I've messed with them in a distant life. I think it was more watching other people do it. The REALLY big ones make it easy. The little ones are better than nothing. I've been looking into Biochar and all of it's various uses, also all of the ways to make it.
On the low end you dig a pit, burn wood, and put out the fire before it burns to ash. The high end runs a furnace off of wood gas. Biochar is very interesting stuff as it really improves the quality of your soil. With charcoal you need to be concerned with the quality of the wood you use. With bio char you can use any wood you're burying it anyway.
Maybe it is prep, maybe it's just daydreaming. IDK. It's good stuff to look into though.
syntaxerror@wolfballs.com 2 years ago
I've operated a good quality consumer one. It is a lot harder work and harder on the body than I had expected. It is very loud. There is a whole lot of vibration and jerking around. I don't normally wear work gloves, but you need them for this. The limbs and crap get ripped out of your hands and stuff is flying everywhere.
Wood chips sound way cooler and easier until you try to make your own. I'm guessing one of the really big industrial kinds are a lot easier to use, but they are really expensive and even renting them adds up.
With that said... a lot of people will contact a nearby tree limber and you can often get them to dump a truck load of wood chips at your place for free if you are near enough. But you'll need to figure out a way to protect them from rain and circulate them enough so they will be dry enough instead of sitting there and rotting.
Scruffy_Nerfherder@wolfballs.com 2 years ago
This is all for a SHTF scenario. I could also use them for mulch but my immediate thought was fuel for making charcoal and biochar out of scrap wood and brush.
iamtanmay@wolfballs.com 2 years ago
Very very insightful. Thank you.