Whats Your Big 3 of Firewood?

[doctorb]

1.  Black Locust - available to me, splits great, stores forever, great heat.
2.  Oak - red or white - available, splits well, slower drying, great heat.
3.  My third place is a distand third.  Probably cherry.

[Corley5]

Ironwood, sugar maple, yellow birch, and beech in that order.  I'll burn anything.  We're on a mix of yellow birch, white and red pine, basswood and popple right now.  That'll run out in a week or so and then it's back to green sugar maple

[petefrom bearswamp]

I have been on a steady diet of White Ash since 2009 when I had my ash harvested.
My best hardwood is Sugar maple, followed by Beech and then ash.
I have a good bit of cherry too, but the btu content is quite a bit less than the other 3.
Google btu content of woods and you will find a couple of charts that lists btu content.

[Al_Smith]

I'm right in the middle of the midwest hardwood country so I have a lot of choices .Probabley in order,any of the hickorys followed by any of the oaks and probabley black locust .

For that matter all this EAB killed ash does well as does sugar maple . Silver or red maple does okay but to get more heat out of it you need to split it a tad smaller .The faster it burns the more BTU's per hour ,just takes more of it .

[lynde37avery]

best
1.hard maple
2. cherry
3. ash
i could trade ash or cherry for an oak. only gave me 3 choices.

worst
.white birch, popal, basswood.

[M_S_S]

When I lived down on the west side of the Sierras it was Madrone, Calif. Black Oak, and Valley Liveoak in that order. Now it is Western Juniper, Lodgepole Pine and Pondarosa Pine. No hardwoods up here except Mountain Mahogany and I do cut it for BBQ wood. It doesn't grow very big . ED

[missouriboy]

my would be red oak, bur oak, and ash.

[SLawyer Dave]

1.  Mountain Black Oak
2.  Eucalyptus
3.  Fruit/Nut


Here in Northern California with our thousands of acres of fruit and nut trees, Almond wood is considered to be the "best" firewood by most.  Now don't get me wrong, Almond is a great firewood.  High btu value and little splitting needed, but the bark is just so messy and it leaves a lot of ash.  My favorite by far is Mountain Black Oak.  Nice and straight, easy to split, (when green), clean wood, burns hot with high btu, and leaves very little ash.  Eucalyptus is one of the highest btu value woods you can burn.  Can be a little trickier to split depending on variety, but burns so well (and hot), that it leaves very little ash.  After that, I don't really differentiate between much else.  If I get into almond wood, then I generally save that to sell, since it goes for such a premium, (which makes no sense to me).  Otherwise, walnut, pecan, peach, prune, and olive wood are all very good choices, and fairly available in this area.

[Nemologger]

White oak, red oak, black oak

[John Mc]

Buckthorn - not that it's any better than any of the premium hardwoods (though it is pretty good as firewood) - I just get a lot of satisfaction heating my house with this invasive species, knowing I've at least tried to make a dent in the population.

[DDDfarmer]

tamarack, birch, black spruce.  in that order  but will take whatever is cut 

[ReggieT]

Anybody ever burn any "devils walking stick/Hercules club?"

[stumper]

Well my big three are in order, what I am paid to cut and remove, then free and easy to get.

in terms of species it is hard to beat hornbeam.  I do not get it very often but it is great stuff.  Locust is also great, burns hot and does not rot.  Oak, red and white also make the list as does sugar maple.  Great wood but not on the list because they are prone to go punky to too quickly if left in contact with the ground would be yellow birch and beech.

[John Mc]

I burn a lot of Beech, great BTUs per cord, but Stumper is right, you do need to get it stacked up off the ground. It won't take a lot of lying around in ground contact like Oak or some other species will.

Hardhack (Hophornbeam) is the same way: Excellent firewood, but starts to go quickly if you leave it in contact with moist ground.

[Magicman]

Cherrybark Oak, Water Oak, and lastly - White Oak.

Presently I am stuck with burning Ash    simply because two trees fell and I utilized the tops and crooks for firewood.  I have to carry a bucket of white powdery ashes out every few days.  Not so with Oak.

When other hardwood species fall, I just let it rot.  Beetles and termites gotta eat too. 

[petefrom bearswamp]

BTU per standard cord
White ash            3,485
Sugar maple        3,740
Red maple           3,230
Red oak               3,570 
White oak            3,910
American beech   3,655
Black cherry        3,145
Hickory shagbark 4,080
Hickory bitternut  3,825
Birch yellow         3,570
Birch, white (paper) 3,230
Locust, black        3,740
locust honey         3,825
Osage orange       4,845
Hop hornbeam      4,250
Burr oak               3,655
Why would anyone mess with Hercules club? OUCH

[beenthere]

Pete
Are those BTU's per cord, or weight in pounds per dry cord?

Here is a link to a chart (and note that there can be some pretty big differences in individual tree wood densities within a species, so these figures are pretty general, at best.
http://chimneysweeponline.com/howood.htm

BTU's per cord are in the neighborhood of 20 million for good burning wood.

[DeerMeadowFarm]

I burn mostly red oak, white oak and ash as it's the most plentiful around here. I get a lot of birch and cherry when clearing my field edges as that seems to pop up along the edges first....

[SwampDonkey]

Sugar maple, yellow birch and beech.  Doesn't get any better than that around here

X2  And I could put hop hornbeam at the top for sure. But it's not abundant enough.

And I've burnt ash, I was some glad when I got to the rock maple. Heck alders will do fine if it's only as cold as 20 degrees and you can keep awake to feed the stove.

I also figure value is in bucks spend versus oil. Wood wins by 4-5 fold where I live.

[petefrom bearswamp]

Beenthere,
Oops.
That must be pounds as you suggested.
I used the wrong column.
Your link is good thanks