Wood species. What’s worth bringing home

[SwampDonkey]

Ashes aren't a deal breaker for me, I'm after the heat. Since there's no red oak of firewood size or bigger around here close enough or in quantity, it would be a rare thing to burn. I also burn 7 wheel barrel loads of wood a week, so there is a lot more ash in comparison to the volume you burn a week. If I was to burn one wheel barrel a week, I wouldn't clean ashes for 2 months.  ;D

I have tried to regenerate some red oak here and the wildlife either debarks it, chews it back from the top down or rips the limbs off it before it can get big enough to withstand the onslaught. :D

[KEC]

I don't spend much time worrying about how much ash I'll get from any particular kind of wood. Too many other things to consider. I regard ashes as a resource to scatter in the drip line of favored trees, or put on the garden or the lawn.

[Old Greenhorn]

I don't worry about ash either, it's a byproduct just like sawdust but not as heavy. ;D I don't care for wood that tends to leave unburned chunks, but I keep stirring that up with every new load and eventually it turns into ash. I empty the shop stove about every 10-15 days, and the house about once a month and let it sit in a steel pail for a few day on bare ground before I dump it on the compost/rot pile I've been using for 35 years. (Someday I might take something out of that pile. :D )
As for species, I pretty much burn it all in it's time. I don't have a woodlot, so I burn what I can get. The exception being pine, which I don't get much of, but will throw in some pieces now and then in a mixed load. Lousy wood either gets burned up quick in the shoulder seasons, or mixed in with good wood here and there. So I am the opposite of a snob.
I also don't go with the crowd on the 'red oak has to dry for at least 2 years'. I am burning some beautiful red oak that came down in the spring. It was split smallish (3-4" squares) and stacked in a dry spot. It dried nicely, gives good all night heat, and I can almost light it with a match. I do not care for the splinters though, they are fierce and hurt like the dickens.
I just finished heating my shop for 3 weeks straight with dried out pithy garbage ash and maple. 72° from nice dry ash is about the same as 72° from semi rotted pithy garbage. Yes, it's a bit more effort with all the junk that falls off it, but I back the trailer up to the side door of the shop and feed right off that to the stove 15' away. All the junk gets swept up and goes right in the stove.
I guess I am just a wood pig.

[ihookem]

I even burn hybrid popplar, only cause it's 50 yds. from the boiler. It's one step up from rolled up cardboard, but keeps the hardwood pile a bit bigger and is nice in a spring evening when it's still cold, but not to bad that I need to max the fire box. It might raise the house from 67 to 70, but it makes the floor warm from hydronic , keeps the floor warm till till the next day and heats the water too. My nat. gas  bill  was $18 and $17 the last 2 months . heck, just the fees are $12.

[B.C.C. Lapp]

Was written by the lady Congreve.  Id say she got it about right. 

Beechwood fires are bright and clear
If the logs are kept a year,
Chestnut's only good they say,
If for logs 'tis laid away.
Make a fire of Elder tree,
Death within your house will be;
But ash new or ash old,
Is fit for a queen with crown of gold

Birch and fir logs burn too fast
Blaze up bright and do not last,
it is by the Irish said
Hawthorn bakes the sweetest bread.
Elm wood burns like churchyard mould,
E'en the very flames are cold
But ash green or ash brown
Is fit for a queen with golden crown

Poplar gives a bitter smoke,
Fills your eyes and makes you choke,
Apple wood will scent your room
Pear wood smells like flowers in bloom
Oaken logs, if dry and old
keep away the winter's cold
But ash wet or ash dry
a king shall warm his slippers by.
 

[SwampDonkey]

Aspen and fir is the biggest part of the firewood pile here. Never froze yet. In fact I don't burn wood all day long, too hot. :D

[NewYankeeSawmill]

Around here most everyone who doesn't have a wood stove will tell you you can't burn anything other than oak or Hickory. It's infuriating how often this lecture is repeated. We did mostly burn oak and hickory growing up but back then it wasn't hard to come by cheaply. The oak was for when it wasn't very cold. We started working a little Hickory in during the freezing nights.

I save the pine for the fire pit, but put plenty of poplar up the chimney the passed several years. Property is loaded with it, price is right!

[TreefarmerNN]

I prefer oak, hickory, beech etc. but also burn eastern red cedar and others.  My wood is from cleaning up downed trees.  In the past couple of years, I've started burning some ailanthus as I'm removing some groves of it.  It's not great wood but if allowed to dry, it's not bad either.  It splits easily and once dry is easy to start. 

I generally won't burn poplar except as kindling as it doesn't put out much heat and I have better options.  I don't burn gum because it's a pita to split and takes a long time to dry.  Locust is prized but we don't have as much of that as used to grow in the area. 

I'm not that picky except I dry wood in bins and hate to take up bin space with low value wood.  All of it costs the same- chainsaw gas, time and effort so maximizing the utility of the bins is a consideration.

[barbender]

 I'm definitely in the "whatever fits in the stove" camp, although I completely understand where folks are coming from when they don't want to mess with less dense species. 

 I have an OWB, and for me the best return on effort for heat is dead standing small diameter softwoods. Tamarack is king in this regard, followed by Jack Pine. If it's all 6-8" I don't have to split it- perfect!

 Burning that stuff, I clean ashes out once or twice a winter. Burning hardwoods, it's more like weekly or bi-weekly. Sure, it's nice to come out to a big bed of coals, but not enough for me to want to deal with the additional ash.

 Tamarack (eastern larch) is a medium density wood, hard and heavy for a soft wood. It is also loaded with pitch. I've never dealt with SYP, but two species I see people really struggling with pitch on bandmill blades are SYP and larch. 

 The OWB never gets any buildup in the chimney. 2 reasons for that, first the chimney is really short. Second is because when it is burning, it is wide open with air induction. Wet wood, dry wood, pitchy wood- it all burns clean when it has enough air put to it in my stove. 

 I'm not a gambling man but I'd put money on being able to run nothing but the pitchiest SYP you could find, with no ill effect in my stove. 

 I say all of this to add to what others have said about people using dampers to choke down their fire. My experience seems to verify that.

 I'd add to it that a had a door seal fail on my OWB once. My stove operates with a small blower fan that kicks on when an aquastat gets to a low temp setpoint. When the blower kicks on, the air forces open the gravity operated damper that completely closes off the air supply when the aquastat high limit is reached and shuts off the blower. So the stove goes from zero air, to being pressurized, back to zero air. 

 Well when that door seal was allowing a small amount of air to seep past, my 8" chimney pipe was choked of to a dime sized diameter hole with rock hard creosote buildup. That's what a restricted air, smoldering fire does in short order.

[cutterboy]

I will burn most any wood in my woodstoves but I love oak, hickory, beech, black birch and ash for the cold winter nights.
The ashes go in the garden. It's like spreading lime, it sweetens the soil.
I'm with Old Greenhorn on the red oak. Cut it this winter-burn it next. 

[beenthere]

cutterboy
And you will be pleasantly surprised if you wait just another year of seasoning on the red oak. 
I was when I dipped into some two-year seasoned red oak after burning 3+ year seasoned red oak. Took a short minute to figure out why I was getting less heat until I realized from what part of the firewood I picked this load. Whoops. 

[Al_Smith]

They say all wood by weight has about the same BTU's .Myself I'll burn anything that will fit through the insert doors .Burn the lighter stuff during day light hours then the oak or hickory at night .
I've got the last two logs from a 100 foot wind blown ash I'll get on tomorrow .First I have to get a Husqvarna 281 and a cd 2100 running to give them a run at those 30 plus inch things .It's been some time but I need them for "sawfest " in Oct .The 2100 used to be a rip snorter west coaster .It might still be if I can get it started . If those things can chew through rock hard dead ash with ease  then cottonwood would be like a hot knife through butter .

[SwampDonkey]

From my measurements here on the 'bee' maple, the limb that blew out yielded 120 cu feet of wood. But that's loose thrown, not stacked. I've got to break it down a bit more and expect to come out with around 80 cu feet of stacked wood on the skid there. 3 pallets end to end. 3x4' is standard pallet size isn't it? Definitely won't fill it up, will top off this fall with woodlot wood. The hive end was out of round and averaged about 27". That's not the main trunk. The main trunk is way fatter. She's an old bruiser, and not pretty and she has seen some wind on this ridge.