I know I seen it someplace but can't find it. There's a table somewhere that lists spieces of wood and btu they give off when burnt. Does anybody have it? Apple was like #1 and oak was #5 or 6 on the list
I have a limited list at home that I will type out if you don't have an answer by this evening.
I'd like to see that too! I told Cowboy Bob that some of the wood we had was hot, hot, hot....and then there is the stuff that barely throws heat. I'd love to be able to separate them....you know, this section is our 40 degree heat and this section is our 15 degree heat. :D
I simply googled the subject of this thread, and this is the first site that came up.
http://www.chimneysweeponline.com/howood.htm
We do that too Roxie.We use dry Fir when it's really cold and Cedar and Pine for the mild days but we don't have the variety of Hardwoods that you do back East so it's straight forward.
I save the big, honking hunks of hickory for those really cold days I can't tend to the stove much ;)
I use silver maple to get the stove up to heat and then throw some honey locust in there on really cold days, Red oak for night sticks mixed with a little semi green cherry.
I think this is the right link--from the Excel spreadsheet I posted on another thread--Comparisons_BTU.xls.
http://muextension.missouri.edu/explore/agguides/forestry/g05450.htm
-Doug
See,there you go.If I had a hunk of Hickory,Cherry,Oak,or Honey Locust I'd be hoarding it :)
I have a reference book (that has a bunch of cool stuff in it, 780 pages of stuff and it fits in your pocket as the name implies) "Handyman in-your-pocket" by Richard Young and Thomas Glover. It list Osage orange as 32.90 million btu/cord, hickory is 29.21, apple is 28.72... something we don't have here Pinon pine is 33.50, if it burns hotter than hedge look out! Mulberry, oak, locust are 25-27. Walnut is 21.50. These are all based on dry wood in an effecient stove. I know dry pine burns hotter than wet hickory.
Quote from: Paul_H on November 28, 2005, 01:28:01 PM
See,there you go.If I had a hunk of Hickory,Cherry,Oak,or Honey Locust I'd be hoarding it :)
here's a honey locust I haven't chopped up yet. A couple bowl turners have asked about it.
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/13024/honey%20locust.jpg)
if you want to melt your stove, try burning some manzanita.
It looks like a good sized tree and it fell gently too.Is that a typical size for Honey locust?
Nah, most people cut them down for posts and usually don't make it to this size. This one is approx. 18 inches at the big end.
I have another thats been laying for 4 years but its an old yard tree (loads of nails) that is 25 inches.
8) Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! 8)
Now that I know the difference, and since it's 70 degrees here today, I'm going right out and organize that wood pile! Yesterday the temperature was in the 40's and we had a hunk of hickory on the fire, and every window in the house was open!! :D :D
That won't happen again! Thanks guys!
Try this one, lots of info.
http://mb-soft.com/juca/print/firewood.html
For seasoned wood just use 6400 btu/ lb of wood. All of these charts are essentially using that number. The ratings are just the weight relationship. The BTU's have nothing to do with the efficiency of the stove being used, this is the btu's in the wood. If you have a 50% efficient stove you are getting 1/2 of the available btu's. Whatever your heater's eff. rating multiply that times the btu's available to get what you are adding to the home, to get btu's/hr you need to know how many lbs of wood you burn/hr X 6400. Try it, it really works. Easiest to weigh a good size armload of wood and see how long it burns then do the math.
Thanks guys those charts were what I was looking for 8) Altho the one chart had poplar listed as a softwood :-\. Thats what I start my fires with a good dry peice of poplar. Throw that on a few red coals and in ten minuets you got a hot fire :)
Since Maple Flats mentioned "seasoned" wood, I'd like to share an observation with fellow woodburners.
I've heard some old folks say that they love to hear green wood "sizzle" in the fireplace and even one guy added sizzlin in the furnace.
Situation: 100 pounds of firewood
50% moisture (reasonably typical of first year cut wood)
brought in from the woodpile at 40 degrees F.
100 # at 50% moisture is 25# of water that has to be elevated to 212 degrees and THEN vaporized and sent up the chimney/flue.
25# heated the 172 degrees to boiling takes 4300 BTU's.
Now the water is at boiling temp. but is still a liquid. IT REQUIRES 972 BTU PER POUND TO CONVERT WATER TO WATER VAPOR!!! A fact often overlooked by most including cooks and steam makers. So there's an aditional 24,300 BTU to send the moisture up the chimney for a total of 28,600 BTU wasted getting rid of that good-sounding sizzle.
If I may offer a suggestion..... burn dry wood.
I realize that this is slightly askew of the original subject but still important to woodburners.
The list that I have shows :P:
Hardwood
1. White oak at 33.2 million btu/cord
2. Red oak and hickory at 29.5
3. Pecan hickory, 28.8
4. Water oak, 27.7
5. White Ash, 27.0
Conifer
1. Long leaf and slash pine, 24.3
2. Western larch and tamarack, 22.2
3. Douglas fir, 22.0
At the bottom of the heap (or wood pile) is northern white cedar at 14.8, black willow 16.3, balsam fir at 16.1, and then Engelmann spruce and eastern white pine at 16.4.
This is just the highs and lows (unfortunately apple is not on this list); it would take a long time to type them all in. The above all assume higher heating value (no loss of heat from evaporating moisture or out the exhaust), and 78% wood and bark, 22% void space).
In the end I always opted for the handy snag, next to the road, without too many limbs - regardless of what the heating value is.
I don't like hearing the sizzle that was mentioned, but the pops are kinda nice sometimes. There's a few odd pieces of tamarack in the wood pile that I've thrown in the stove...that stuff really lets you know ya got a fire in the basement :)
In addition to the amount of water contained in the wood another dynamic to be aware of is how fast a given type of wood gives up its water. For instance, red oak requires a much longer time to dry, or season, than beech. That is good to know if you run low in the early spring and need to burn green wood. Beech at that point is a much better choice than red oak.
The rate of burn is also a useful bit of info. As mentioned earlier yellow poplar when dry gives a good quick hot flame that can be used to ignite the denser woods. Sassafrass is another good starter wood and it smells good to boot :)
Every Christmas I fill my wood box with sassafrass and red cedar. It burns hot and fast but sure smells nice :)
We burn whatever is laying in the woods around here, thats the winter project cleaning up the deadfall and making fire wood out of it.
A local filling station and fuel company has a paper posted by the counter listing the btu value of various fuels like propane, number 2 oil, kerosene, etc. Every one is listed as btu's per gallon, including the bottom item, firewood. Yes folks, btu's per gallon of firewood. I pointed this out to one of the girls behind the counter, and said they might have meant cord of firewood. It's still there after a month. ;D ;D
Since there is .1337 cubic feet in a gallon, I guess we could convert the gallons to cords. ::) So since there is 128 cubic feet in a cord, there would be 957 gallons in a cord. ;D See, they knew what they were doing. ;)
I think you would have to squeeze a cord of wood dang hard to get any thing out it and whatever college boy thought up measuring btu's of wood by the gallon is sure full of something but I ain't sayin what ;D
How about www.firewoodguy.com ?
I saw firewoodguy offered gift certificates, no more lumps of coal in your stocking, a gift card for wood. Not quite Lobstergram, but it beats nothing.