Firewood and Japanese Ofuros!

[Carey]

Most of my neighbors have them, some in their basement (concrete usually with a couple of block rows, & lined with (most likely) redwood...
one of the older japanese families just put i a new furo garden structure with cedar doors & showers & such...

To look at modern furos in Hilo, go to Kitchen & beyond:
http://www.kitchenbeyond.com/

Not many people use albezia for firewood, as it is one of the shortest fiber woods around, more like punk than good wood... but might work, if you can get it dry enough so that it doesn't sprout & grow in your wood pile..

[Peter Epperson]

We make ferrocement furos http://pacificgunite.com/furo.htm

[lquade]

i love my ofuro that my hubby made me out of cedar. by the way, michael, pam lamonts caretaker sells firewood. contact him through pams email. lots of downed trees around if you are handy to collect your own.

[AlohaSteven]

If a hostile neighbor files a complaint with the county against you then this can become complicated. Even if you have a 20 acre agriculture-zoned lot, a permit can be needed in order to legally bring wood (cut up trees) onto your property as firewood. Unless someone files a complaint then it is a non-issue, but the county sends an inspector and one must deal with hassles from that if a complaint is filed. If your woodstack is made of trees cut on your own property then even if it a huge jumbled mess, unsightly and filled with rats, there is no problem. Bring one load of wood onto your land from elsewhere without a permit, however, and even if it is neatly racked and roofed in a proper manner then it may be a problem (...but only if someone is filing complaints, otherwise not).

Wood seems readily enough available around here if one is willing to use a chainsaw and haul the cut loads in a pickup truck. Between friends who want fast-growing trees cleared back away from a house, lots that are being cleared with D9s, and so on- maybe even tree trimming services would be a source if one contacted them. Some tropical woods have irritating saps or resins, so it is good to know one type of tree from another. Odd bits of lumber from construction efforts are also frequently available. Do the peanut butter test on anything before loading and moving it to make sure you are not unwittingly introducing LFA (little fire ants) along with the load.

In my experience finding wood is not difficult but managing it after one has it is another matter. In much of Puna there is so much rainfall and it is so warm that unless the wood is up off the ground, racked, stickered ("stickers" are spacers placed between tight-fitting pieces of wood to create spaces for air flow), and roofed over (actual roofing with a good overhang and space for air flow, not just plastic or tarp pulled down around the stack) then it quickly turns into a mushroom farm. If one does all this, facilitating a good dry woodstack, then anti-rat measures are also necessary to maintain it without vermin exploiting the resource as luxury condos. All that being done, if you are as lucky as me then you may have still have to deal with a hostile neighbor filing a complaint with the county objecting to the woodstack. Even when it is hundreds of feet from any property line and obscured from sight by thick stands of vegetation! Not to discourage you, but honestly (having lived 20 years in Alaska) there is rather more to it here in Hawaii than up there -all still worth the bother, but more involved.


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MSP's wingsuit segment from "Seven Sunny Days"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B0tU3Hy7et8&feature=related

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[mailes]

Did he say you need a permit to bring firewood to your property?

Unless I'm in wonderland, um, that's about the strangest thing I've heard.....well....today anyway.

[AlohaSteven]

Did he say you need a permit to bring firewood to your property?

Yes, so I was told.

The part which was unclear to me (and remains unclear) is under what portion of the bazillion County of Hawaii bureaucratic rules & regulations a permit is required for bringing wood onto one's property. This matters because apparently it could be under "no stockpiling materials without a permit" (just lumber or all wood in general?) or "no commercial activity without a business license" (if the material was presumed to be for use in an enterprise of some sort, even with ag zoning) or "no transporting noxious invasive plants & animals without a permit" (assuming there were such in the load) or perhaps a plain "no bringing chopped up trees onto your property without a permit." This part I do not know. Bringing home and stacking firewood is done all the time without permits, of course, and only becomes an issue if someone complains. Given the other complaints filed with the county at the same time apparently the person who filed the complaints thought I was intending to sell something or run a business from this site (not the case, though it is within the zoning to do so as long as one has a business license). The inspector did clearly say that (whether with lumber scraps or chopped-up trees) it is first necessary to obtain a permit before making even a small batch of biochar (which I have never done), even if it is with trees from one's own acreage -not imported from elsewhere- and for one's own use, not for sale. Since this was all jumbled together I was unclear which portion pertained to which other, but was left with the distinct understanding that bringing chopped up trees onto one's property is not completely OK unless a permit was in hand for doing so (though folks do so in plain sight, for years, without any problem whatsoever as long as no complaints are filed). My understanding may be incomplete or flawed, but it stems directly out of recent firsthand experience. If someone knows otherwise for a fact, then please do speak up.


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MSP's wingsuit segment from "Seven Sunny Days"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B0tU3Hy7et8&feature=related

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[Funkstopper]

AK pilot
I had to laugh at the people call me sir often.
I've been a flight attendant for years and on occasion the female pilot will come out after the flight to say goodbye to the passengers. I could feel the frustration of the pilot as the pax would see me, a guy and see the pilot, a female, and thank me for the nice flying job.

One of my favorite flights was when there were five guys working in the cabin and two females up front doing the flying. We got a kick pointing it out to some of the older generation on board.

Jim

[AlohaSteven]

Going back and looking at the part we later received in writing by mail, it looks like this particular zoning violation investigation prompted by a hostile neighbor's complaint regarding firewood was predicated on the presumption of our operating a business without a special permit:

"...bringing in materials for personal use would not be a violation if it is strictly used for your property. However, once you start selling materials to the general public (that was brought onto the property from other locations and people), you are conducting a commercial business which would require a Special Permit. If you produced bio char from only the material grown on your property, you could sell it from a roadside. Whatever you do, it is always best to come into the Planning Department to discuss what is allowed. We sincerely appreciate your help regarding this matter. We consider the alleged violation identified in the above reference closed. Please be advised that in the future, if you are found to be in violation of Hawai'i County Code, Chapter 25 (Zoning), you may receive a civil fine of up to $500 and in addition, may be subject to daily fines from $100 to $500 per day." [Boldface in original letter, not added by me]

So, while it may be legal to bring firewood onto your property (depending on a bunch of factors), then no matter how baseless the accusation if someone decides to assert in a complaint that you are using it as part of an unpermitted business (even though you demonstrably are not) the county will send an inspector whom you must allow to roam all over your property ...and if while on the property the zoning inspector observes an agricultural shed over 6' high then the Building Department receives a memo notifying them of an unpermitted structure, which causes further complications and expense with more inspections and permits.

Anyhow, with regards to bringing firewood onto one's property whether it is legal or illegal to do so appears to depend on a bunch of factors connected to the storage of such (make sure your roofed structure containing the dry woodstack is not over 6' high without a permit), where & when & how the wood will be burned, the end use (e.g., heat vs disposal vs biochar production vs etc), one's zoning, and -most importantly- whether or not a complaint is ever filed by a neighbor.


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Full Frontal Freedom: Wrong Direction's "Disclosure"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSAGR0arBUo

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