I've had the opportunity to burn a ton of different firewood, some excellent-some not so great!
Over the years I've developed a fondness for 3 species: Osage Orange, White Ash, Shagbark Hickory.
If you had only 3 woods to burn until you left planet earth...WHAT WOULD BE YOUR "BIG THREE?"
Also is there any wood you LOVED, but can no longer access or any wood you just flat out...HATED?? LOL
Look forward to the feedback,
Reggie
My favorite three will be what we have in the mountains: Oak, Hickory, Locust.
I like hard maple and white oak. Don't like splitting knotty hard maple by hand. I use the sawmill. :D
I like about any wood that is dry. People around here don't like white pine, which is very available, because they say it fills the chimney with creosote, but if I dry it well before burning it, it is a good firewood, though it burns fast. In some areas, especially in northern places, pine is about all that is available. My conclusion is that most any wood is good, if it is dry.
David
Mostly red oak. Dries quickly, splits easily, burns clean, little ash. I have plenty of it. Cut and split in the spring, stack in the barn. This last year, I did cut and split a water oak, it was a blow-down on my property and I had to clean it up anyway. I give away the slabs off my mill to needy neighbors.
I would love to have access to oak, hickory etc.
Here in MT, we have pine, fir and larch. :-\
Would say the most popular firewood that I sell or use is Beech, Hickory, and Hard Maple. The first two with little bark seem to dry faster.
Oak is very close once it dries but it takes longer than the first two. Ash probably splits easiest of all the hardwoods and it burns well so in the end I agree any hardwood that is dry is really the best.
My big three would be (1) hardwood, (2) straight grained, (3) ant or bug free.
White Oak, Red Oak & Sugar Maple! Hickory & Beech are also good choices
White Ash & Red Maple are good, but don't have as much heat output.
Heat output is a direct correlation to wood density!
JMHO, Dave
Mine are sugar maple, red oak and a beech. All abundant on my property.
Premium firewood in these parts is western larch and paper birch. My preference is a mix of logdepole pine [2 needle pine] and douglas fir [or western larch]. However, I have a lot of white spruce on the farm and if it is well seasoned, it is OK in the spring and fall or during the day, but at night it is nice to load up with the D-Fir and Larch.
Tom
Red oak and White oak, but currently burning White ash too.
The ash is okay but the oak doesn't leave as much ash after the burn, although takes a full two seasons to dry after splitting green for best heat. The ash after one full season burns well.
But really depends on what is available.
My friends who have moved from WI to OR and WA really miss the oaks.
If I was going to burn green wood then I would take half a load of ash and half maple or beech. With a hydraulic splitter the criteria becomes how well it heats only instead of including how hard it is to split. If I was burning dry wood I would take mostly maple with a bit of ash available for starting. I grew up in a wood heat only house and was taught how to fire by my father over many years. I picked up his habit of liking to have a variety of length and size available to manage different conditions. This is not particularly important with an OWB but old habits die hard.
Oak, red or white, Locust, then cherry. Right now I have a few pieces of hickory in the stove and it would rate higher if it didn't make so much ash, I'll burn almost anything that falls down or dies in my woods.
I call oak my money trees. Sounds good anyways. I have some big hemlock that I think are not much good for logs. One year I burnt all white pine that was pasture pines. Very crooked stuff. I had my land logged and there was alot of cut offs from white pine that carried me for a couple years. Fir, be it dead or alive burns well too.Then when all that runs out I have a meadow that has some white maple on it. It's all rotted hearted,will make some good fire wood.No good for anything else.
I would say
1-Any Oak
2- hedge
3 hickory if I can find
Hate - cotton wood Big trees but you get no heat out of it. And it gets in my pool and air conditioner in the summer go_away smiley_furious
Jack
free from the tree trimmer ;D
Oak (Red, White, Chestnut, Pin, Black) Hickory ( Shagbark, Pignut, Red, Bitternut) and
Black Locust. Some of the reason for my top three listing is based on availability to me. I would love to try Osage Orange but have never run into any around here. Having listed my top three I loved burning Sugar Maple and Beech when I lived in Maine. I just do not seem to run into much Sugar Maple or Beech for firewood here in Central PA. I would rate Sugar Maple and Black Birch right up there with my top three. Depending on the year, I burn the top three listed and Black Birch, Red Maple, White Ash, Cherry, and Elm. We are blessed to have so many Fair to Great hardwoods for heating. When your frozen rear end backs up to the furnace to get warm, it does not really care what wood is in the furnace, just that it burns and puts out heat :)
Sugar maple, yellow birch and beech. Doesn't get any better than that around here
1. Red Oak
2. White Oak
3. Cherry
These are the 3 that are abundant in my area. Love that Red Oak, easy to split, plenty of btu's. Have more Red Oak in this area than anything, lucky for me.
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.
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
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.
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 .
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.
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
my would be red oak, bur oak, and ash.
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.
White oak, red oak, black oak
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.
tamarack, birch, black spruce. in that order but will take whatever is cut ;D
Anybody ever burn any "devils walking stick/Hercules club?" ???
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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....
Quote from: Ken on January 27, 2014, 03:34:23 AM
Sugar maple, yellow birch and beech. Doesn't get any better than that around here
X2 8) And I could put hop hornbeam at the top for sure. But it's not abundant enough. 8)
And I've burnt ash, I was some glad when I got to the rock maple. :D Heck alders will do fine if it's only as cold as 20 degrees and you can keep awake to feed the stove. ;D
I also figure value is in bucks spend versus oil. Wood wins by 4-5 fold where I live.
Beenthere,
Oops.
That must be pounds as you suggested.
I used the wrong column.
Your link is good thanks
There are lots of BTU/species lists out there, but that ChimneySweeponline is one of the better ones. Some lists are compiled form a bunch of different sources. The problem is, most don't even bother to check the conditions under which the sources were rated (moisture content, for example). ChimneySweep did some extensive checking and adjusting to compensate for different sources using different testing conditions.
That's an awesome chart beenthere. ;D I see my ironwood (O. virginiana) is right up near the top. 8)
Amongst the New Zealand natives, Puriri is super hot and very long lasting but hard to find a good supply. Rata is the same sort of thing, most common good firewood is Manuka or Kanuka.
In the non native category, I like Tasmanian Blackwood and some of the eucalypts
1. Dry 2. Wet 3. Punky- My OWB is not at all picky, neither am I as long as it burns all night and still has some coals when I load it up in the morning. I usually just grab firewood every night when I get done with work. Right now I am burning green Red Maple, Paper Birch and a little Green Ash. Dead standing Jack Pine and Black Spruce are a couple I like to burn, they make way less ash than the hardwoods. Tamarack is good too, but it needs to dry a year. This is all for an OWB, things would change for a woodstove or fireplace.
Along with anything dry, Black birch has become one of my favorites. burns long in my OWB and burns hot.
David l
beech, hickory and maple. most anything that's a hardwood and already dead on the ground will do for me. I even like a little bit of popple for my cook stove... nice fast hot fire
Mom's uncle would burn popple (aspen) in his kitchen stove. Had a woodshed stuffed with it and lots of big popple on the farm to fill it with. My uncle would haul it for him in the spring with the horse and sled. Gave both of them something to do for awhile and exercised the horse. :D :)
Popple also works well for getting a hot quick fire on the reload after a draw off the the maple evap. Do they use popple veneer for cabinet work?
David l
Most common, Radiata Pine. Not because it's good firewood, just because it's the most common tree.
Better, Monterey cypress. Grows huge, and often pretty ugly. If it's not worth milling a 4 ft dia log has a LOT of firewood in it.
Premium. Eucalyptus or Manuka. Denser hardwoods. Manuka is a small scrubby sort of tree that a "first coloniser" of neglected pasture. Only grows to ~20ft tall and maybe 6" dia, but it burns HOT. Also makes good smoking wood and the honey from it's flowers gets a premium.
Gold is an old Rata log. This is an interesting tree. It starts as an epiphyte in a larger tree, but eventually sends down it's own roots to the ground. After a few hundred years the original tree dies, and the "vine" is left standing as a tree in it's own right. Again, a very dense hardwood and the "vines" could be a couple of feet across. The tree isn't really rare, but finding one that you can legally cut down is an issue.
Ian
Oak, soft maple and popple. However I sure wish I could find more cherry, it burns hot and smells nice to boot!
Quote from: David-L on January 30, 2014, 09:00:18 PM
Along with anything dry, Black birch has become one of my favorites. burns long in my OWB and burns hot.
David l
I'm glad to hear about the black birch, I've got a bunch and my forester just told me I should get rid of most of it.
I consider black birch as valuable for heat as yellow birch. According to the numbers it's a little better for heat numbers. So don't throw away your black birch. :)
Besides, it smells great when you are cutting it.
Pacific Yew when I could get it, burns all night, rekindles easily just knocking the chunks together as long as there is a glimmer of a hot coal. Then Doug-fir, readily available, unseasoned heartwood easy to keep going. Lastly, whatever I bring home from a camping trip!
If it was only three species, I would have to say hop hornbeam, black locust and black birch. The first two because they burn so hot and the last because it's still a great firewood but smells great when you cut it.
Haven't seen you around in a while, good to see you stopping by. :)
How long to season the black birch compared to red oak?
Pacific madrone, burns long, good heat and low ash, next Douglas fir, a consistent starter and good heat value pound for pound probably as good as oak, IMO, but splits easier. Lastly, big leaf maple. Good firewood, just need to season well prior to use.
Quote from: mad murdock on February 01, 2014, 09:13:35 PM
Douglas fir, a consistent starter and good heat value pound for pound probably as good as oak,
"Pound-for-pound" just about every species in North America has the same heat value (some species with high pitch content are slightly higher). It's the heat content per unit of volume that varies, due to the density of the wood.
Glad to see Engineer back. I always thought his posts were worth reading.
David Larson, LTC, USAR, MC (Ret)
Ash
Elm, preferably dead
Hickory
Rock maple, beech, yellow birch. But like an old farmer told me years ago "young fella, come the middle of march you'll be thankful for a dry piece of spruce!"
Or a green piece of anything.
!. white oak...availability
2. white oak..splitting ease
3. white oak..coaling excellence
always wanted to try Osage orange, they say it burns a blue flame. Folks use to call it their 'yule' wood, burned at Christmas time.
I live in SE Pa. where all the best burning woods grow. I've never had any Osage which everybody loves, but I have burned dozens of species and these are my 3 favorites:
1) Black Locust
2) White oak
3) Hickory
4) Ash and hard maple deserves a mention too.
I sell everything else; walnut, cherry, beech, etc. Nothing wrong with them it's just that the others burn hotter and longer.
Another good site: www.woodheat.org (http://www.woodheat.org)
Quote from: Magicman on January 29, 2014, 11:47:30 AM
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.
You must have a different species of ash trees than we do here in the big corn field .I've been burning about a face cord of ash a week nearly all winter .I haul out about two coal buckets of ashes a week .
Quote from: Magicman on January 29, 2014, 11:47:30 AM
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.
.......
Agree with you MM. Also more ash to carry out when I switched to burning white ash from mostly red and white oak. But ash wood has some other positives like less seasoning time, and easy to catch on fire.
This last week I've been going through a pallet of split elm, and find I have clinkers to remove instead of the powdery ashes.
Clinkers remind me of my youngster days when folks had a coal burning furnace and using the tong grapple to remove the clinkers and carry them in a metal basket out to spread on the driveway.
Quote from: beenthere on February 04, 2014, 11:26:07 AM
... But ash wood has some other positives like less seasoning time, and easy to catch on fire.
Not to mention it splits if you look at it too hard. Splitting ash by hand is actually enjoyable (as opposed to American Elm, which is at the opposite end of the splitting spectrum).
Quote from: beenthere on February 04, 2014, 11:26:07 AM
Clinkers remind me of my youngster days when folks had a coal burning furnace and using the tong grapple to remove the clinkers and carry them in a metal basket out to spread on the driveway.
Oh do I remember those days in the 60's 12 tons of coal a year and I shoveled it all and must have carried clinkers every evening all winter long .The coal bin probabley held 7-8 tons and it took several loads per year to heat that big old farm house built in 1919 without any insulation what so ever .
About the only places local that burnt coal was black smiths and small scale smelters in the area as we had an iron ore deposit that was actively used. But that was all before my time and before WWII. Always been wood here for heat, had all kinds and still have and didn't have to go underground or haul it by train. ;D
My dad loves pin oak and I sell to a guy that only wants green pin oak. Just wondering what you guys think of pin oak. I think its smells bad but other then that its not to bad.
Should be nothing wrong with it for firewood.
My three are White Oak, Red Oak, and Black Walnut...But sometimes I have to settle for Boxelder, Black Cherry, and Poplar. I might have a chance at some Black Locust...is it worth it?
Rooster
I like black locust, burns hot and down to nothing. Burned black locust for 2 1/2 months and cleaned 1 1/2 garbage cans of ash out of the boiler, burned bur oak for 3 weeks and cleaned 1 1/2 garbage cans of ash. I find dead locust (standing) is much harder and burns hotter.
My Dad told me that during his early years Black Locust was the species of choice for the wood cook stove.
Whatever is lying on the ground. I have choice of red and white oak, sugar maple, black locust, honey locust, red elm, beech and white ash.
1st is black locust
2nd is sugar maple or honey locust
3rd everything else
Truthfully, except for black locust I usually go for whatever is easiest to bring out of the woods/ shortest pull. Red oak is a staple, white oak is a bonus. I have a hell of a time splitting the hickory around here...stringy as all get out and fights all the way. I have several girdled honey locusts that are great firewood once seasoned. Love/hate seeing sugar maple on the ground. I will grab red elm tops for rounds. Black Locust is the only wood that I will go out of my way for.
I'd have to say oak, yellow birch and beech. Lately I've been burning a lot of ash. I will burn maple too but only if they blow down....it's kind of a sacrelige to cut down a perfectly good maple...lol
And not even a perfect one, could be on the lawn and one live limb left and yet it stands proudly. ;D
rthorp14,welcome to the forum. Must own land? How do you get your firewood out of the woods?
Break out the mush meadows. *Another one for Al to scratch his head over. :D
Quote from: SwampDonkey on February 05, 2014, 09:04:37 PM
And not even a perfect one, could be on the lawn and one live limb left and yet it stands proudly. ;D
Ain't it the truth!
Quote from: thecfarm on February 05, 2014, 09:08:35 PM
rthorp14,welcome to the forum. Must own land? How do you get your firewood out of the woods?
Thanks for the welcome! This is an awesome forum. I have forty acres and I use a kubota L3010 with a Fransgard V3004. It handles most anything I come across.
Quote from: SwampDonkey on February 06, 2014, 04:44:14 AM
Break out the mush meadows. *Another one for Al to scratch his head over. :D
Mush meadows it is now .I'm convinced you folks in the frozen tundra do not speak the "Queens English" You don't even speak the Canadian version of English .
Let be quess .Could that be the substitute for buffalo chips but seeings it's Canadas' substitute which could be cow pies or moose nuggets .It would have to moose a poor old cow would freeze her udders off .
::) ::) I didn't know it was that complicated. **marshmallows** ;D
Is marsh mellow a state of mind/being ??? ??? Or are we referring to the marshmallows used for 'smores ;) ;D
haha ;D
I was going to tell Al though, we wasn't governed by the king at first but his illegitimate son Prince Rupert. ;D :D :D
Rubert invented marshmallows ? Wow didn't know that .
Welcome to the Forestry Forum, rthorp14. :)
As you can see, it doesn't take long for most threads to turn to food. Some lighthearted jests, and eventually someone will get it back on track. This is a very informative and fun place, and we like pictures. :)
1: Free, preferrably split
2: Slab wood off of mill
3: standing timber
I know, I know not the best answer, but hey I also have two favorite beer types; free and ice-cold (best if together)
Oak of any sort when I can get it, which isn't very often. Locust and Ash are next best and I like dry pine as well for it's creosote removing ability :laugh: It's the only wood that will burn fast and hot enough to scour the inside of my OWB firebox. One wood I don't like is Maple. It's ugly to split, takes forever to dry and leaves a weird puffy white residue inside the stove and pipe. Plus the smoke smells bad when the draft fan cuts off. Thats another way pine shines. Love the smell of that smoke on slow burn.
What kind of maple you burn'n? :D
Quote from: Magicman on February 07, 2014, 08:04:38 AM
As you can see, it doesn't take long for most threads to turn to food. Some lighthearted jests, and eventually someone will get it back on track.
Now that was Swampish and his marsh meadows or what ever Rubert invented .Lawdy they stick those things in yams of all things .I can't imagine .
Now this pine business I don't get nor the maple stuff .
Swamp, I also had a hard time with maple a couple years ago, it smelled like urine when split and burning? It was a bit punky in the middle, a bacteria? It was soft maple, I do like the smell of pine too, but cherry is the best, burning some right now could sit outside and smell it all night, would freeze to death however..
Yeah, I never burn the soft maple species. But even sugar maple has a barn yard smell when left outside and not in a woodshed. But when burning it's not a bad smell, it's unique smell though. As with any wood. I can tell when white birch is in the stove, as well as aspen, or beech. All wood is pretty much unique in odor.
Oh pshaw nothing wrong with soft maple you just have to lay the air to it so it burns faster .Fact of the matter is I'm sitting as I type in 75 degree heat from a load of soft maple in the wood stove .
The truth of that is I couldn't get to the ash and oak piles because of the snow this evening after I got off work .The soft maple pile was close enough to get to .
Oh I still burn lots of soft maple but, its all small dia. The stuff I had a problem with was more in the 14"-20" dia, and punky in the middle. smelled horrible thats for sure? smiley_chop
Sounds like the maple I cut out of the meadow.
Well it's rotten .Even punky oak burns lousy .
Now you talk about something that smells like horse pee that's it .Half rotten oak or rain soaked oak sawdust .I think the stuff ferments or something .
You guys are a hoot. You can take the smell of hog and cow manure and horse pith, but not fermented wood. Oh well, gotta get your jollies somehow. ;D :D :D
Well now Swampish I'm sure you heard of pizz elm .Now there's a certain willow tree tree too but in the interest of not being red carded I'll let your imagination figure that one out .
That said or eluded to something that really stinks,male mulberry .It's a second cousin to osage orange.The females produce the berrys the birds ingest and practice their dive bombing methods over your freshly washed automobile .
On the subject of maple my OWB don't like it but we take wood from the same pile up to our cabin and burn it in a heat-a-lator fireplace and it burns great. I think the OWB shutting the air off and on isn't compatible with the maple.
Well with maple ,sugar ,rock or whatever the Canadians dub it or even soft maple like silver .
Green felled ,standing dead or whatever do not dilly dally with it .Get it split and best to be under cover or at least tarped .If left in the round it will rot in record speed .
I've never experienced that. In fact when we cut sugar maple in the winter and hauled it into the field edge, it was left until July as tree length. It would often have small fine twigs that never got clipped with the saw, whip sized, that would most always be leaved out and green as grass when we went to buck it to length and bring into the house with the dump truck. I would say the grass and our heavy night dews would help recharge moisture a bit. We have heavy heavy dew up here. Might just as well call it rain and be done with it because your getting soaking wet. Nope obviously didn't get real dry until it was bucked and sat a couple months in the sun and wind. We left lots as rounds and split stuff bigger than 8 inches. :)
I've seen it grow mushrooms if left in the rounds for 6 months ,summer time .Winter might be different .
I don't see that unless left outside two summers, and even then it's still good. Burnt lots of it this fall from that old maple we cut down in the yard. Had a cord left from previous year.
Aren't you the same guy that stashs all your firewood in the basement ? Now what you leave it outside for the neighbors dog to hike his leg on ?
Hey wait a minute maybe that dog business is why that gent things maple stinks so bad .If so that certainly would answer the stinky maple conundrum. Gee that was simple enough .Blame it on Rover .
The maple I'm burning now is from a yard tree that was dying. It is called "red" maple around here, probably for the brilliant red foliage in the fall. It always dripped sap in the early spring from the sapsucker holes in the trunk. It had been declining for years and finally sprouted fungus all over one side last summer. When we cut it down, about 1/3 was punky and most of the branches were hollow. It's not really as dry as it should be but with this prolonged cold I burnt my "planned" supply of wood by the end of January. I'm still having trouble believing I've burnt as much wood as I have this year.
The basement overfloweth with wood that spring when filling the basement so some must be parked outside. :D
Kinda like that picture in one's mind of the horn of plenty everyone's mother had on their coffee table from ceramics class. :D
Sorry if I was too greedy boss. ;D
I want to know when the Swamp Donkey + Al Smith comedy show is going on the road. Perhaps Larry The Cable Guy could open up? ???
I'll be the 1st one in line for tickets. Prolly be a big hit for the wood burners out there!
Keep up the good work fellas, you've given me many laughs throughout this long winter. :D
I bun mostly the 3 mentioned by Firechief. Prefer white oak at night since it lasts longer. At one time or another, I have burned everything that grows in my woods. Hickory smells good, but dries very slowly. Butternut also smells great but burns fast. Ironwood is good too.
Should say "I burn".
Quote from: bobby s on February 11, 2014, 04:10:29 PM
I'll be the 1st one in line for tickets. Prolly be a big hit for the wood burners out there!
Keep up the good work fellas, you've given me many laughs throughout this long winter. :D
Well Swampish encouraged me in a way to liven things up.I've somewhat learned a new version of the English language although I'm not real sure of the origin .
I'm not real sure why the old boy burnt that maple last instead of first with about 3 dump trucks full of wood in the basement of that big ole farmhouse but he did .
Quote from: Knute on February 11, 2014, 08:49:47 PM
Should say "I burn".
You can always edit your own posts. Very easy to do. Just go to the post, click on 'modify' and follow your nose.
You guys talking about burning all these exotic woods that I would have to place a special order and a deposit just to get some lumber way up here in the far north. And my friends wonder why I keep all the cut-offs that maybe I could use on something else.
Well it just depends on where you live I guess .The left coasters talk of giant Douglas firs and coast redwoods and we in the midwest hardwoods talk of giant oaks and dead ash trees .
Funny all the Canadians talk of "rock maple " while the largest producer of maple bowling alley stock is 30 miles south of me in Ohio .Go figure that one out .
White ash is my favorite but burn anything.Choosing just 3 species would leave out a lot of good firewoods.Grey birch is considered a poor fire wood but if you look at a good BTU chart you will see its close to white birch and white ash in BTU content.Dry firewood is worth more than money in the bank.No white oak or hickory on my place.Get your fire wood cut to stove length and under cover.My son found that green sugar maple is a good chimney plugger.I cut a lot that was full of white ash last year.Tall trees with few limbs.Hate to see saw logs cut up for firewood.
Quote from: 36 coupe on February 20, 2014, 08:52:21 AM
Hate to see saw logs cut up for firewood.
Yup. About 20 years ago we had a hurricane come through. A friend of mine I used to work with called me and asked if I wanted some free firewood, well, of course I did. I went over there and he had several large Cherry trees down. 24"+ at the butt, very long and very straight. I told him he needed to get someone to come in and pick them up as log length as these were very nice logs. He said he didn't have time; they were hosting a big Memorial Day party and his wife wanted them gone. I cut them up into 18" long sections and hauled them home. They split perfectly. Every chunk I split I thought of my cabinet maker friend I occasionally hunt with in Maine and swore to myself I'd never tell him about it because he'd of had a fit!
Here in WV, mine are ; Locust, Oaks, Hickory.
Quote from: Ken on January 27, 2014, 03:34:23 AM
Sugar maple, yellow birch and beech. Doesn't get any better than that around here
And hornbeam
Quote from: ReggieT on January 26, 2014, 06:41:19 PM
I've had the opportunity to burn a ton of different firewood, some excellent-some not so great!
Over the years I've developed a fondness for 3 species: Osage Orange, White Ash, Shagbark Hickory.
If you had only 3 woods to burn until you left planet earth...WHAT WOULD BE YOUR "BIG THREE?"
Also is there any wood you LOVED, but can no longer access or any wood you just flat out...HATED?? LOL
Look forward to the feedback,
Reggie
My three are Ash / Ash / Ash
Smell?Rly?
Guys, isolation system helps to solve this problem, if you can't stand the smell, but, i think it's pretty funny.
Look here, for example, simple http://crownstoves.co.uk/product-category/wood-burning-stoves/ system, metal doors with some protector- no smell, no problems. :P
The big three in my area is Manuka, Tawa and Red Beech.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beilschmiedia_tawa
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leptospermum_scoparium
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nothofagus_fusca
any of the oaks, hickory, Mainly this is what we have, then anything available if need be.
1. OOOOLD osage orange fence posts--- although kinda hard on the chainsaw
2. Osage orange
3. ash
That's easy,
1 cut
2 split
3 stacked
My favorite 3-
1-Blackjack oak- for a rip roaring hot fire and starts easy
3- whatever else I have on hand, usually red oak, hickory, white oak, black walnut, black oak oak cross.
2-Post oak- burns good and leaves good coals so the fire doesn't go completely overnight ect. Usually add a good Round piece before I go to bed.
Edit: Sorry for the scrambled post, my phone did something there
I have available oaks, hickorys, maples, sourwood, cherry, locust, beech and others. Where I have been logging I have offered some people I know free wood. So far no takers.
Did cut a standing dead locust the other day that was about 10 inches at the butt. Had been dead awhile. Just wanted to get it out of the way before it fell across the farm road. Best heating wood I ever had and I have burned a lot of locust. Cut a tank of gas and pass me the file. Only problem.
I bet over the years of the ash borer has got everyone using 90% or more of ash for a few years. Wonder how long ash would last in log form?
Black Locust
Shagbark Hickory
White Oak
In the order listed.
Quote from: brianJ on March 12, 2021, 06:37:21 AM
I bet over the years of the ash borer has got everyone using 90% or more of ash for a few years. Wonder how long ash would last in log form?
If it's up off the ground ash will last a good long while .Same with white oak ,beech. Not so much on maple ,hickory, red oak ,cherry .Those you need to get cut split stacked and covered in a timely fashion .
A lot could be said about storing fire wood .This year I had an amount of degraded stuff I had neglected for about 10 years but covered it this year around late September .It was popcorn dry and burned good but it sure took a lot more of it .We had some below normal temps for a few weeks and really the only higher amount of snow than usual for a few years .I was down to about a cord and a half until about 2-3 weeks when I let the fire burn out ,got too warm .
I'm about to restack the better stuff and slash pile the junk stuff and replenish my supply .If I'd do maybe 2 face cords a day couple days a week it wouldn't take that long . I don't move as fast as I used to but then again I've never been this old before . :)
Mulberry, oak, locust.
In this area the best I get is White Birch, Black Ash, and Poplar, proper name is Trembling Aspen I think. Not my favourite but we got tons of it here.
Also don't mind burning a bit of Jackpine, but sparingly , as it gets things pretty hot.
All that I've been exposed to: hickory, ash, red oak.
I've never had white oak to burn but LOTS of pine. I'd be more specific but my smart phone is persistent in changing it to some sort of smiley thing. Here, I'll show. Loblolly. I have tried for hours!
It comes out as loblolly. I only cut for myself. I've not been exposed to much different around here.
To sell I and my clients like a mix of sugar maple, beech, and ironwood/hophornbeam. Red oak is distant and only gets sold to clients I know stay two years ahead. I'll burn it in our OWBs and sometimes get deals on it as not many want it up here. Ash for dry in the winter but it's getting hard to find good solid dead ash now :( :'( A lot of people don't want ash at all. Same with soft maple. I used to burn the junk off my log jobs that I wouldn't sell. Pine, aspen, basswood etc. I burned sugar maple and red oak this winter ;) ;D
It will all burn from balsa to iron wood .Some just burns better than others .
My big three for firewood is Hedge, Hedge and of course more Hedge {Osage Orange}
Quote from: hedgerow on March 13, 2021, 11:22:40 AM
My big three for firewood is Hedge, Hedge and of course more Hedge {Osage Orange}
I suppose you have rows, rows, & of course more rows of Hedge.
Please don't put me in the wood shed for bad puns
Ash, hickory and red oak. I also like beech and black birch.
Larch, Doug fir and lodgepole. its not much, but its what i have.
I'll say Honey Locust, Hophornbeam and mulberry. Realisticly, any decent BTU value wood. Any wood gets a better rating as it gets closer to the stove. My stove is in a large basement and I'll bring green wood in in October and November; I can burn it by mid-late winter. So if it's inside by December it's all good, just some better'n others. I've cut many spruce and pine by my house. Dropped one just out the sliding glass doors to a walk-in basement. Where do you think that wood ended up?
I can only choose 3???
I guess my favorite was sugar maple, but only in a large butt log that's easy to split. Burning the rounds and knot pieces wasn't super fun in my small stove.
#2 Has to be black cherry. Somewhat fast burning, but it makes the outside smell so nice and makes such a nice bed of coals.
#3 Is Red Oak. Good all around wood that's easy to split, not too hard to light. I hate the smell though. Need to burn it hot to mitigate that aspect.
Close 4th would be any of Walnut, Yellow Birch, G/W/B Ash, White Oak, Red Elm, Honey locust (the urban thornless cultivar), and strangely Black Spruce. ( like the way it pops and burns with a bright yellow/white flame to light up the sauna). Everything else is just mutt wood filler, and unfortunately mostly what I end up burning here on the edge of the prairie since "my" woodlot decided to grow a subdivision instead of saw timber and BTUS. So bad some years even Box elder makes the wood pile as I'm forced to scrounge what I can get instead of picking the logging leftovers and doing TSI thinning for free firewood.
I grew up feeding cows corn silage and Red Oak reminds me of that smell, not offensive. It's one of those odors that smell bad if you don't know what it is, but not offensive when you do.
It's not the smell of red oak wood. It kind of reminds me of crabapple mash from making wine :laugh:. It's the acrid smoke I don't like. As prevailing winds carry it into my wood processing area when I'm cooking maple sap and processing next year's firewood, I tend not to use any of it for the syrup boiler. Burns nice in the sauna though, especially split small and well dried. I usually put next sauna's wood on the top bench and let it kiln dry a little bit as the sauna dries out after use, then burn it when things are almost up to operating temperature to drive in and maintain that good 190F+ temp.
Best Firewoods
1. Ash (most available heat for free right now)
2. Cherry (best heat for the money around my parts)
3. Beech (splits easy nice big logs good heat)
Not a fan: Yellow Birch - rots too fast in the pile with a ton of ashes when burning.
Mulberry is a second cousin to hedge ,it burns good .However the female plants when they berry out seems to be a favorite of starlings .Those pests gorge themselves on ripe berrys then make practice bombing runs on your freshly washed automobile with very good accuracy .--choot em 'lizbeth . :D
I'm not sure about red oak but the saw dust from a table saw causes me to get in a sneezing fit, eyes water etc .You can cut into a creosote treated railroad tie that laid under a track for 40 years and still smell it .
Oak is so plentiful around here and have to factor in the split.
Red Oak
Chestnut Oak
White Oak.
If I was buying and had choice ?
Black Locust
Shagbark Hickory
White Oak.
I've burnt plenty of Hedge but it's not worth mentioning due to harvest time.....yes it's hot.
Red oak smells like vomit when it's being processed. IMHO ;D :) :)
It reminds of hog manure but not quite as pungent .Kind of a parfum -de- swine .Reeks a little bit more if it's wet from rain .
Speaking of red I'm afraid I'm going to need to slice a big log because it's going to degrade before I get it milled ,I had good intentions but it didn't happen .
I've switched my mix to aspen, maple, and fir, since I have 40 ac of it to thin and the thinnings are going in the stove. I've got the first 4 ac done now. Should be done in 15 years to sell mature wood for real $$. ;D
Maple left for a few months smells like cow manure, that nice fermented smell. ;D
Elm and sumac have an unpleasant odor as well.
Maybe somebody already said it but my three favorite are Dry, Dry, and Dry.
Black locust and white ash because they're plentiful here and can burn almost immediately. And for a third id have to say ironwood just because of the BTU's. Looking at what people burn in other areas I feel blessed lol.
Quote from: Upstatewoodchuc on March 18, 2021, 12:20:21 PM
Looking at what people burn in other areas I feel blessed
Yes, I feel the same way. The Northeast US has many different species of hardwood trees. In fact, it is one of the most diverse areas in the world.
Quote from: Thomasjw4 on March 14, 2021, 10:07:22 AM
Larch, Doug fir and lodgepole. its not much, but its what i have.
At least you get Larch :D I am up to my ears in Lodgepole, and I have access to Doug Fir. I got to burn some white oak this year when I acquired some Oak cribbing and that stuff is great! But, I have thousands of cords of dead, dry, and decent Lodgepole.
Al Smith, About the Mulberry and starlings, yeah that's bad. It ain't pretty when they've been eating buckthorn berries or grapes either.
Quote from: reride82 on March 19, 2021, 12:04:18 PM
Quote from: Thomasjw4 on March 14, 2021, 10:07:22 AM
Larch, Doug fir and lodgepole. its not much, but its what i have.
At least you get Larch :D I am up to my ears in Lodgepole, and I have access to Doug Fir. I got to burn some white oak this year when I acquired some Oak cribbing and that stuff is great! But, I have thousands of cords of dead, dry, and decent Lodgepole.
Yeah there is definitely not a shortage of dead lodgepole over in Butte, America.
Montana
Like
any hardwoods, if you can find them
tamarack
lodge pole
Oregon
Madrona
oak
maple
dead pine for fire starter
In March I cut about 3 cord of maple on my woodlot for the garage stove then the neighbour next door sold about 25 acres of stumpage on his land. I snowshoed over to speak to the harvester operator. Long story short I bought 12 cord of hardwood at an excellent price that was delivered to my yard by the porter driver. Mostly maple with the odd stick of birch. Best part was that the harvester cut a trail to my mill yard and the porter driver delivered about a cord of my own hard wood and a cord of my spruce and tamarack to my mill at no charge. Gotta like that!
So I'm good now for about 5 years for firewood.
When I hunt out of my Aunt and Uncle's cabin up in the Bighorn Mountains in Wyoming, the stove is fed pretty much straight lodgepole pine and I'll be darned if I don't feel warm🤷🏽♂️ Lodgepole is as good as hickory, when you don't have any hickory😊
1 cherry
2 oak
3 Ash
Love the smell of green split cherry. Oak puts out a lot of btus. And ash makes fast btus. All the ash around here is standing dead beetle killed. Burned 9 face cord of ash this season. Still burning the last of the pile now.
Bad bad woods:
Basswood
Box Elder
Cottonwood
Good woods:
Ash - can't keep up with the EAB kill here / so that will be my go to for the next few years
Oak - got lots, but need to get ahead of the drying time
Hickory - hard splitting, but good coals