cutting done, but yeah, I got to get some cutting done. Um, so anyway, um, but yeah, so as far as tonight, yeah, I decided to start uh I decided to just start fire the thing up anyway and uh um maybe uh get some BTUs into the house.

[00:03:52]So, I've been running a propane furnace, but and now it's up to 97°.

[00:03:58]But, um, yeah. Anyway, I've been running the propane part of the furnace and just because it's one day it's 770° and one day it's 40°. So, you hate to run the wood stove because I the one thing I can't stand is when I come home and it's uh 70° and my wife's got the windows open and the in the wood stove is still blaring away and I'm thinking of uh that really makes my back hurt.

[00:04:27]But anyway, um yeah, that's where I'm at.

[00:04:31]And uh like I said, I was going to throw it in the bonfire pit and just burn it, but why not get some why not get some heat out of it?

[00:04:54]So, here's some that's kind of decent size.

[00:05:05]It's like uh I don't know inch and a quarter, inch and a half diameter.

[00:05:26]Yeah, I shut this boiler down about a month ago. Yeah, I want to say it was 1 of April when I shut it down. I was just I was getting low on wood and quite frankly, I was tired of burning wood. I mean, some of these guys like that are still on their honeymoon, you know, when they're still in their first couple years of burning wood with a central boiler.

[00:05:48]Um, yeah, it's fun. I'm I'm not going to lie. I I enjoy burning wood, but man, when it gets to be April and and you're almost out of wood, yeah, it's time to it's time to rethink things a little bit.

[00:06:12]Here's a few pine branches, even a few pine cones here on the right side.

[00:06:23]So, when I first uh threw all this wood in and started it and stuff, it was it was like you had to really be careful when you start open the open the door of the thing because it would like literally it would want to burn your face off, melt your face.

[00:06:55]Yeah, I uh there a lot of people I mean everybody that has a YouTube channel and has a wood burner.

[00:07:04]You still you you get the haters that who you know say, "Oh, you're wasting your time. You're you should just buy propane. You should just buy natural gas." Whatever. You know, and it's not.

[00:07:16]It really isn't. That isn't the point. I burn wood because I mean I could probably afford to even though I got an old farmhouse and it would cost a fortune to burn wood or to burn propane or whatever. Um I enjoy burning wood. I enjoy getting out and not only that like the the wood I just showed you out there. It's like wood that I mean what else you going to do with it? I mean, like the wood that the trees that fell across my fence that I went out and got my fence ready for the for the summer or whatever. Um, if I would have not had this boiler, I would have just cut it up a little bit and pushed it into the woods and it would sat there and rot, you know. So, it'd be wasteful, I think. You know. Um, but yeah, I like I like burning wood. I mean, call me sick, call me crazy, but I do. I enjoy it. Um, and I think most people who burn wood do enjoy it, cuz if you didn't enjoy it, you probably wouldn't do it. Let me show you what's going on here.

[00:08:27]So, just a little bit of um wood that I threw in. I mean, it, like I said, it's yard waste. Um, it would have been just thrown in a bonfire. I mean, I would have got some enjoyment out of it. We would have had a few beers and invited the family over. But, uh, yeah, now it's up to 98°. This is in the, uh, this white dot here means that it's, uh, the secondary, I don't know what you call it, actuator maybe, is open and it's it's, um, as the As this uh gas is leaving the combustion chamber here, it's uh that white thing shows uh it's showing some or it's put a little bit of oxygen to the smoke as it's leaving the as it's leaving the combustion chamber here, which burns it a little more, which creates heat. And uh that's what's going on right now. If I was to close this door, it would probably be that little white dot would turn red. And actually, I'll uh I'll throw the rest of this wood in and then I'll show you what's going on.

[00:09:54]Okay, it's been a few minutes, like 5 minutes probably, and I threw the rest of the yard waste in. And uh here's what we got going. Nice fire blazing right now. I mean, that would be in a in a bonfire burn pit, you know? That would that would be impressive. But uh hey, look at how all those licks of flame are coming out. I mean, there's a reason I put tin on the roof or the ceiling up here. Um but I'm going to just close this because I don't want to burn my place down here. And uh yeah, so it's 106°.

[00:10:35]The water temperature is 106° and uh so I've gained 40° and so I got 106° water going into my house right now and uh 107° now. But um yeah, the secondary um orange or red uh light here um that means it's like basically running full blast right now. This is an older one. It's not like uh say like log cabin firewood. He's his shows like a percentage of how fast how good things are burning. But I'm just going to turn this around and I'm gonna open this door up at the bottom here and I'm going to show you what's going on. Hopefully it's uh doing what I think it's doing.

[00:11:27]Yeah, it kind of is, but it's not. Um, usually at this point there's like a like a a blast of flame coming out of there. It looked like a like a forge from a like in a blacksmith shop or something like something you'd see on uh you know forged with fire or uh you know has some sort of a blacksmithing thing.

[00:11:50]But anyway, it uh usually it's like really blasting out, but it's only 100° right now. So if it was uh 150 or 200 degrees, it would be really blasting.

[00:12:02]But anyway, either way, for a bunch of yard waste, I'm getting some heat out of it. And uh I'm heating my house right now.

[00:12:12]Okay, so it's up to 122°.

[00:12:16]Um this first one, this first light is just saying that the fan is on. Second light is saying that the primary air is on, which is basically the firebox. And the secondary air is a a blast of air that is going in as the gas and smoke and everything is leaving the firebox.

[00:12:39]And this green light is that's just saying that it's getting an internet signal or everything is good with the internet or the e what do you call it?

[00:12:51]Huh? Can't even think of what you call it the uh Wi-Fi I guess. Um, so yeah, that's what the green light's for. But I just want to show you what's going on underneath here.

[00:13:05]Hopefully it's working this time.

[00:13:09]Yeah, you can see that blast of air coming out of there. Blast of heat. that is uh that's basically because there's a little bit of oxygen going into the air as it's leaving the air chamber or the tire box. And uh basically it's burning the smoke and uh very efficient.

[00:13:39]Just want to come out here and show you what's going on with the So there's the the chimney from the boiler. And uh yeah, as you can see, there's zero smoke coming out of it. Why? Because it's being burned off. And uh very efficient.

[00:13:56]I mean, it's not only is it good for the environment because it's burning the smoke off, but it's also uh, you know, good for me because all the sore backs I get from cutting all this wood, I know I'm getting a good value out of it. Um, yeah, I got a lot of work to do. I got this uh my woodshed holds close to 20 cords of wood. I mean, not just 20 face cords, but 20 full cords of wood. And uh I burn Well, if I wouldn't have quit in April, this would have all been gone.

[00:14:36]1 of April, I quit. And uh yeah, if I wouldn't have quit, this would all be gone. Um I probably still would have went out and found some more wood to burn. But anyway, um I guess I don't want to get too carried away with uh boring you to death.

[00:14:53]But for all you people who got on my like watch my channel because of the wood cutting stuff and the wood burning stuff and the boiler stuff, um I kind of wanted to do a video just for you guys.

[00:15:05]Um, most of you guys don't really care for the farming and cattle and all that kind of stuff that I do too. But, um, but anyway, um, all I can say is thanks for watching Thumb Country Stuff and take her easy.

[00:15:30]Heat. Heat.

[00:15:53]Heat. Heat.