If, after having read my last two postings, you're considering doing good things for your body and your wallet by heating with wood, here's how to get started. Tools of the Trade Must Have: Chain Saw (I've had good luck with Jonserud and Husqvarna) Several sharp chains (a 16" bar is plenty long enough) Tool kit (for extra chains, lube for bar, hand tools, etc.) Bar oil and mixed gas Splitting ax (for on-site splitting of large pieces) Lumber jack (for rolling over large pieces) Small hatchet (for chipping muddy bark off logs – one rotation of your chain through soil and you're dealing with dull ) Hearing protection Leather gloves Wood hauler trailer or truck Nice to Have: Second chain saw in case first one gets pinched Heavy maul (for dislodging pieces frozen to the ground) Hydraulic splitter Safety helmet for widow-maker protection Finding Free Wood The first wave of Dutch elm disease swept through Minnesota thirty years ago. Now a second wave has killed nearly every thirty-year-old elm. This, plus oak wilt affecting many of our red oaks, birch borer and ash borer add up to tons of dead trees. When I started out I just knocked on doors asking if I could clean up a neighbor's dead wood. I always promised to pile the slash (small limbs). Now, thirty five years later, my neighbors call me when they lose a tree. Beware folks giving away snow in the winter. You're not interested in pine, cottonwood, poplar or box elder. Unless you don't mind getting up in the middle of the night to recharge your wood furnace. Red oak is the BTU gold standard around here. Birch is also a good burning hardwood as is ash, cherry,elm, most maples and any kind of nut tree. Go to http://hearth.com/econtent/index.php/articles/heating_value_wood for a chart of BTU values in many common Minnesota woods.