# What Kind of Pine/Evergreen Do You Burn?



## svk (Jan 8, 2015)

Just curious for those who burn the "red headed stepchild" of firewood, what species do you burn?

I've burned lots of jack pine and norway. Norway is real good stuff, on par with black ash. Long burn times if you keep it in large splits. Jack is ok, a far cry better than aspen.

White spruce isn't bad, again a lot better than aspen. Really messy stuff though, the bark falls off everywhere.

White pine goes quick, it's really light once dry.

I scrounged up a dead tamarack this fall for testing's sake. Had to carry it out of a bog so won't be doing that very often. Should be a hot sauna next fall when I fire it up.

Balsam is not really worth the work to process it. A full load in my boiler during heat demand lasts 45 minutes. To get a good hot sauna it takes at least 2, sometimes 3 loads to equal 1 load of hardwood.

When at all possible I try to process any evergreen in the winter to avoid the sap problem. If the tree has been dead at least a year you can cut in summer without problems.


----------



## jrider (Jan 8, 2015)

Pitch, white, yellow is what I get around here. None of them are very high in the btu department but my owb doesn't mind.


----------



## Big_Al (Jan 8, 2015)

Not sure that tamarack is an evergreen or pine. I burn mostly tamarack & Doug fir in the cold months and lodge pole pine as shoulder season wood. Not much white pine around & white fir burns really quick.


----------



## Cerran (Jan 8, 2015)

svk said:


> Just curious for those who burn the "red headed stepchild" of firewood, what species do you burn?
> 
> I've burned lots of jack pine and norway. Norway is real good stuff, on par with black ash. Long burn times if you keep it in large splits. Jack is ok, a far cry better than aspen.
> 
> ...



I use white fir as kindling and usually cut down one small standing dead tree a year for that purpose. What doesn't get used for kindling gets burned outside in the fire pit by the kids.

I generally burn about a cord of lodgepole pine which amazingly is very good wood. Much better than white fir and makes a good beginning/end of the season wood.

The other 2.5 cord a year I generally burn is Doug Fir and Western Larch (tamarack). Most of the time it's fully red fir unless I find a good standing dead or blow-over tamarack.

I very rarely burn much hardwood unless I come across someone who has a downed tree.


----------



## jrider (Jan 8, 2015)

Tamarack is considered a deciduous tree and is part of the pine family.


----------



## svk (Jan 8, 2015)

jrider said:


> Pitch, white, yellow is what I get around here. None of them are very high in the btu department but my owb doesn't mind.


I had to google pitch pine. Looks very similar to our Jack pine, but grows in the northeast. I have actually cut some of it on my friend's land in NY, just thought it was jack at the time.


----------



## mn woodcutter (Jan 8, 2015)

I've only ever burned white pine and it's great for kindling or for a quick hot fire. The smell of burning white pine is one of my favorites! Mostly it gets used in the fire pit.


----------



## svk (Jan 8, 2015)

mn woodcutter said:


> I've only ever burned white pine and it's great for kindling or for a quick hot fire. The smell of burning white pine is one of my favorites! Mostly it gets used in the fire pit.


Pine does smell great, especially when freshly lit. If I close my eyes I'm immediately transported to my aunt's dock with their sauna blazing with a load of pine in the stove.


----------



## Big_Al (Jan 8, 2015)

jrider said:


> Tamarack is considered a deciduous tree and is part of the pine family.


I wasn't sure since it loses its needles every fall.


----------



## maine (Jan 8, 2015)

King pine


----------



## zogger (Jan 8, 2015)

Dang if I know, I get them confused. I think we have three kinds around here, white, yellow and loblolly?? Not sure on the last one, short needles..maybe.


----------



## Cedarkerf (Jan 8, 2015)

Out here Doug fir is quite popular if you get into the older stuff burns great


----------



## svk (Jan 8, 2015)

zogger said:


> Dang if I know, I get them confused. I think we have three kinds around here, white, yellow and loblolly?? Not sure on the last one, short needles..maybe.


Is yellow the one they make "fatwood" from?


----------



## Bullvi22 (Jan 8, 2015)

With the exception of a few sycamores all I have on my property is pines and tulip trees, and for the life of me I can't decide if I've got loblolly pines, southern yellas, virginia, or pitch pines. Google pics look so similar. Haven't tried burning any yet, indoors anyways


----------



## NHMike (Jan 8, 2015)

Of the pine family on my property it is mostly Eastern White pine and some Hemlock sprinkled in. I just started burning the white pine this year and love it.


----------



## Cerran (Jan 8, 2015)

Cedarkerf said:


> Out here Doug fir is quite popular if you get into the older stuff burns great



Actually it doesn't even have to be the older stuff, just stuff that has been growing more slowly and has pretty dense rings.


----------



## El Quachito (Jan 8, 2015)

I burn a lot of Doug fir. Old growth or tight grained fir is great, and I'd put it up against anybody's Tan Oak. Tan Oak being a common firewood in my region. The high end of the btu ratings from the Calfornia Energy Commission show that good fir is not too shabby. I just don't have too many pine trees where I live but I do have the occaisional stick of Ponderosa now and then.


----------



## mn woodcutter (Jan 8, 2015)

svk said:


> Pine does smell great, especially when freshly lit. If I close my eyes I'm immediately transported to my aunt's dock with their sauna blazing with a load of pine in the stove.


You've mentioned saunas a few times on here. That is something I would love to build and put a small wood burner in it! It's perfect outside right now to be sweating in a sauna!


----------



## svk (Jan 8, 2015)

mn woodcutter said:


> You've mentioned saunas a few times on here. That is something I would love to build and put a small wood burner in it! It's perfect outside right now to be sweating in a sauna!


Hmm perhaps a dedicated thread?


----------



## zogger (Jan 8, 2015)

svk said:


> Is yellow the one they make "fatwood" from?



Yes, I believe it is. the most prominent one anyway.

Any of the juicier species will have a fatwood heart and stump system, you see them all over the woods here from way way back when they logged off the big pines. I've pulled some out of the ground, smells like pinesol, burns great. I tried it, yes, it lights when wet with a lighter. 

It's just hard to get them out of the ground, only the very smallest ones can you kick and pull out, anything with some size to it has to be yanked out with the tractor or hand dug out, shovel, pick, axe you don't care about, etc. 

Back before linkbucks, I had some pics up in some thread.


----------



## ratso (Jan 8, 2015)

I burn old growth fir,ponderosa pine,sugar pine.


----------



## steved (Jan 8, 2015)

White pine, red or scotch pine...

The white depends on how knotty it is...

Sone of whatever I have burns pretty dang good.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G730A using Tapatalk


----------



## lindnova (Jan 8, 2015)

I put in a small load with cherry and 2 large splits of Norway pine this afternoon for a quick burn. 4 hours later I am still burning down the pine. I did not expect this. It seemed light, but maybe there was more water in the pine. Either way I am impressed with its ability to coal. No other experience and I don't have but a few pieces of it dry right now. I have some Norway pine cut down this fall. Will have to see how it does next year.


----------



## Johnny Yooper (Jan 8, 2015)

whatever I can get my paws on..........around these parts it's hemlock, balsam, white spruce, and several varieties of pine, cedar also but only use that for kindling, building log saunas and milling into some nice lumber.


----------



## svk (Jan 8, 2015)

lindnova said:


> I put in a small load with cherry and 2 large splits of Norway pine this afternoon for a quick burn. 4 hours later I am still burning down the pine. I did not expect this. It seemed light, but maybe there was more water in the pine. Either way I am impressed with its ability to coal. No other experience and I don't have but a few pieces of it dry right now. I have some Norway pine cut down this fall. Will have to see how it does next year.


You have cherry in MN? Whereabouts are you located?


----------



## chucker (Jan 8, 2015)

you pretty much nailed them all in your op statement! any of the spf wood will make for a hot fire, but not last without burning a fair mix of it green along the way! hot bed of coals is the trick to keeping a longer spf fire! choke it down and let it simmer.... I use two hot fires each day when burning spf, first fire of the day and last before turning in! keeps the flue free and clear of creosote.....


----------



## billb (Jan 8, 2015)

Lots of eastern white pine here. I don't mind burning it on the weekend when I can keep shoving more in.
a little red pine, hemlock and an occasional atlantic white cedar blow down.
A dead landscape fir of some sort I css last year and it burns kinda nice - lots of big flame, lasts a bit longer than EWP.


----------



## camovan (Jan 8, 2015)

I have a near unlimited supply of Virginia Pine, so that makes up about 75% of my firewood. This pine is about 50% knots so its splits like hell but burns decent. I keep the limited amount of oak reserved for overnight burns.


----------



## WoodTick007 (Jan 9, 2015)

I burn plenty of pine like this. Trunks are normally 25"-40"s. Everyone leaves it because they think/say its cra p. Makes plenty of heat.


----------



## ChoppyChoppy (Jan 9, 2015)

Spruce. I hate cutting it, I'm allergic to it apparently. I just did 2 cords tonight, can't hardly breathe now.


----------



## Wildwinger (Jan 9, 2015)

Big_Al said:


> Not sure that tamarack is an evergreen or pine. I burn mostly tamarack & Doug fir in the cold months and lodge pole pine as shoulder season wood. Not much white pine around & white fir burns really quick.





jrider said:


> Tamarack is considered a deciduous tree and is part of the pine family.



Beat me to it. The deciduous conifer. We don't have enough around here to consider using them for firewood!


----------



## Marine5068 (Jan 9, 2015)

We have a lot of Eastern White Pine and White Spruce here in Ontario.
Lots of evergreens here including White Cedar, Red Pine and Eastern White Pine, Eastern White Spruce, Black Spruce, Balsam Fir, Eastern Hemlock and Eastern Red Cedar.
I use some of those as kindling fire-starter and some pine limbs under stacks to keep wood off the ground.
Evergreen "uglies" get thrown into the wood stove from time to time. Some gets burned in the outdoor fire-bowl.


----------



## lindnova (Jan 9, 2015)

svk said:


> You have cherry in MN? Whereabouts are you located?


Rochester area. Tons of black cherry around here.


----------



## benp (Jan 9, 2015)

I love all pine. 

Burn quite a bit of Norway (Red), Jack Pine, Tamarack (Swamp), and some White. 

The pitchier the better. 







I love walking into the stove house and seeing all of these little gold beads light up on the ends when the headlamp hits it.


----------



## Pulp (Jan 9, 2015)

Softwoods here--Balsam Fir, White/Black/Red Spruce---are most of the storm blowdowns. They take over in "doghair spruce" thicks the years after a
cut. Those are used for shoulder fires, the sauna, the workshop. White Pine however is a valuable timber tree, so they're saved and branched for 16'
logs. Spruce and fir can take over a cut in only a few years.
Tamarak or larch are also value trees. Roots are used for wooden boat knees. We call it the "almost pregnant" softwood since it's deciduous.


----------



## slowp (Jan 9, 2015)

Douglas-fir is the preferred firewood in these parts. It is not a true fir. The scientific name, *Pseudotsuga menziesii *means False Hemlock. I also burn Western Hemlock, and will probably be burning some of our native Western Red Cedar because it grows on my place and needs thinning. I'm not sure what kind of heat that'll put out.


----------



## kingOFgEEEks (Jan 9, 2015)

A little Eastern Hemlock for kindling, but we have tons of hardwood around here, so I tend to stick to that.


----------



## Wannabe123 (Jan 9, 2015)

white pine, cause it's f'in everywhere. I dropped one dead standing last year and burned it in the pit in the rain the same day. Once I got the 4 inch thick vein of pure pitch in the middle to light, it went up like a match head. Smelled amazing. Got to use my buds brand new log splitter he left here too. Boy was he impressed when he came over and found me juicing pine logs in his formerly spotless splitter.


----------



## RiverLogger (Jan 9, 2015)

I am a typical West of the Cascade Mountains Oregonian. I burn 80% Douglas Fir. Burn a little Hemlock too.


----------



## svk (Jan 9, 2015)

Lots of Hemlock in the mountains of NY where we camped and also where my dad used to hunt in UP of Michigan. None here.

King pine? Havent heard of that before...

Every so often we get some pine lumber that is heavier than heck and loaded with sap. It's definitely not Norway pine so I'm not sure if it is Tamarack or someone mentioned doug fir heartwood.


----------



## Pulp (Jan 9, 2015)

Wannabe123 said:


> white pine, cause it's f'in everywhere. I dropped one dead standing last year and burned it in the pit in the rain the same day. Once I got the 4 inch thick vein of pure pitch in the middle to light, it went up like a match head. Smelled amazing. Got to use my buds brand new log splitter he left here too. Boy was he impressed when he came over and found me juicing pine logs in his formerly spotless splitter.



Where in Hell you got so much pine ? Not much here.


----------



## Wannabe123 (Jan 9, 2015)

My yard's full of it. It is the state tree. It's our state flower too incidentally.

King pine I always thought was just really big pine. I was told it was used for ships' masts back in the olden days, but I think that may be hooey.


----------



## svk (Jan 9, 2015)

Back before the original logging days much of northern MN was pure white pine. Norway apparently regenerates better and coupled with mortality from white pine rust we probably have 80% norway, 10% jack and 10% white currently.


----------



## steved (Jan 9, 2015)

I've been getting pine trees from peoples' yards...its hard to find a "stand" of pine in Pennsylvania. 

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G730A using Tapatalk


----------



## bunfoolio (Jan 9, 2015)

This year I have burned a lot of white pine. I was outside with my neighbor and he commented how good it smelled. It might be my favorite smelling wood thus far. 

For next year I will be burning a lot of hemlock, cedar, and white pine.


----------



## lapeer20m (Jan 10, 2015)

I burn mostly red pine in my owb. Although I have acres of it on my property, most of my firewood I've been scrounging from my neighbors by helping them dispose of problem trees. 

People around here are convinced that you cannot burn pine in a woodstove. 

When the temps get into the single digits I burn hardwood, but for 80% of the season I burn red pine.


----------



## svk (Jan 10, 2015)

Hey @benp what are your thoughts tamarack versus white birch/red maple.


----------



## benp (Jan 11, 2015)

svk said:


> Hey @benp what are your thoughts tamarack versus white birch/red maple.



Nothing seems to get the fire going like Tamarack except maybe some splits from a Norway base that are pretty pitchy. 

I'll use the Tamarack at night when the temps are warm, not sub zero. It just doesn't last.... similar to Paper Birch.

I'm using big splits of Red Maple now at night along with sugar and oak.


----------



## Sawyer Rob (Jan 11, 2015)

svk said:


> >
> *What Kind of Pine/Evergreen Do You Burn?*



What ever kind I can get my hands on that "isn't" good enough quality to go to my BSM!

I'm NOT a firewood snob at all!

SR


----------



## Ambull01 (Jan 12, 2015)

svk said:


> Just curious for those who burn the "red headed stepchild" of firewood, what species do you burn?
> 
> I've burned lots of jack pine and norway. Norway is real good stuff, on par with black ash. Long burn times if you keep it in large splits. Jack is ok, a far cry better than aspen.
> 
> ...



This is awesome. I want to print this whole thread out and send it to my in-laws. They're all saying I shouldn't burn pine. Told them there's some areas where pine is the predominant fuel. They still don't believe me because I have no personal experience with it. 




zogger said:


> Dang if I know, I get them confused. I think we have three kinds around here, white, yellow and loblolly?? Not sure on the last one, short needles..maybe.



Amen. I thought all the little needle trees were the same until recently. There's a house near me with some massive pine blow downs. Didn't look like the traditional pine to me because the wood was reddish and a bit stringy looking. Also thought pine were all smaller trees. I need to increase my pine knowledge as I can get a ton of this stuff since everyone refuses to burn it.


----------



## svk (Jan 12, 2015)

Ambull01 said:


> This is awesome. I want to print this whole thread out and send it to my in-laws. They're all saying I shouldn't burn pine. Told them there's some areas where pine is the predominant fuel. They still don't believe me because I have no personal experience with it.
> 
> Amen. I thought all the little needle trees were the same until recently. There's a house near me with some massive pine blow downs. Didn't look like the traditional pine to me because the wood was reddish and a bit stringy looking. Also thought pine were all smaller trees. I need to increase my pine knowledge as I can get a ton of this stuff since everyone refuses to burn it.


Yeah it's pretty comical. I had a guy ask if I could spare some firewood. "Sure, I've got lots of pine" (Grumbles "no thanks") Your loss.

Up in Yukon/Alaska that's all alot of those guys have to burn.

And I always follow up with this: My uncle/aunt/cousins have been burning pine in their sauna for 60 years. My uncle has been gone for 40 years so I guarantee the chimney hasn't seen a brush for at least that long.


----------



## Ambull01 (Jan 12, 2015)

svk said:


> Yeah it's pretty comical. I had a guy ask if I could spare some firewood. "Sure, I've got lots of pine" (Grumbles "no thanks") Your loss.
> 
> Up in Yukon/Alaska that's all alot of those guys have to burn.
> 
> And I always follow up with this: My uncle/aunt/cousins have been burning pine in their sauna for 60 years. My uncle has been gone for 40 years so I guarantee the chimney hasn't seen a brush for at least that long.



lol that's great. Whatever happened to beggars can't be choosers? 

You know I specifically mentioned firewood burning in Alaska. Father in-law drove up from NC to stay with us for a week during the holidays. I said Alaskans burn mostly pine (read it somewhere). He started going on about how Alaska has the most hardwood trees in the nation and how he went on a vacation to the state decades ago (guess that gives him first hand knowledge). Then he tried to explain to me how we should use our EPA insert at wide open primary air setting to get the most heat/efficiency. I had to stop talking to him in respect for the holiday spirit.


----------



## ponyexpress976 (Jan 12, 2015)

I've burned about 2.5 cords of white and several varieties of spruce. It's the "great hurricane experiment" as we call it here. So many of them got knocked over so I figured I'd try burning it and either prove or disprove the myth that pine will only result in chimney fires and gunked up equipment. The one thing I can confirm is that my X27 and several chainsaws are permanently "tacky". Burned about a cord at the end of last year and the flue was no different than other years. Since pine seems to be the only wood you can still get on craigslist for free, I'll burn it here. Might as well sell the other stuff and make the money when I can as opposed to sending it up the chimney.


----------



## svk (Jan 12, 2015)

ponyexpress976 said:


> I've burned about 2.5 cords of white and several varieties of spruce. It's the "great hurricane experiment" as we call it here. So many of them got knocked over so I figured I'd try burning it and either prove or disprove the myth that pine will only result in chimney fires and gunked up equipment. The one thing I can confirm is that my X27 and several chainsaws are permanently "tacky". Burned about a cord at the end of last year and the flue was no different than other years. Since pine seems to be the only wood you can still get on craigslist for free, I'll burn it here. Might as well sell the other stuff and make the money when I can as opposed to sending it up the chimney.


If you can, process it in the winter when the sap is frozen. Or two summers in the sun and it is all dried up.


----------



## svk (Jan 12, 2015)

Ambull01 said:


> lol that's great. Whatever happened to beggars can't be choosers?
> 
> You know I specifically mentioned firewood burning in Alaska. Father in-law drove up from NC to stay with us for a week during the holidays. I said Alaskans burn mostly pine (read it somewhere). He started going on about how Alaska has the most hardwood trees in the nation and how he went on a vacation to the state decades ago (guess that gives him first hand knowledge). Then he tried to explain to me how we should use our EPA insert at wide open primary air setting to get the most heat/efficiency. I had to stop talking to him in respect for the holiday spirit.


I have a relative like that in regards to politics. He's socialist but identifies as DFL. I'm middle of the road and vote "best man". He accuses me of being a right wing crazy LOL. We just don't go there.


----------



## windthrown (Jan 12, 2015)

Lots of misinformation out there (and here) about pine. Alaskans do not burn mostly (or even very much) pine. Sorry. Inland and farther north they have mostly birch, tamarack and cottonwood. In the south along the coast and the Alaska panhandle they have spruce, cedar and hemlock. Most people I know up there burn spruce or birch. Here is a map of the firewood species that are common there. Pine is not even listed:

http://www.alaskawoodheating.com/availability.php

There is also a huge spread in pine species quality for heating with, from pinion pine which has more heat than most of the better hardwoods, to the softer punky stuff like white pine or balsam fir. On my property here I have a lot of lodgepole pines (pinus controta), which is a premium firewood in the west. But even that species has three main sub types, and they grow and burn differently. I have two sub types of lodgepole; shore pines and Murrayana. The latter here are commonly called jack, black, or Sierra lodgepole pines and they get huge. Shore pine is hard and dense, and that burns pretty hot. The Murrayana burns good and has medium heat, about like elm for comparison.

In general, evergreens are a bad name for conifers, as there are several conifers that are deciduous, including larch/tamarack, bald cypress and dawn redwood. Also softwoods are a bad name for them as well, as many are harder than hardwoods, and many (including pines) have more heat available in them than hardwoods. For example, pinyon pine has 27 M-BTU per cord, which is about the same as black locust or hickory. Good stuff, eh? Western Larch (AKA: Tamarack) is a preferred species for firewood here, with about 28 M-BTU per cord. Doug fir is not far behind larch or pinyon pine, with 26 M-BTU per cord. I burn more Doug fir than any other wood here. It is good wood to heat with and has really low ash. For that reason, it is a premium wood to use in wood pellets. Doug, along with larch, are also the standard woods here in the western US for dimensional lumber and framing/building with. They have similar strength to southern yellow pine.

Here is a BTU chart for western tree species, and some eastern species to compare them to. These types of charts are highly varied, but for most western species (and the common eastern species that grow here) this is the best chart that I have found:

http://firewoodresource.com/firewood-btu-ratings/


----------



## Sawyer Rob (Jan 12, 2015)

After having "lived" in Alaska for 25 years, and burned wood for much of that, spruce is what is burned most, as that's what is available to most folks... There is also birch and cotton wood, but spruce is the most burned specie.

There's not much pine in Alaska...at least not where "most" folks live...

SR


----------



## Ambull01 (Jan 12, 2015)

windthrown said:


> Lots of misinformation out there (and here) about pine. Alaskans do not burn mostly (or even very much) pine. Sorry. Inland and farther north they have mostly birch, tamarack and cottonwood. In the south along the coast and the Alaska panhandle they have spruce, cedar and hemlock. Most people I know up there burn spruce or birch. Here is a map of the firewood species that are common there. Pine is not even listed:
> 
> http://www.alaskawoodheating.com/availability.php
> 
> ...



SOB, my father in-law was right! You just ruined my whole week. Well I'll never tell him he was right lol.

Spruce looks an awful lot like pine to me. I think you're the guy that taught me poplar is considered a hardwood despite it's light weight, propensity to rot, etc. All this tree stuff is quite confusing.

Edit: You know what, I was referring to Alaskans burning conifers. Yeah, that's what I meant. lol. They all look the same to me. Does spruce have a lot of pitch? That's the main thing he was arguing.


----------



## Pulp (Jan 12, 2015)

Nice stuff Windthrown.....even for a Left Coastie PNW.

In Northwoods Maine, The Country and coastal Downeast, the spruces and balsam fir are the dominant 'pioneer' trees after 
the low bush berries and paper birch set up.
They grow fast and thick in this low Ph bony soil, and abundant year-round moisture. Within a few years they'll
be "doghair thick" and up to 4' to 8' tall. Clearcuts regen fast, though mostly we do patch cutting of 5-10 a. each now.


----------



## Ambull01 (Jan 12, 2015)

windthrown said:


> Doug fir is not far behind larch or pinyon pine, with 26 M-BTU per cord. I burn more Doug fir than any other wood here. It is good wood to heat with and has really low ash. For that reason, it is a premium wood to use in wood pellets.



I'm not sure what the most common type of Christmas tree people buy but I think Doug fir is one of them. Damn it I just missed out on the best scrounging score in all of 2014! All those Christmas trees everyone just threw away was actually premium firewood!


----------



## steved (Jan 12, 2015)

Ambull01 said:


> I'm not sure what the most common type of Christmas tree people buy but I think Doug fir is one of them. Damn it I just missed out on the best scrounging score in all of 2014! All those Christmas trees everyone just threw away was actually premium firewood!


I scrounged over four cords of Christmas tree gone wild...some was over 24" at the butt. It was a mix of the "old" species that were used for Christmas trees...white pine and red and/or scotch. Free for the taking...

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G730A using Tapatalk


----------



## Ambull01 (Jan 12, 2015)

steved said:


> I scrounged over four cords of Christmas tree gone wild...some was over 24" at the butt. It was a mix of the "old" species that were used for Christmas trees...white pine and red and/or scotch. Free for the taking...
> 
> Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G730A using Tapatalk



I'm chasing you all over, from Scrounging to this thread lol. You just drove around neighborhoods picking them up? Damn I really missed out. Saw trees all over the damn place. Could have had my yard covered in awesome smelling firewood.


----------



## steved (Jan 12, 2015)

Nah, woman's parents had a Christmas tree farm they abandoned. The trees got big, and were taking over the property


Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G730A using Tapatalk


----------



## Ambull01 (Jan 12, 2015)

steved said:


> Nah, woman's parents had a Christmas tree farm they abandoned. The trees got big, and were taking over the property
> 
> 
> Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G730A using Tapatalk



I'm starting to HATE PA. State forests that allow you to cut downed trees, abandoned tree farms, cheap mini mansions near York, etc


----------



## mr.finn (Jan 12, 2015)

Have a stack of mixed Hemlock/White pine. This is for firepit use only. I did burn some dry Hemlock this fall and it was nice. Tried burning some recently split stuff and was hissing. Will let it all dry out and prob wind up burning it this spring. Also have a small stash of dry cedar that is a lot of fun to burn.


----------



## windthrown (Jan 13, 2015)

Lots of Christmas tree farms out where I live. Many species of firs are grown for x-mas trees here for local and export markets. Also there are hundreds of square miles of monoculture timber stands here in the Cascades, mostly Doug fir, and they are always being thinned or logged. There are also large swaths of alder/maple/cottonwood stands. Those faster growing hardwoods are the first to sprout after clear cutting, but they get crowned out by the taller conifers that become dominant stands over time. The commercial stuff here I cannot get wood from. Too many buyers of cull logs, mainly firewood processors and pulp mills. I get most of my wood for free from arborists taking trees down in the burbs. So I get and burn a lot of different species of firewood.

Doug fir on this side of the Cascades is denser and stronger than on the east side, and it has better heat. Doug fir in California is a separate sub species and is also less dense and does not command the premium that we get for it up here. Old growth conifers also have denser wood than new growth, so again the BTU numbers vary even within species, depending on the size, age and location. Spruce is similar to medium western pine species in density and heat value for burning. From a visual perspective spruce, having short needles spread along the branches, looks more like true firs to me than pines.


----------



## Ambull01 (Jan 13, 2015)

windthrown said:


> Lots of Christmas tree farms out where I live. Many species of firs are grown for x-mas trees here for local and export markets. Also there are hundreds of square miles of monoculture timber stands here in the Cascades, mostly Doug fir, and they are always being thinned or logged. There are also large swaths of alder/maple/cottonwood stands. Those faster growing hardwoods are the first to sprout after clear cutting, but they get crowned out by the taller conifers that become dominant stands over time. The commercial stuff here I cannot get wood from. Too many buyers of cull logs, mainly firewood processors and pulp mills. I get most of my wood for free from arborists taking trees down in the burbs. So I get and burn a lot of different species of firewood.
> 
> Doug fir on this side of the Cascades is denser and stronger than on the east side, and it has better heat. Doug fir in California is a separate sub species and is also less dense and does not command the premium that we get for it up here. Old growth conifers also have denser wood than new growth, so again the BTU numbers vary even within species, depending on the size, age and location. Spruce is similar to medium western pine species in density and heat value for burning. From a visual perspective spruce, having short needles spread along the branches, looks more like true firs to me than pines.



I wish I was getting most of my stuff from arborists. They probably deliver stuff already bucked right? 

So I'm guess collecting and burning Christmas trees here in MD wouldn't be an ideal scrounge score. Most of the trees would probably be around 6' or so and small diameter. It would take a lot of them to be worthwhile. Plus all the daggone branches I would have to limb. 

I really need to buy that tree identification book.


----------



## windthrown (Jan 13, 2015)

Ambull01 said:


> I wish I was getting most of my stuff from arborists. They probably deliver stuff already bucked right?
> 
> So I'm guess collecting and burning Christmas trees here in MD wouldn't be an ideal scrounge score. Most of the trees would probably be around 6' or so and small diameter. It would take a lot of them to be worthwhile. Plus all the daggone branches I would have to limb.
> 
> I really need to buy that tree identification book.



Uh, they do not deliver any wood here. In many cases they do not even buck up the rounds on site any more. Firewood is hunted down by the mobs and hordes of wood zombies here. I have a few friends that cut trees and call me or I get leads from Craigslist. Some are duds, some are gems. Arbor guys here (meaning mostly Mexicans now) do the least amount of work possible, and do not have good skills or training from what I have seen. They climb with 660 saws with 36 inch B&C and hack and swak away on 8 inch limbs. They leave messy cuts. They leave stuff in long lengths. Which is fine with me, as I have the saws to buck and noodle them into manageable rounds that I can toss into my trailer and deal with later. If I am lucky and get a call from an old school arborist, and they have a mountain of bucked up rounds that need to be removed. I halve, quarter or cut them into 9s depending on the size, and haul them off for further processing here. I usually have 6-7 cords of wood here, enough for 2 years of heating. I always season them for at least a year, usually two, depending on the species. In November I got a cord of old growth western hemlock nicely bucked, in December I got a cord of maple that I had to cut into 9s from 6 foot rounds that I bucked from a huge log, and I just got a cord of cedar rounds that the owner thought was pine. Cedar is slightly better than pine in most cases. 

Tree ID books are good. I have a half dozen. I know all the native species here, but there are so many eastern and European species planted here in the burbs it is insane. People rarely know what they are. I got some mimosa wood with some maple a few years ago and I had never heard of that. It burned good though. It is invasive as all crap here. I now have a lot of black locust that I got as well. Pioneers brought that and planted it here, and in many areas out here where there are nothing left of the towns that were here 100 years ago, all that is left are stands of black locust. Nobody knows what that is here any more though. I got a half cord of cut, split and seasoned black locust from an arborist 2 years ago. I could not believe my luck. He just said it did not burn well in his stove, and said that I would need a good stove to burn it in. Phuuut! Got me through the polar vortex last year. Burned great.

As for X-mas trees, if they are that small they are likely not worth the effort to cut and limb. That will be pretty light and pithy wood as well, and not very dense. If it were a hardwood it would be different. Smaller tree tops and limbs like that I just burn here in slash piles.


----------



## dhskier2 (Jan 14, 2015)

Ambull01 said:


> Spruce looks an awful lot like pine to me.





Ambull01 said:


> I really need to buy that tree identification book.



Spruce confused for pine seems like a stretch... now spruce confused for fir is a little more plausable. 
Good idea on a tree ID book


----------



## dhskier2 (Jan 14, 2015)

windthrown said:


> Lots of misinformation out there (and here) about pine.



Thank you! Great post, very informative. I was reading through this thread and just shaking my head more and more. You saved my fingers a bunch of typing!


----------



## slowp (Jan 14, 2015)

I live in a major Christmas tree growing area. Doug-fir and Noble Fir are the two main species. The trees have different breeding than their relatives planted for timber. Lots of work goes into them to make them perfect. You'll pay more for a Noble. We used to be able to get wild Nobles, but clearcutting stopped, which meant that replanting stopped, and the wild Nobles are now too big for Christmas trees. 

When you talk of poplar, what do you mean? Aspen? Lombardy poplars? 

I am going to get some of our native cedar on the ground. It can't go out as logs because so many trees on this place had nails pounded into them by the previous family that lived here. I guess I'll be burning it in a couple of years.


----------



## Ambull01 (Jan 14, 2015)

dhskier2 said:


> Spruce confused for pine seems like a stretch... now spruce confused for fir is a little more plausable.
> Good idea on a tree ID book



Umm, are you calling me a liar? lol

No seriously, I know I'm a total idiot with this tree identification/wood burning thing. I'm mentioned before that I've lived most of my life in Hawaii. Moved to NC when I was 17, finished high school, and joined the Marines to see the world. They sent me right back to Hawaii for 3 1/2 years. I was stationed about 10 minutes from where I grew up. Such is my luck. 

I don't think there's pine/spruce trees in Hawaii, at least not where I lived. If I saw a spruce tree with cones on it I would automatically think pine cone. I've never heard someone say spruce cone. The cones are what's screwing me up. Plus they all have needles. Needles have always equaled pine trees to this dumb Hawaii boy.


----------



## svk (Jan 14, 2015)

Ambull01 said:


> Umm, are you calling me a liar? lol
> 
> No seriously, I know I'm a total idiot with this tree identification/wood burning thing. I'm mentioned before that I've lived most of my life in Hawaii. Moved to NC when I was 17, finished high school, and joined the Marines to see the world. They sent me right back to Hawaii for 3 1/2 years. I was stationed about 10 minutes from where I grew up. Such is my luck.
> 
> I don't think there's pine/spruce trees in Hawaii, at least not where I lived. If I saw a spruce tree with cones on it I would automatically think pine cone. I've never heard someone say spruce cone. The cones are what's screwing me up. Plus they all have needles. Needles have always equaled pine trees to this dumb Hawaii boy.


It's this easy

Smells like cat pee, its a spruce.

Smells good, its a pine.


----------



## Ambull01 (Jan 14, 2015)

svk said:


> It's this easy
> 
> Smells like cat pee, its a spruce.
> 
> Smells good, its a pine.



If it smells like cat pee why do people use it as Christmas trees? My dog would piss all over the tree if it smells like cat pee. 

Anyway, I'm done with this nonsense lol. I'm going to buy a tree identification book and wait until the leaves grow back. I'll use the book and the VT phone app to ID trees and take pictures of them.


----------



## svk (Jan 14, 2015)

Ambull01 said:


> If it smells like cat pee why do people use it as Christmas trees? My dog would piss all over the tree if it smells like cat pee.
> 
> Anyway, I'm done with this nonsense lol. I'm going to buy a tree identification book and wait until the leaves grow back. I'll use the book and the VT phone app to ID trees and take pictures of them.


I don't know may who use spruce for Christmas trees. Primarily balsam and a few Scotch pine around here for trees.


----------



## Ambull01 (Jan 14, 2015)

svk said:


> I don't know may who use spruce for Christmas trees. Primarily balsam and a few Scotch pine around here for trees.



http://treesandshrubs.about.com/od/selection/tp/Spruce-Trees-and-Shrubs.htm

Read it there.


----------



## svk (Jan 14, 2015)

Ambull01 said:


> http://treesandshrubs.about.com/od/selection/tp/Spruce-Trees-and-Shrubs.htm
> 
> Read it there.


We've got lots of white and black spruce around. Blues also that were planted as yard trees. My mom has one that is probably 100 years old and easily 25" but it's dying from the top now. I'd love to get some saw logs out of it but I think she will sell the house before the tree needs to come down.


----------



## slowp (Jan 14, 2015)

I think you have some fir trees, known as piss firs, confused with spruce. An easy way to ID spruce is to grab a branch. If you say OUCH, it is a spruce. It was said that spruce make good Christmas trees for people with little kids. They get stabbed when they grab it and they learn to leave it alone.

Spruce smell....sprucey. It is kind of a good smell. At least for the ones around here. Our natives are Engelmann (Picea engelmannii) and Sitka (Picea sitchensis).


----------



## svk (Jan 14, 2015)

slowp said:


> I think you have some fir trees, known as piss firs, confused with spruce. An easy way to ID spruce is to grab a branch. If you say OUCH, it is a spruce. It was said that spruce make good Christmas trees for people with little kids. They get stabbed when they grab it and they learn to leave it alone.
> 
> Spruce smell....sprucey. It is kind of a good smell. At least for the ones around here. Our natives are Engelmann and Sitka.


Without a doubt the trees here are white, black, and blue spruce. Sharpy pokey needles and especially white spruce smell strongly like cat pee , worse when disturbed.


----------



## Ambull01 (Jan 14, 2015)

windthrown said:


> Uh, they do not deliver any wood here. In many cases they do not even buck up the rounds on site any more. Firewood is hunted down by the mobs and hordes of wood zombies here. I have a few friends that cut trees and call me or I get leads from Craigslist. Some are duds, some are gems. Arbor guys here (meaning mostly Mexicans now) do the least amount of work possible, and do not have good skills or training from what I have seen. They climb with 660 saws with 36 inch B&C and hack and swak away on 8 inch limbs. They leave messy cuts. They leave stuff in long lengths. Which is fine with me, as I have the saws to buck and noodle them into manageable rounds that I can toss into my trailer and deal with later. If I am lucky and get a call from an old school arborist, and they have a mountain of bucked up rounds that need to be removed. I halve, quarter or cut them into 9s depending on the size, and haul them off for further processing here. I usually have 6-7 cords of wood here, enough for 2 years of heating. I always season them for at least a year, usually two, depending on the species. In November I got a cord of old growth western hemlock nicely bucked, in December I got a cord of maple that I had to cut into 9s from 6 foot rounds that I bucked from a huge log, and I just got a cord of cedar rounds that the owner thought was pine. Cedar is slightly better than pine in most cases.
> 
> Tree ID books are good. I have a half dozen. I know all the native species here, but there are so many eastern and European species planted here in the burbs it is insane. People rarely know what they are. I got some mimosa wood with some maple a few years ago and I had never heard of that. It burned good though. It is invasive as all crap here. I now have a lot of black locust that I got as well. Pioneers brought that and planted it here, and in many areas out here where there are nothing left of the towns that were here 100 years ago, all that is left are stands of black locust. Nobody knows what that is here any more though. I got a half cord of cut, split and seasoned black locust from an arborist 2 years ago. I could not believe my luck. He just said it did not burn well in his stove, and said that I would need a good stove to burn it in. Phuuut! Got me through the polar vortex last year. Burned great.
> 
> As for X-mas trees, if they are that small they are likely not worth the effort to cut and limb. That will be pretty light and pithy wood as well, and not very dense. If it were a hardwood it would be different. Smaller tree tops and limbs like that I just burn here in slash piles.



That sucks. I've heard of some lucky guys that have tree cutters drop off stuff right in their yard/driveway. 

Can you call someone that sucks at cutting trees an arborist? Maybe tree hack would be a better term much like curing vs seasoning (I'm seeing a lot of people near me refer to seasoned wood as something that has been split for a season). There's tree guys near me that sell firewood at a premium price. What a business, charge someone to cut and haul away wood then resell that same stuff to someone else. 

What's the best tree ID book you've read? I've heard black locust is premium firewood, I'll have to try it someday. I would also like a crack at splitting western hemlock, heard it's a PITA. 

Yep my Christmas tree collecting for firewood is a big fail.


----------



## svk (Jan 14, 2015)

Ambull01 said:


> Can you call someone that sucks at cutting trees an arborist? Maybe tree hack would be a better term much like curing vs seasoning (I'm seeing a lot of people near me refer to seasoned wood as something that has been split for a season). There's tree guys near me that sell firewood at a premium price. What a business, charge someone to cut and haul away wood then resell that same stuff to someone else.


LOL...Guys here can give you lots of answers on that. I do find it funny that the tree services I've dealt with NEVER cut rounds uniformly, one is 12" and the next is 20".



Ambull01 said:


> What's the best tree ID book you've read? I've heard black locust is premium firewood, I'll have to try it someday. I would also like a crack at splitting western hemlock, heard it's a PITA.


There's not much in my woods that I can't ID but this is a great resource. At about the middle of MN the species change dramatically as you travel north or south so I sometimes try to figure out what I saw when I am traveling.

http://www.dnr.state.mn.us/forestry/education/treeforallseasons/nativetrees.html


----------



## slowp (Jan 14, 2015)

I don't think we have any "arborists" here. The only "arborist" I see is the Asplundh group and they just work on powerline clearing. I have a difficult tree that I'm thinking about getting on the ground, and I'll consult some local, highly skilled timber fallers to see if it can come down without climbing. My insurance agent might be interested in cutting it. I'll talk to him first.


----------



## Ambull01 (Jan 14, 2015)

svk said:


> LOL...Guys here can give you lots of answers on that. I do find it funny that the tree services I've dealt with NEVER cut rounds uniformly, one is 12" and the next is 20".
> 
> 
> There's not much in my woods that I can't ID but this is a great resource. At about the middle of MN the species change dramatically as you travel north or south so I sometimes try to figure out what I saw when I am traveling.
> ...



Good ID site. MD has something similar. The issue I have is a lot of tree bark look the same to me. Plus, some trees will have different bark depending upon its age. A lot of the stuff I see tell you to look at the leaves but that's kind of hard to do in the winter.


----------



## dhskier2 (Jan 14, 2015)

Ambull01 said:


> Umm, are you calling me a liar? lol


Not a liar... just not understanding the differences- summed up here:


Ambull01 said:


> Needles have always equaled pine trees





slowp said:


> I think you have some fir trees, known as piss firs, confused with spruce. An easy way to ID spruce is to grab a branch. If you say OUCH, it is a spruce.


Slowp nailed what I was getting at... you figured spruce looks like pine, but a more likely confusion would have been a fir. Some spruce and some fir could be confused. Not to worry, get me out in hardwood country and I'm in about the same boat. Definitely don't take me to Hawaii and ask me to ID any native trees.



Ambull01 said:


> What's the best tree ID book you've read?


If you've got a smart phone, download one of the tree ID apps. There's a couple that do a pretty good job.


----------



## Ambull01 (Jan 14, 2015)

dhskier2 said:


> Not a liar... just not understanding the differences- summed up here:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I downloaded the VT ID app but it asks about 20 questions, a lot of them are about the leaves. Kind of hard to pick the correct leaf when the tree is totally bald. 

http://msa.maryland.gov/msa/mdmanual/01glance/html/trees.html

I'm in luck, no spruce or fir trees in MD. So, "anything with a cone is a pine" will work for me lol.


----------



## slowp (Jan 14, 2015)

Ambull01 said:


> I downloaded the VT ID app but it asks about 20 questions, a lot of them are about the leaves. Kind of hard to pick the correct leaf when the tree is totally bald.
> 
> http://msa.maryland.gov/msa/mdmanual/01glance/html/trees.html
> 
> I'm in luck, no spruce or fir trees in MD. So, "anything with a cone is a pine" will work for me lol.



Look underneath the trees you want to ID if the leaves are gone. Unless you've raked them up, they'll help ID the tree. Plus, with conifers, look on the ground by the tree for cones if they are species where the cones hold together after ripening. Some of our true firs have cones that erupt and spread their seeds while still on the tree. The only way to see those cones intact is to climb, look with binoculars, find them on a fallen tree, or run into a squirrel food harvest in progress.


----------



## Ambull01 (Jan 14, 2015)

slowp said:


> Look underneath the trees you want to ID if the leaves are gone. Unless you've raked them up, they'll help ID the tree. Plus, with conifers, look on the ground by the tree for cones if they are species where the cones hold together after ripening. Some of our true firs have cones that erupt and spread their seeds while still on the tree. The only way to see those cones intact is to climb, look with binoculars, find them on a fallen tree, or run into a squirrel food harvest in progress.



Rake leaves? Hell no! I stopped raking leaves after realizing it is such a futile effort. I just run them over with my lawnmower now lol. Much easier. 

Anyway, ya'll are making me extremely curious about trees in the west. I'll have to make a trip there someday and see for myself.


----------



## lindnova (Jan 14, 2015)

I had a black spruce for a Christmas tree we cut down on the property. It smelled nice like an evergreen does. I will have to sniff some white spruce as I have never noticed the cat pee smell.


----------



## windthrown (Jan 14, 2015)

Ambull01 said:


> That sucks. I've heard of some lucky guys that have tree cutters drop off stuff right in their yard/driveway.



Yah, most of that is back east after hurricane Sandy and places in the Midwest that are pumping NG like crazy. I have gotten some wood dropped, but that has always been with loads of wood chips. Wood chips cost money to dump here (rip off recycling; they get money to take the chips and then sell the compost after processing it). So arborists are always advertising for places to drop loads of chips on CL for free. 



Ambull01 said:


> Can you call someone that sucks at cutting trees an arborist? Maybe tree hack would be a better term much like curing vs seasoning (I'm seeing a lot of people near me refer to seasoned wood as something that has been split for a season). There's tree guys near me that sell firewood at a premium price. What a business, charge someone to cut and haul away wood then resell that same stuff to someone else. .



I call them 'tree butchers' myself. On this forum site there used to be a lot of us pro arborists with chippers and such, and pro fallers. Now its guys with hopped up chainsaws boasting about wood cutting speeds cutting logs lashed to saw horses. As for firewood, no arbor business here that I know of sells firewood. Takes too much time and space. I do know a few that keep the wood to burn themselves, but most post ads on CL for free rounds to be taken on site. Then the wood zombies like me show up and it disappears in a few hours, especially better wood like oak. There are bigger firewood processors out here where I live where a lot of logging is done, and they buy and salvage cull logs that they haul and cut into firewood. Some sell it green to the suckers in the city. Some logging companies here sell cull logs direct to the public. A dumptruck load of green Doug fir & hemlock logs costs $300 delivered. They come to about 2.5 cords of wood bucked, split and stacked. You can also buy a logging truck load of logs for $1200, and that comes out to about 9 cords (roughly 3 cords per MBF, and roughly 3 MBF per logging truck: 1 MBF is a thousand board feet of lumber).



Ambull01 said:


> What's the best tree ID book you've read? I've heard black locust is premium firewood, I'll have to try it someday. I would also like a crack at splitting western hemlock, heard it's a PITA.
> 
> Yep my Christmas tree collecting for firewood is a big fail.



Failing is the path to knowledge and wisdom. I used to go after cottonwood here. No longer. I have a cord of Western Hemlock rounds here and a maul if you wanna give them a whack. I do not think there is any best tree ID book. I like _Petersons field guide to western trees_. There must be an eastern equivalent? Golden also has _Trees of North America_ that has good drawings and maps of where stands occur. I also have several shrub and tree ID books that are local to the PNW that you would likely never find. No one book has all the trees that I have found and ID'd, especially old world species. For them I use Google.


----------



## windthrown (Jan 14, 2015)

Ambull01 said:


> Rake leaves? Hell no! I stopped raking leaves after realizing it is such a futile effort. I just run them over with my lawnmower now lol. Much easier.
> 
> Anyway, ya'll are making me extremely curious about trees in the west. I'll have to make a trip there someday and see for myself.



We have some phenomenally large trees out here in the west. The tallest and largest in the world. Also large swaths... here is a photo I took northwest of Mt Hood in the Cascades just north of where I live. Hood is 11k+ feet tall for perspective. I live just off photo to the lower right. The majority of green here are Douglas firs. Farther up the slopes are silver and grand firs, as well as western and mountain hemlocks, and western cedars. In the draws are big leaf maples, cascaras, black cottonwoods, red alders, some white oaks, and there are scattered white birch stands. On the east slopes are more Ponderosa pines, larch, and junipers mixed in. There are other species that I am forgetting as well.


----------



## Ambull01 (Jan 14, 2015)

windthrown said:


> Yah, most of that is back east after hurricane Sandy and places in the Midwest that are pumping NG like crazy. I have gotten some wood dropped, but that has always been with loads of wood chips. Wood chips cost money to dump here (rip off recycling; they get money to take the chips and then sell the compost after processing it). So arborists are always advertising for places to drop loads of chips on CL for free.
> 
> I call them 'tree butchers' myself. On this forum site there used to be a lot of us pro arborists with chippers and such, and pro fallers. Now its guys with hopped up chainsaws boasting about wood cutting speeds cutting logs lashed to saw horses. As for firewood, no arbor business here that I know of sells firewood. Takes too much time and space. I do know a few that keep the wood to burn themselves, but most post ads on CL for free rounds to be taken on site. Then the wood zombies like me show up and it disappears in a few hours, especially better wood like oak. There are bigger firewood processors out here where I live where a lot of logging is done, and they buy and salvage cull logs that they haul and cut into firewood. Some sell it green to the suckers in the city. Some logging companies here sell cull logs direct to the public. A dumptruck load of green Doug fir & hemlock logs costs $300 delivered. They come to about 2.5 cords of wood bucked, split and stacked. You can also buy a logging truck load of logs for $1200, and that comes out to about 9 cords (roughly 3 cords per MBF, and roughly 3 MBF per logging truck: 1 MBF is a thousand board feet of lumber).
> 
> Failing is the path to knowledge and wisdom. I used to go after cottonwood here. No longer. I have a cord of Western Hemlock rounds here and a maul if you wanna give them a whack. I do not think there is any best tree ID book. I like _Petersons field guide to western trees_. There must be an eastern equivalent? Golden also has _Trees of North America_ that has good drawings and maps of where stands occur. I also have several shrub and tree ID books that are local to the PNW that you would likely never find. No one book has all the trees that I have found and ID'd, especially old world species. For them I use Google.


I've seen some CL adds for free wood chips. I would take them but have no idea what the hell I would do with wood chips. 

So what happened with all the pros? Actually it might be a good thing they're gone, I doubt they would have enough patience to put up with someone like me. As for the ported chainsaws, I admit it is a bit dumb. Not going to lie though, if it was cheaper I would probably do it. Just can't see the point in spending a few hundred to speed/power up something that I only use to cut firewood with. It's kind of funny going on You Tube and seeing people test out a modified saw and act triumphant because they shaved off a few seconds from a cut lmao. Thankfully I'm not that crazy just yet. 

Hell just about every arborist/tree service I've seen has a yard that's full of split and stacked firewood ready for sale. 

If I could get 2.5 cords for $300 I may just buy the logs. Should have listened to my friend and gone with him to Washington. He went to JB Lewis-McChord. I could be enjoying some cheap ass firewood right now and working the snot out of my Makita. I think she's getting bored here. 

Oh man I would love to. Just found out MD has eastern hemlock so I wonder how they compare. I think the western hemlock is larger. 
I'll look those books up. 

Check this app out: http://www.vtnews.vt.edu/articles/2012/12/122012-cnre-treeidapp.html
This is the app I downloaded to my phone. Seems great but the questions are extremely detailed. Like how many branch spur thingies does the tree have? Complex or simple leaves? Fruits? How the hell am I supposed to answer that. If I knew all that crap I wouldn't need a tree ID resource. 




windthrown said:


> We have some phenomenally large trees out here in the west. The tallest and largest in the world. Also large swaths... here is a photo I took northwest of Mt Hood in the Cascades just north of where I live. Hood is 11k+ feet tall for perspective. I live just off photo to the lower right. The majority of green here are Douglas firs. Farther up the slopes are silver and grand firs, as well as western and mountain hemlocks, and western cedars. In the draws are big leaf maples, cascaras, black cottonwoods, red alders, some white oaks, and there are scattered white birch stands. On the east slopes are more Ponderosa pines, larch, and junipers mixed in. There are other species that I am forgetting as well.
> 
> View attachment 394548



I've been wondering, why are the trees over there so large? I know the wettest place in the world is in Kauai (I hiked that island once, freaking awesome) so it can't just be the amount of rainfall you receive. 

Oh damn I'm jealous. I would love to see that view everyday. I'm living on the wrong coast.


----------



## slowp (Jan 14, 2015)

NOOOOOOO! Believe me, you don't want to live here. Ft Lewis area has massive traffic jams. I think that's why our population is always growing, too many military folks like it for some reason. Apparently, they can't smell the mildew. That part of the state is pretty much solid suburbs and city. And, anytime there is a slump in logging or the mills--in our more rural areas, selling firewood becomes common and it can be hard to come by if you don't know somebody. Competition is fierce, because of all the restrictions, on our National Forest lands. 

You wouldn't have that view everyday. It is too rainy and cloudy to see it everyday. In the summer, it's often obscured by smoke. Nope, don't move here.


----------



## Ambull01 (Jan 14, 2015)

slowp said:


> NOOOOOOO! Believe me, you don't want to live here. Ft Lewis area has massive traffic jams. I think that's why our population is always growing, too many military folks like it for some reason. Apparently, they can't smell the mildew. That part of the state is pretty much solid suburbs and city. And, anytime there is a slump in logging or the mills--in our more rural areas, selling firewood becomes common and it can be hard to come by if you don't know somebody. Competition is fierce, because of all the restrictions, on our National Forest lands.
> 
> You wouldn't have that view everyday. It is too rainy and cloudy to see it everyday. In the summer, it's often obscured by smoke. Nope, don't move here.



Hmm, I think you're just saying that to keep Washington state to yourself. Don't worry, I'm not a real military dude. My active duty time is over, I'm not doing that crap again. I'm just a nasty little Guardsman now. 

Well, having that view sporadically may make it even better. Sometimes you don't know what you have until you lose it. Smoke from what?


----------



## slowp (Jan 15, 2015)

Smoke from the annual fire bust. July, August, September. The good thing is that because it is during the summer, we can load up and take off somewhere to get away from the smoke if it is too horrible. Let me see, Wenatchee in 2013, had doctors sending their families out of the valley until the smoke cleared.


----------



## dhskier2 (Jan 15, 2015)

slowp said:


> Wenatchee in 2013, had doctors sending their families out of the valley until the smoke cleared.



We probably should have taken a few days leave from Wenatchee in 1994. That was a pretty bad year. Over 180k acres burned up as I remember it


----------



## nathon918 (Jan 15, 2015)

dhskier2 said:


> We probably should have taken a few days leave from Wenatchee in 1994. That was a pretty bad year. Over 180k acres burned up as I remember it


 wonder why the EPA hasn't put an end to those fires yet???? I mean if doctors are sending people away from all the smoke it cant be good for the environment...the EPA needs to get their **** together and ban wild fires!


----------



## slowp (Jan 15, 2015)

nathon918 said:


> wonder why the EPA hasn't put an end to those fires yet???? I mean if doctors are sending people away from all the smoke it cant be good for the environment...the EPA needs to get their **** together and ban wild fires!



Nice rhetoric.


----------



## slowp (Jan 15, 2015)

dhskier2 said:


> We probably should have taken a few days leave from Wenatchee in 1994. That was a pretty bad year. Over 180k acres burned up as I remember it



Don't worry, it might take a while to kick in. I quit going to fires because of coming home half the time with a roaring case of bronchitis. A friend had the same thing happen, but later. The overtime, and I guess it is less now, isn't worth three weeks of horking and wheezing.


----------



## nathon918 (Jan 15, 2015)

slowp said:


> Nice rhetoric.


 Thank you!
I would hope someone of your ...stature would be pushing for it, no? or at least convincing those polluters not to come to Washington?


----------



## dhskier2 (Jan 15, 2015)

slowp said:


> Don't worry, it might take a while to kick in. I quit going to fires because of coming home half the time with a roaring case of bronchitis. A friend had the same thing happen, but later. The overtime, and I guess it is less now, isn't worth three weeks of horking and wheezing.



I was a resident of the fine town at that time, not a fire fighter. Granted, wasn't out of high school yet... so any long term health affects and I'll have to blame my parents for not sending me back to MT to the crisp clean air.... wait a minute... I'm in the bitterroot valley now. We get some of the same problems here. 
Don't get me going on the Missoula county airshed program... they make my life miserable each fall when it comes time to burn slash piles from my summer jobsites


----------



## windthrown (Jan 15, 2015)

Ambull01 said:


> I've seen some CL adds for free wood chips. I would take them but have no idea what the hell I would do with wood chips.



I use them around the house to keep the mud down. I get 80+ inches of rain a year here.



Ambull01 said:


> So what happened with all the pros? Actually it might be a good thing they're gone, I doubt they would have enough patience to put up with someone like me.



Some are still here, some do not post much any more. Many have moved to other forums online. Some have passed away.



Ambull01 said:


> I've been wondering, why are the trees over there so large? I know the wettest place in the world is in Kauai (I hiked that island once, freaking awesome) so it can't just be the amount of rainfall you receive.
> 
> Oh damn I'm jealous. I would love to see that view everyday. I'm living on the wrong coast.



It is usually overcast here so you do not see the mountain peaks much this time of year. But it is a scenic place. From where I took that photo you can see Mt Hood, Mt Jefferson, Mt Adams, Mt St Helens, and Mt Rainier. We get a lot of rain on the west coast. I get 80+ inches a year here, but above me in elevation on the Cascades they get 140+ inches plus snow. At my ex's ranch in southern Oregon she gets 100+ inches of rain a year. Many rain forests all along the coastal mountain ranges from central California up through the Olympic Peninsula in Washington, and more in the west slopes of the Cascades and Sierra Nevada mountain ranges. Most of the big trees are in the rainiest areas. The tallest redwood (which is the tallest tree in the world) is near the CA/OR border in CA near the coast. The tallest Doug fir is now just south of Roseburg, OR in the coast range. The tallest Sugar pine is in the west Cascade slopes NW of Crater Lake. The tallest Sitka Spruce was along Highway 26 near Cannon Beach, OR, but that blew down in the Hurricane in '07. The largest tree in the world is the General Sherman Sequoia tree in the Sierras in California. Big trees, big tree species, lots of water.


----------



## svk (Jan 15, 2015)

Maybe we should start a thread called "Why you should move here"


----------



## Ambull01 (Jan 15, 2015)

svk said:


> Maybe we should start a thread called "Why you should move here"



Negative. If this arborist starts dropping off whole dump truck loads of logs for free like he claims I may stay in MD forever lol. I may still scrounge but then I'll be a very picky scrounger. Probably sell all the stuff I scrounge as the arborist should supply all the personal wood I need. When I get that first dump truck load it will be Christmas all over again. I'll be able to stay pine/spruce tree ignorant because I'll never touch the stuff!


----------



## windthrown (Jan 15, 2015)

svk said:


> Maybe we should start a thread called "Why you should move here"



Oh, well... pot is legal in WA now, and soon to be in OR and AK. OR was listed as the most desirable place to move to last year. Dunno why, taxes are high here (except no sales tax... yet) and the weather always sucks. There is a saying here that if you are not complaining about the weather, you are not from Oregon. I know, a double negative. Housing prices in Portland are increasing rapidly as people in places like San Francisco are being forced out by insanely high living costs, so they are moving here to Portland. So people in Portland are being forced to move toward the cheaper burbs to the east. Pot being legal will likely attract even more people to WA and OR. You can get stoned here, legally! Dude...


----------



## stihlaficionado (Jan 15, 2015)

white pine, red pine mixed with hardwoods never alone


----------



## svk (Jan 15, 2015)

Ambull01 said:


> Negative. If this arborist starts dropping off whole dump truck loads of logs for free like he claims I may stay in MD forever lol. I may still scrounge but then I'll be a very picky scrounger. Probably sell all the stuff I scrounge as the arborist should supply all the personal wood I need. When I get that first dump truck load it will be Christmas all over again. I'll be able to stay pine/spruce tree ignorant because I'll never touch the stuff!


If you are getting arborist loads arent you getting whatever yard trees that he dumps including pines?


----------



## Ambull01 (Jan 15, 2015)

svk said:


> If you are getting arborist loads arent you getting whatever yard trees that he dumps including pines?



Okay tree ID book back on my buy list.


----------



## svk (Jan 15, 2015)

Ambull01 said:


> Okay tree ID book back on my buy list.


Split/sell the primo stuff. Get/stay two years ahead on good wood then sell everything else.


----------



## steved (Jan 16, 2015)

Yard trees (cringing)...

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G730A using Tapatalk


----------



## Del_ (Jan 16, 2015)

Some winters we heat with as much at 40% Leyland Cypress!

Of course we burn a lot of pine and other wood that most consider to be 'trash' woods.

Now that is a lot of Leyland Cypress! It's a way over planted landscape tree in this area so it's pretty easy to come by.

I'm only mentioning it because I doubt many other use it.

For the most part it's about like any other conifer.


----------



## Pulp (Jan 16, 2015)

windthrown said:


> I call them 'tree butchers' myself. On this forum site there used to be a lot of us pro arborists with chippers and such, and pro fallers. Now its guys with hopped up chainsaws boasting about wood cutting speeds cutting logs lashed to saw horses. As for firewood, no arbor business here that I know of sells firewood. Takes too much time and space. I do know a few that keep the wood to burn themselves, but most post ads on CL for free rounds to be taken on site. Then the wood zombies like me show up and it disappears in a few hours, especially better wood like oak. There are bigger firewood processors out here where I live where a lot of logging is done, and they buy and salvage cull logs that they haul and cut into firewood. Some sell it green to the suckers in the city. Some logging companies here sell cull logs direct to the public. A dumptruck load of green Doug fir & hemlock logs costs $300 delivered. They come to about 2.5 cords of wood bucked, split and stacked. You can also buy a logging truck load of logs for $1200, and that comes out to about 9 cords (roughly 3 cords per MBF, and roughly 3 MBF per logging truck: 1 MBF is a thousand board feet of lumber).


OK, OK. Enough of the *"we pro"*, or *"big timber*", or *"pro fallers"* stuff. 
Enough of the *"Harry Homeowner"*, *"fru-fru"*, or *"weekend warrior"* fool talk.
Many of us have done both so-called "pro" logging AND cutting firewood for ourselves. We don' need no stinkin' divisions here.
Besides who the F knows who or what your C.V. or experience is ? Who ?

Deal with how different parts of the country cut more than just big timber softwoods. East and midwest have more diverse species Windy than the PNW. So ?
We cut hardwoods, softwoods, blowdowns, firewood, trails; probably more variety than only big softwoods. So what ?
And, we use shorter bars and maybe smaller saws. Why? Trees don't grow to 90" DBH here. Smaller DBH timber in isolated lots means saws that are lighter to carry in.
Faster to sharpen in the field. So ?
So ?


----------



## slowp (Jan 16, 2015)

The troll has arrived. All bow.

Portland also has or will have a law that you have to pay and get a permit and an OK from an "arborist" before cutting a tree on your property. The same goes for pruning. That would discourage me from planting any yard trees.


----------



## slowp (Jan 16, 2015)

Pulp said:


> OK, OK. Enough of the *"we pro"*, or *"big timber*", or *"pro fallers"* stuff.
> Enough of the *"Harry Homeowner"*, *"fru-fru"*, or *"weekend warrior"* fool talk.
> Many of us have done both so-called "pro" logging AND cutting firewood for ourselves. We don' need no stinkin' divisions here.
> Besides who the F knows who or what your C.V. or experience is ? Who ?
> ...




Tell us more!


----------



## Wannabe123 (Jan 16, 2015)

It took to page 6 for there to be a fight. You guys are slackin


----------



## slowp (Jan 16, 2015)

Wannabe123 said:


> It took to page 6 for there to be a fight. You guys are slackin



A fight? If you are going to work in the woods, you must not be so dramatic. It is merely a discussion. Pulp is simply trying to find his/her niche where she/he might be taken seriously. That didn't happen on the F&L area, so he/she is apparently trying to impress folks here. I am simply asking for her/him to share more knowledge of their expertise. 

I hope he/she keeps up. Maybe that'll inspire folks to move to the east, Mideast or anywhere but here.


----------



## Wannabe123 (Jan 16, 2015)

Me dramatic or this pulp character? I got no skin in this game, just thought the huffy puffy posts shouldn't come so late in the thread.


----------



## svk (Jan 16, 2015)

Wannabe123 said:


> Me dramatic or this pulp character? I got no skin in this game, just thought the huffy puffy posts shouldn't come so late in the thread.


He's been a member for ten months and had 56 posts during that time so I'd postulate he's really not on here that much and probably just saw this thread. 

I see he's already made friends with slowp though


----------



## Wannabe123 (Jan 16, 2015)

svk said:


> He's been a member for ten months and had 56 posts during that time so I'd postulate he's really not on here that much and probably just saw this thread.
> 
> I see he's already made friends with slowp though



Ah, see I deserve more cred. I've been on here a few weeks and have a hundred plus posts. Guess it shows I don't have a job (until Monday). Does this mean I get to be twice as much of a general jackass than someone with half the posts or is jackassery privilege assigned on some sort of time/post ratio.

Clue me in before I screw up and slowp "likes" me just as much.


----------



## svk (Jan 16, 2015)

Wannabe123 said:


> Ah, see I deserve more cred. I've been on here a few weeks and have a hundred plus posts. Guess it shows I don't have a job (until Monday). Does this mean I get to be twice as much of a general jackass than someone with half the posts or is jackassery privilege assigned on some sort of time/post ratio.
> 
> Clue me in before I screw up and slowp "likes" me just as much.


Lol, love your sense of humor. 

If someone joins in and starts posting right away and more importantly doesn't show up with an attitude ie you or ambull01, you will fit in pretty quickly. If a guy posts here and there, people don't get to know him/her as quickly. I've seen pulp post sporadically and I haven't read enough to formulate an opinion on him. Some like slowp already have.


----------



## Wannabe123 (Jan 16, 2015)

I for one don't find people's opinion of me on the internet worth losing much sleep over, but conversely I don't see the point of spending my free time on an internet form where everyone just ignores or shuns whatever I say. Why would causing little facebook-y mini dramas on a forum about wood and chainsaws bring anyone any sense of enjoyment? Quite possibly the dumbest use of time I could possibly conceive.


----------



## Pulp (Jan 16, 2015)

Drama Queens.
Who's counting posts or 'seniority' ? 
Hey, do any of these PP's ( Putdown Pros ) need to demean anyone ?
We're talking wood heating fercripssake; not "mine is bigger than yours" .
Maybe SlowP (whoever she really is) will love us Fru-Fru, Hommies.


----------



## svk (Jan 16, 2015)

Wannabe123 said:


> I for one don't find people's opinion of me on the internet worth losing much sleep over, but conversely I don't see the point of spending my free time on an internet form where everyone just ignores or shuns whatever I say.



I agree. With that being said, it does take a little time for people to "get to know" someone in an online sense. Just like it does in a regular social environment.



Wannabe123 said:


> Why would causing little facebook-y mini dramas on a forum about wood and chainsaws bring anyone any sense of enjoyment? Quite possibly the dumbest use of time I could possibly conceive.



I don't know. Fortunately there are only a few on here that do that.


----------



## svk (Jan 16, 2015)

Pulp said:


> Drama Queens.
> Who's counting posts or 'seniority' ?
> Hey, do any of these PP's ( Putdown Pros ) need to demean anyone ?
> We're talking wood heating fercripssake; not "mine is bigger than yours" .
> Maybe SlowP (whoever she really is) will love us Fru-Fru, Hommies.


I was trying to defend/complement you in case it was misinterpreted.....


----------



## Wannabe123 (Jan 16, 2015)

FWIW, I don't disagree about not liking to be talked down to by know it alls, whether they genuinely have their professional credibility or just want to pretend they do. I just don't see getting worked up about it. If someone bothers you, just ignore 'em. And there is even a setting on here where the computer can ignore them for you.

By the by, what did pulp say in the F&L forum that was frowned upon?


----------



## svk (Jan 16, 2015)

Wannabe123 said:


> And there is even a setting on here where the computer can ignore them for you.



Yes, but what would be the fun in that? Lot's of good information in here but also great entertainment. It would be a pretty quiet place around here if we didn't have the opportunity to watch slowp take the devils advocate in every situation and hear how great all of CTyank's tools work.....


----------



## Wannabe123 (Jan 16, 2015)

Don't know this CTYank, but people from CT yank tools all the time. It may be legit.


----------



## svk (Jan 16, 2015)

Del_ said:


> What a sad derail.
> 
> There's good folks here who want to discuss firewood.


This is no more off topic than the average thread 7 pages deep. We were doing pretty well until the "dont move here" crowd came in.


----------



## Wannabe123 (Jan 16, 2015)

So start talking about firewood.

Wood wood wood, I love wood. How much moisture should be in my pine when I burn it for free in Ohio after splitting it with a 6 lb ( or is it 8) maul while scrounging it from the PNW?


----------



## svk (Jan 16, 2015)

Wannabe123 said:


> So start talking about firewood.
> 
> Wood wood wood, I love wood. How much moisture should be in my pine when I burn it for free in Ohio after splitting it with a 6 lb ( or is it 8) maul while scrounging it from the PNW?


You cant burn pine. I will cause a chimney fire with all of that creosote and burn the place down...

If you do, I suggest the 30# maul we saw a few weeks back.


----------



## Wannabe123 (Jan 16, 2015)

Should I use stihl suspenders when scrounging my creosote or 32:1 huskvarna chaps on my chipper?

Sorry, gotta take a break here. I got mulit-thread-inanity-itis.


----------



## Wannabe123 (Jan 16, 2015)

Dude, you are a stick to the topic kind of guy. You told us what kind of pine/evergreen you burn. Why you still here? The guy who started the topic is screwing around as much as anyone.


----------



## stihl sawing (Jan 16, 2015)

I hear a lock in the background.


----------



## Wannabe123 (Jan 16, 2015)

stihl sawing said:


> I hear a lock in the background.


No need for drastic measures. I for one will behave.


----------



## slowp (Jan 16, 2015)

Wannabe123 said:


> FWIW, I don't disagree about not liking to be talked down to by know it alls, whether they genuinely have their professional credibility or just want to pretend they do. I just don't see getting worked up about it. If someone bothers you, just ignore 'em. And there is even a setting on here where the computer can ignore them for you.
> 
> By the by, what did pulp say in the F&L forum that was frowned upon?



Read the last bit of the sticky, what to do if you get hurt in the woods. Some poor advice was given. Some of the folks disagreeing with his advice have actually had EMT training and experience. Most all have had first aid training, which is required in my fair state (don't move here) if you work in the woods. 

And yup, I'll get defensive when inaccurate info is given. That needs to be pointed out, And yup, I've been wrong a few times too. I've never ever been told to give diabetics insulin shots. The only creatures I've given shots to are horses and cows. 

Anyhow, decide for yourself, I need to go for a walk. I've been horking up my lungs since Christmas and am finally starting to feel normal.


----------



## stihl sawing (Jan 16, 2015)

Wannabe123 said:


> No need for drastic measures. I for one will behave.


Can I get that in writing?


----------



## Wannabe123 (Jan 16, 2015)

stihl sawing said:


> Can I get that in writing?



e-writing is all I can manage. Just don't want to be banned before I find out once and for all what the best 2stroke oil is and what ratio I need.

Slowp, a good bracing walk will do wonders for ya. Enjoy!


----------



## KenJax Tree (Jan 16, 2015)

Only on AS could a thread about burning pine start a war


----------



## svk (Jan 16, 2015)

I'm cutting more Norway pine this weekend. When you cut it green in below freezing temps there is zero sap to worry about. I just need to remember not to stack it in the rack on my deck until it is seasoned so I dont have drips all over the deck once the summer sun shows up.


----------



## Wannabe123 (Jan 16, 2015)

KenJax Tree said:


> Only on AS could a thread about burning pine start a war


Or really anything about firewood in general.

Back to the topic, I burn (or used to, again, homeless at the moment, house I am heading to has a pellet stove which I hate) lots of white pine. My theory to avoid the dreaded creosote was to burn it hot and mix about 1/3 pine to 2/3 hardwood over the year. Now I wonder, does it make more sense to mix my hardwood and pine in the same load, adjusting the ratio to desired heat output, or to burn straight pine when I can and straight hardwood when I need more heat? Does it make any difference do you think?


----------



## RedShift42 (Jan 16, 2015)

Here at the southern end of Alaska's Kenai peninsula our primary burning wood is spruce, accounting for prob 90% of the local trees. Interestingly, get 70 miles north and spruce is in the minority, replaced by vast stands of birch. (We Homer-oids suffer terrible woodpile envy when we go up the road.) 

About a dozen years ago the spruce bark beetle infestation devastated the old growth, taking countless acres/miles of forest, altering the region's landscape. 
Although it is sad to see how much beauty was stripped from the area, it was a boon for the many wood burners. We're now at the tail end of harvestable beetle kill though, having to work for our firewood again.
The stuff is a bugger to split, but on the upside, that knottiness helps compensate for spruce's relatively low BTUs. 


Sent from my iPhoon using Tapatalk


----------



## stihl sawing (Jan 16, 2015)

Wannabe123 said:


> e-writing is all I can manage. Just don't want to be banned before I find out once and for all what the best 2stroke oil is and what ratio I need.
> 
> Slowp, a good bracing walk will do wonders for ya. Enjoy!


Well I don't see nothing here to ban anyone over. But since you ask Stihl Ultra is the best.


----------



## Wannabe123 (Jan 16, 2015)

stihl sawing said:


> Well I don't see nothing here to ban anyone over. But since you ask Stihl Ultra is the best.


But what about the FD rating? Will it prevent creosote from burning pine all the time?


----------



## svk (Jan 16, 2015)

stihl sawing said:


> Well I don't see nothing here to ban anyone over. But since you ask Stihl Ultra is the best.


There's some 2 stroke oil that starts with A. I hear you can mix it at 300:1 and the engine will last for 40 years minimum.....


----------



## Pulp (Jan 16, 2015)

Wannabe123 said:


> So start talking about firewood.
> Wood wood wood, I love wood. How much moisture should be in my pine when I burn it for free in Ohio after splitting it with a 6 lb ( or is it 8) maul while scrounging it from the PNW?



Wood, wood. Where is Woodbooga you all talk about ?
More wood. 
Wood.


----------



## stihl sawing (Jan 16, 2015)

We burned white pine all winter one time, It was well seasoned and dried out, it went fast but never had trouble with creosote. Only reason I don't like it is it don't last very long. no overnight burns with it.


----------



## Del_ (Jan 16, 2015)

Not only with softwoods but with the lighter woods like tulip poplar I leave it in much larger pieces but do split some down small for starting and rekindling fires. I'll season yellow pine for two years and can get a piece through the front two doors of the stove that is just a little over 10 inches in diameter. On a bed of coals it takes off and burns for a quite a long time. The stove doesn't put out maximum heat output during this burn (50%?) so it's best not to do it when heat demand is high.


----------



## stihl sawing (Jan 16, 2015)

I will never say I would not burn pine again, cause one day may have too but long as their plenty of oak and hardwoods the pine will stay in the woods. Another reason I don't like pine is I cut most of my wood in the summer and the sticky pine tar gets on everything.


----------



## svk (Jan 16, 2015)

I've noticed that white pine likes to break off higher up the tree in wind storms and when the tree or branches hit the ground they literally shatter. I suppose the stuff is so light there just isn't enough strength there. As opposed to jack or norway pine where it takes a lot to break one and usually the root ball comes with due to the rocky ground it was growing in.


----------



## djones (Jan 16, 2015)

White pine, yellow pine and hemlock come out of my woods a lot. Some spruce, try to use them early and late in the season but this year I'll be in to them by the end of this month or early next month when the hard woods are gone.


----------



## dumbarky (Jan 16, 2015)

We burn a considerable amount of eastern red cedar. I cut a lot of cedar for the local log mills. There are always scraps and blocks and such left over at the prep site. Since I don't like to waste anything if its big enough to make a stick out of we load it up with the other furnace wood and it burns. I am sure it doesn't have the same btu's but its part of the processing clean up.


----------



## dhskier2 (Jan 16, 2015)

svk said:


> When you cut it green in below freezing temps there is zero sap to worry about.



I just got done tipping over 8 (good sized for here) Doug-fir for a friend. Full of mistle toe, real bad. Doug-fir is no piss fir, but it was nice not dealing with any sap.


----------



## dhskier2 (Jan 16, 2015)

So as to stay on topic and not hurt Pulps feelings, I should mention that I'll be loading it up next week and burning it next winter.


----------



## olyman (Jan 16, 2015)

ponyexpress976 said:


> I've burned about 2.5 cords of white and several varieties of spruce. It's the "great hurricane experiment" as we call it here. So many of them got knocked over so I figured I'd try burning it and either prove or disprove the myth that pine will only result in chimney fires and gunked up equipment. The one thing I can confirm is that my X27 and several chainsaws are permanently "tacky". Burned about a cord at the end of last year and the flue was no different than other years. Since pine seems to be the only wood you can still get on craigslist for free, I'll burn it here. Might as well sell the other stuff and make the money when I can as opposed to sending it up the chimney.


 with this post,,you just pissed off all the elitist wood snobs..................


----------



## olyman (Jan 16, 2015)

svk said:


> LOL...Guys here can give you lots of answers on that. I do find it funny that the tree services I've dealt with NEVER cut rounds uniformly, one is 12" and the next is 20".


 and not only that,, they cant cut straight either!!!!!


----------



## olyman (Jan 16, 2015)

svk said:


> Maybe we should start a thread called "Why you should move here"


----------



## olyman (Jan 16, 2015)

svk said:


> Lol, love your sense of humor.
> 
> If someone joins in and starts posting right away and more importantly doesn't show up with an attitude ie you or ambull01, you will fit in pretty quickly. If a guy posts here and there, people don't get to know him/her as quickly. I've seen pulp post sporadically and I haven't read enough to formulate an opinion on him. Some like slowp already have.


----------



## olyman (Jan 16, 2015)

svk said:


> This is no more off topic than the average thread 7 pages deep .


 GREAT!!! you now just pissed of the super king of this forum,, who loves to try and rule others..................


----------



## olyman (Jan 16, 2015)

Wannabe123 said:


> Should I use stihl suspenders when scrounging my creosote or 32:1 huskvarna chaps on my chipper?
> 
> Sorry, gotta take a break here. I got mulit-thread-inanity-itis.


----------



## olyman (Jan 16, 2015)

stihl sawing said:


> Well I don't see nothing here to ban anyone over. But since you ask Stihl Ultra is the best.


 ok gary goo....................


----------



## Pulp (Jan 16, 2015)

I am hurt. 
Yup, we do burn softwoods, only in the shoulder seasons. Never a problem with creosote with any wood
as long as you burn right. Right also that softwoods ( spruce and fir here in N. Maine ) crack in windy snow storms. An early November wet snow with gale winds dropped thousands of trees.


dhskier2 said:


> So as to stay on topic and *not hurt Pulps feelings*, I should mention that I'll be loading it up next week and burning it next winter.


And please, use grammatical marks correctly--it's *" Pulp's"* dammit. You write like a Fru Fru.
P.S. Bitterroot is Idaho ?


----------



## windthrown (Jan 16, 2015)

Del_ said:


> Some winters we heat with as much at 40% Leyland Cypress!
> 
> Of course we burn a lot of pine and other wood that most consider to be 'trash' woods.
> 
> ...



I have burned Leyland and Monterey cypress. Denser than most pines, smells up the house with cedar smell. The solid wood part is good, but the stuff I got had a lot of punky wood in the Leyland cypress that were like balsa wood.


----------



## windthrown (Jan 16, 2015)

Pulp said:


> OK, OK. Enough of the *"we pro"*, or *"big timber*", or *"pro fallers"* stuff.
> Enough of the *"Harry Homeowner"*, *"fru-fru"*, or *"weekend warrior"* fool talk.
> Many of us have done both so-called "pro" logging AND cutting firewood for ourselves. We don' need no stinkin' divisions here.
> Besides who the F knows who or what your C.V. or experience is ? Who ?
> ...



Hey look! Its another noob turd that won't flush wanting to start a fight...

You act like you own this forum. Well, do yah punk?


----------



## Wannabe123 (Jan 16, 2015)

Round 2............FIGHT!

FINISH HIM!


----------



## wndwlkr (Jan 16, 2015)

I wish I had some pine here. This Hedge is tough cutting.


----------



## benp (Jan 16, 2015)

wndwlkr said:


> I wish I had some pine here. This Hedge is tough cutting.



End of thread...you win.


----------



## svk (Jan 16, 2015)

I hear brush ape likes pine too.


----------



## Wannabe123 (Jan 16, 2015)

I hear brush ape thinks Hedge cutting is easy and anyone who says otherwise is a wimp (and I don't even know who brush ape is, but his reputation speaks loudly)


----------



## windthrown (Jan 16, 2015)

Pulp said:


> Drama Queens.
> Who's counting posts or 'seniority' ?
> Hey, do any of these PP's ( Putdown Pros ) need to demean anyone ?
> We're talking wood heating fercripssake; not "mine is bigger than yours" .
> Maybe SlowP (whoever she really is) will love us Fru-Fru, Hommies.



Talk about drama queens, is that you back here again, Fru-Fru Brush Ape?

WTF is a fru-fru hommie, anyway? Is this your picture that I posted here an eternity ago?


----------



## maine (Jan 16, 2015)

Pulp said:


> I am hurt.
> Yup, we do burn softwoods, only in the shoulder seasons. Never a problem with creosote with any wood
> as long as you burn right. Right also that softwoods ( spruce and fir here in N. Maine ) crack in windy snow storms. An early November wet snow with gale winds dropped thousands of trees.
> 
> ...




seems like we have one of these bad ice storms at least once a decade.

i remember the one in the 90s was a lot worse, at least down here in the midcoast maine area.

this last one we just had a couple months ago left me without power for about a week.


----------



## windthrown (Jan 16, 2015)

Oh and Pulp Fiction, this is a pro arborist site, BTW. Perhaps you should consider limiting your posting to the "Homeowner Helper Forum" on this site? Maybe you should also consider not using something as dangerous as a chainsaw, or you might get yourself killed. Also you might want to post on some other more touchey-feelie sensitive wood cutting site, like say, Saw Haw gz (one word) dot com? I think they would be more than happy to help you out with your kind of feisty savvy over there.


----------



## Ambull01 (Jan 16, 2015)

Pulp said:


> OK, OK. Enough of the *"we pro"*, or *"big timber*", or *"pro fallers"* stuff.
> Enough of the *"Harry Homeowner"*, *"fru-fru"*, or *"weekend warrior"* fool talk.
> Many of us have done both so-called "pro" logging AND cutting firewood for ourselves. We don' need no stinkin' divisions here.
> Besides who the F knows who or what your C.V. or experience is ? Who ?
> ...



Where the hell did this come from? I saw no reason for this idiotic post. 



stihl sawing said:


> I will never say I would not burn pine again, cause one day may have too but long as their plenty of oak and hardwoods the pine will stay in the woods. Another reason I don't like pine is I cut most of my wood in the summer and the sticky pine tar gets on everything.



When you're burning hardwoods, do you still mix in some soft/faster burning species? I ask because I've been experimenting this year with wood burning. When I load the wood insert with red oak, it's a pain to get started! I usually have to place a few splits of poplar with the red oak just to get it going. When I build up a good bed of coals then I can load it up with red oak. 



windthrown said:


> Oh and Pulp Fiction, this is a pro arborist site, BTW. Perhaps you should consider limiting your posting to the "Homeowner Helper Forum" on this site? Maybe you should also *consider not using something as dangerous as a chainsaw, or you might get yourself killed*. Also you might want to post on some other more touchey-feelie sensitive wood cutting site, like say, Saw Haw gz (one word) dot com? I think they would be more than happy to help you out with your kind of feisty savvy over there.



Well this site probably saved my life. I've done some seriously stupid **** with a chainsaw. After finding this site I'm much more safety conscious. You Tube is filled with a ton of tree falling fails but I just never thought about searching for them. Think it may have been your thread/post that has a dude taking down 3-4 trees at one time. Started on one and made it barber chair then he moved on to another that was leaning a bit. Anyway, before finding this site I probably would have done something similar lol. My point in this whole ramble is I'm glad this site isn't restricted to pro arborists.


----------



## svk (Jan 16, 2015)

Where you been @Ambull01 ? You missed all of the fun today


----------



## slowp (Jan 16, 2015)

I did not know that firewood was an arborist site. I are not one.


----------



## stihl sawing (Jan 16, 2015)

Ambull01 said:


> Where the hell did this come from? I saw no reason for this idiotic post.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Nah, I use the cheap firestarters at wal mart, but once the stove gets fired it rarely goes out. I have used pine knots before. they work pretty good.


----------



## Ambull01 (Jan 16, 2015)

svk said:


> Where you been @Ambull01 ? You missed all of the fun today



Dude, I'm having some serious issues with the notifications! Didn't realize Pulp graced us with his presence lol. I've been working on the Poulan 375 to get it ready for my move to Washington state. 

As for firewood, I just missed out on a pretty big score of Leyland Cypress. I didn't think you could actually burn that stuff so I passed. I'm learning you can burn just about anything as long as it's cured.


----------



## Ambull01 (Jan 16, 2015)

stihl sawing said:


> Nah, I use the cheap firestarters at wal mart, but once the stove gets fired it rarely goes out. I have used pine knots before. they work pretty good.



I see. So I guess some type of firestarter may be needed with hardwoods. With the poplar I can start it easily (top down, bottom up, paper and kindling, etc). I've tried the Super Cedars, they seem to be the best. Also used the fat wood stuff, they're okay but they put out a lot of black smoke that clings to the firebrick. The blackish residue burns up once the fire gets going but it makes me a bit nervous what it's doing further up the flue.


----------



## stihl sawing (Jan 16, 2015)

You can start dry oak with paper, but those starters are cheap and will start a fire in a rainstorm. I would probably still use them with pine too.


----------



## Ambull01 (Jan 16, 2015)

svk said:


> Where you been @Ambull01 ? You missed all of the fun today



Oh yeah, I was wondering about this while tinkering with the chainsaw (sometimes I keep myself up at night because I can't stop thinking about things lol). You live in a place no human should. Too damn cold up there. What is your burning season? I figure for me it will be about Oct/Nov to maybe March/April.


----------



## windthrown (Jan 16, 2015)

You should have taken the Leyland. Not the best firewood, but way above the worst. Good shoulder season wood. I use the punky Leyland to start fires with. One sheet of crumpled up newspaper and a chunk of punky cypress on it, and wallah!


----------



## Ambull01 (Jan 16, 2015)

stihl sawing said:


> You can start dry oak with paper, but those starters are cheap and will start a fire in a rainstorm. I would probably still use them with pine too.



That might be my whole issue, I'm not totally sure this red oak is 20% or below. I may just break down and buy the Super Cedars. My wife sucks at starting fires and is so stubborn she'll never listen to my recommendations. I've been reading about chainsaws, bucking, splitting, elitist stoves, White Spider physics discussions, firewood, etc for months. I've received advice from fru fru hommies, pro arborists, weekend hacks, etc. All this and she still keeps the primary air wide open the whole burn cycle and puts in one damn split at a time!!!


----------



## Ambull01 (Jan 16, 2015)

windthrown said:


> You should have taken the Leyland. Not the best firewood, but way above the worst. Good shoulder season wood. I use the punky Leyland to start fires with. One sheet of crumpled up newspaper and a chunk of punky cypress on it, and wallah!



Okay I'll contact the dude again. I'll just have to apologize and go to his house with my tail between my legs. I will not let pride stand in the way of free firewood. 

I keep hearing shoulder season and I'm still not sure exactly where that comes from. I get the fact it's referring to a mildly cold day but where does the whole "shoulder" part come from?


----------



## Deleted member 83629 (Jan 16, 2015)

i burn the free pine that nobody wants a guy in town cut one up and nobody wanted the wood i took all the pine he had.
beats a snow ball.


----------



## steved (Jan 16, 2015)

Ambull01 said:


> I see. So I guess some type of firestarter may be needed with hardwoods. With the poplar I can start it easily (top down, bottom up, paper and kindling, etc). I've tried the Super Cedars, they seem to be the best. Also used the fat wood stuff, they're okay but they put out a lot of black smoke that clings to the firebrick. The blackish residue burns up once the fire gets going but it makes me a bit nervous what it's doing further up the flue.


I mix pine and hardwood, straight grain pine is easy to split with a hatchet for fast lighting kindling. I mix all of it, I'm not picky...if the stove goes out, the furnace comes on. I light the stove the next morning, back in business.


----------



## windthrown (Jan 16, 2015)

Ambull01 said:


> That might be my whole issue, I'm not totally sure this red oak is 20% or below. I may just break down and buy the Super Cedars. My wife sucks at starting fires and is so stubborn she'll never listen to my recommendations. I've been reading about chainsaws, bucking, splitting, elitist stoves, White Spider physics discussions, firewood, etc for months. I've received advice from fru fru hommies, pro arborists, weekend hacks, etc. All this and she still keeps the primary air wide open the whole burn cycle and puts in one damn split at a time!!!




Eeep! Primary wide open = overfiring! Also no heat in house + fast burning. I usually burn 2 to 3 splits at a time here, damped down all the way most of the time. Some of my splits are large though. Red oak should burn good and hot, but it may be harder to start. Once it coals up you have a fire that will go forever, just toss a new log onto the hot oak coals every so often, and fill the stove at night. They should burst into flames when they hit the coals if they are dry enough.

Digital display moisture meters are cheap. Ebay... 2-pin Chicom digital tester, $12:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/2-Pins-LCD-...667?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item565aabdf1b

Split a red oak log and test the freshly exposed center. These meters are only accurate within 2% as they are calibrated for Doug fir, but they should be in the ballpark.


----------



## steved (Jan 16, 2015)

windthrown said:


> Eeep! Primary wide open = overfiring! Also no heat in house + fast burning. I usually burn 2 to 3 splits at a time here, damped down all the way most of the time. Some of my splits are large though. Red oak should burn good and hot, but it may be harder to start. Once it coals up you have a fire that will go forever, just toss a new log onto the hot oak coals every so often, and fill the stove at night. They should burst into flames when they hit the coals if they are dry enough.
> 
> Digital display moisture meters are cheap. Ebay... 2-pin Chicom digital tester, $12:
> 
> ...


I run mine wide open for almost everything, but mine has an auto draft...not all stoves are the same, so its not a one size fits all.


----------



## windthrown (Jan 16, 2015)

Ambull01 said:


> Okay I'll contact the dude again. I'll just have to apologize and go to his house with my tail between my legs. I will not let pride stand in the way of free firewood.
> 
> I keep hearing shoulder season and I'm still not sure exactly where that comes from. I get the fact it's referring to a mildly cold day but where does the whole "shoulder" part come from?



Do not apologize, just say that you have been informed about your ignorance and have changed your mind. Tell them it was Windthrown's fault. Most things are, according to my ex! 

Shoulder season is a term that (according to theory, legend, & grape vine) started in the hotel industry in Europe. It was used to describe the sloping off seasons heading up to and falling off from the summer high tourist season. Meaning spring and fall. In terms of firewood, it refers to the seasons when heating is not so critical and temperatures are more mild. Here in Oregon that is usually September and October, and April and May. It varies a lot here from year to year though. In 2013/14 I started burning in mid-September, and stopped in June. In 2014/15 I started burning at the end of October, and it is mild enough now (mid 40s tonight) to burn lighter wood. I am burning cypress now, as a matta of fact. I am burning white oak on colder days.


----------



## Chris-PA (Jan 16, 2015)

I will burn any kind of wood. No pine tonight though, not when it's at single digits and I have hickory.



steved said:


> I've been getting pine trees from peoples' yards...its hard to find a "stand" of pine in Pennsylvania.


Especially after Sandy. I didn't know a storm could be programmed to take out conifers!



svk said:


> I hear brush ape likes pine too.


Near as I can tell BA has been posting in this thread under two names, including having conversations with himself.


----------



## svk (Jan 16, 2015)

Chris-PA said:


> Near as I can tell BA has been posting in this thread under two names, including having conversations with himself.


I think a few of us caught wind of that one


----------



## Mr Anderson (Jan 16, 2015)

Cupressus macrocarpa (Monterey cypress) and Pinus radiata (Monterey pine) is the easiest accessible fire wood speces in nz. When you cut and split older (non plantation) pine there is huge amounts of sap in the wood. 
Mr Anderson


----------



## windthrown (Jan 16, 2015)

Mr Anderson said:


> Cupressus macrocarpa (Monterey cypress) and Pinus radiata (Monterey pine) is the easiest accessible fire wood speces in nz. When you cut and split older (non plantation) pine there is huge amounts of sap in the wood.
> Mr Anderson



When I lived in Monterey, CA I burned a lot of Monterey pine and Monterey cypress there, as well as California live oak (which is the best wood I have ever burned) and eucalyptus. Monterey pine is a trash species there along with its close cousins Knobcone and Bishop pines. In CA they are not grown for timber like down under. Leyland cypress is a cross between Monterey cypress and Alaska cedar (which is really a cypress).

Oh, and welcome... Mr. Anderson...


----------



## Ambull01 (Jan 16, 2015)

windthrown said:


> Eeep! Primary wide open = overfiring! Also no heat in house + fast burning. I usually burn 2 to 3 splits at a time here, damped down all the way most of the time. Some of my splits are large though. Red oak should burn good and hot, but it may be harder to start. Once it coals up you have a fire that will go forever, just toss a new log onto the hot oak coals every so often, and fill the stove at night. They should burst into flames when they hit the coals if they are dry enough.
> 
> Digital display moisture meters are cheap. Ebay... 2-pin Chicom digital tester, $12:
> 
> ...





windthrown said:


> Do not apologize, just say that you have been informed about your ignorance and have changed your mind. Tell them it was Windthrown's fault. Most things are, according to my ex!
> 
> Shoulder season is a term that (according to theory, legend, & grape vine) started in the hotel industry in Europe. It was used to describe the sloping off seasons heading up to and falling off from the summer high tourist season. Meaning spring and fall. In terms of firewood, it refers to the seasons when heating is not so critical and temperatures are more mild. Here in Oregon that is usually September and October, and April and May. It varies a lot here from year to year though. In 2013/14 I started burning in mid-September, and stopped in June. In 2014/15 I started burning at the end of October, and it is mild enough now (mid 40s tonight) to burn lighter wood. I am burning cypress now, as a matta of fact. I am burning white oak on colder days.



Interesting. Went on a honeymoon to Ireland with the first wife. I think they called it the low season or something like that. Probably just used that term because we are American and didn't want to confuse our little brains by saying shoulder season. I've tried to forget all my memories of that ill fated marriage because, I know everyone says this, she really is a crazy b word. 

For some reason I thought you lived in WA. I think my burning season will be about the same as yours. Sept/Oct - Mar/Apr or May. 



Chris-PA said:


> I will burn any kind of wood. No pine tonight though, not when it's at single digits and I have hickory.
> 
> 
> Especially after Sandy. I didn't know a storm could be programmed to take out conifers!
> ...



I wonder if confiers have a smaller root system? There may have been a tornado or something here during the summer. Or just a really unusual storm. It had the most lightning I've ever seen and strong winds. Tree branches broke off all over the place with a lot of conifer species resting on homes. 

Kind of weird if that's the same dude. One alter ego tries to start an argument and the other tries to come across as a likeable chap. Schizophrenic? 



windthrown said:


> When I lived in Monterey, CA I burned a lot of Monterey pine and Monterey cypress there, as well as California live oak (which is the best wood I have ever burned) and eucalyptus. Monterey pine is a trash species there along with its close cousins Knobcone and Bishop pines. In CA they are not grown for timber like down under. Leyland cypress is a cross between Monterey cypress and Alaska cedar (which is really a cypress).
> 
> Oh, and welcome... Mr. Anderson...
> View attachment 395258



How the hell do you remember all this? Do you still own copies of Encyclopedia Britannicas?


----------



## slowp (Jan 16, 2015)

_"How the hell do you remember all this? Do you still own copies of Encyclopedia Britannicas_?"

That isn't hard to remember if you work in it.


----------



## Gologit (Jan 16, 2015)

Ambull01 said:


> Kind of weird if that's the same dude. One alter ego tries to start an argument and the other tries to come across as a likeable chap. Schizophrenic?



No, just an ass-hole.

Back on topic...doug fir, pondersosa pine, cedar, and white fir if I can't find anything else.
We have a lot of good oak, madrone, and almond available so the soft wood is just for quick warmups and short fires if we're leaving the house.


----------



## svk (Jan 16, 2015)

Gologit said:


> No, just an **** head.
> 
> Back on topic...doug fir, pondersosa pine, cedar, and white fir if I can't find anything else.
> We have a lot of good oak, madrone, and almond available so the soft wood is just for quick warmups and short fires if we're leaving the house.


Hey gologit....how many times did you ban BA when you were a mod? I see overclocked was banned for about 24 hours before the next reincarnation showed up.


----------



## Gologit (Jan 16, 2015)

svk said:


> Hey gologit....how many times did you ban BA when you were a mod? I see overclocked was banned for about 24 hours before the next reincarnation showed up.



I lost track of how many user names he had and how many times he was banned under each name. Many user names, many bannings.
He'd run crying to the owners and they'd reinstate him. He'd be good for a while and then start his old behavior again.
Nothing much has changed. He's registered here with at least four different accounts that I know of. I just add them to my IGNORE list as they appear.


----------



## windthrown (Jan 16, 2015)

Ambull01 said:


> Interesting. Went on a honeymoon to Ireland with the first wife. I think they called it the low season or something like that. Probably just used that term because we are American and didn't want to confuse our little brains by saying shoulder season. I've tried to forget all my memories of that ill fated marriage because, I know everyone says this, she really is a crazy b word.



You were married to my ex at one time? Funny, she never mentioned Ireland. 



Ambull01 said:


> For some reason I thought you lived in WA. I think my burning season will be about the same as yours. Sept/Oct - Mar/Apr or May.



No no, I live in Oregon. Northern Oregon, west of Mt Hood and within site of the Washington cascades though, not too far south of the Columbia River Gorge. I go up to Washington a lot to get nursery stock, run the rivers in my kayak, rock hound, and to buy stuff on Craigslist.



Ambull01 said:


> I wonder if confiers have a smaller root system? There may have been a tornado or something here during the summer. Or just a really unusual storm. It had the most lightning I've ever seen and strong winds. Tree branches broke off all over the place with a lot of conifer species resting on homes.



Many types of conifers have shallower root systems than other types of trees. Leyland cypress trees are known to topple over because they get top-heavy and the root systems cannot support them.



Ambull01 said:


> Kind of weird if that's the same dude. One alter ego tries to start an argument and the other tries to come across as a likeable chap. Schizophrenic?



Multiple personality disorder... We have had that happen here before. There as a fellow by the name of Talon here that apparently had many AS login names. They supposedly collapsed all his user IDs into Talon, and he left the site. Brush Ape was banned from AS and has since gone rogue, and has logged in as other users. Its the internet. I could be some goon in prison for all that anyone here knows. Though I have met a lot of people on here in person at the PNW GTGs, including Bob/Gologit. There have been con artists that have logged in here wanting to sell stuff too, and we have flushed them out pretty fast.



Ambull01 said:


> How the hell do you remember all this? Do you still own copies of Encyclopedia Britannicas?



Well, I have a long history and background, including being an electronics engineer, but I have owned several landscaping and arborist business in Oregon and California. I have owned and operated several plant nurseries, and I have certificates in ornamental horticulture and silviculture. When I joined this site I was living with my ex on a 100+ acre sheep ranch and forest site in the boonies in Southern Oregon. She sent me to silviculture school at OSU in Roseburg and I managed 85 acres of trees there, as well as 100 acres for our neighbor. We burned firewood there, and I have been burning firewood for the past 12 years or so now. I have since bought property here in northern Oregon and I have a small woodland lot here in the boonies. There are lots of boonies in the PNW.


----------



## Ambull01 (Jan 16, 2015)

slowp said:


> _"How the hell do you remember all this? Do you still own copies of Encyclopedia Britannicas_?"
> 
> That isn't hard to remember if you work in it.



Well I beg to differ. I work in finance so I constantly use Excel. If I'm out of the office for a week or more it takes me a while to relearn what I'm doing. For someone to remember all this stuff they kind of have to love it. Probably why he's on an arborist forum lol.


----------



## slowp (Jan 16, 2015)

Ambull01 said:


> Well I beg to differ. I work in finance so I constantly use Excel. If I'm out of the office for a week or more it takes me a while to relearn what I'm doing. For someone to remember all this stuff they kind of have to love it. Probably why he's on an arborist forum lol.



Well, most of us didn't work in the woods because we hated it. But I'm not an arborist, just a retired "forester" and ended up working with those poor old loggers, who were just trying to make ends meet.....


----------



## H-Ranch (Jan 16, 2015)

slowp said:


> Well, most of us didn't work in the woods because we hated it. But I'm not an arborist, just a retired "forester" and ended up working with those poor old loggers, who were just trying to make ends meet.....


What happened to your belief that everyone has plenty of cash to throw around on chainsaws and guns instead of buying fuel to heat their home?


----------



## slowp (Jan 16, 2015)

H-Ranch said:


> What happened to your belief that everyone has plenty of cash to throw around on chainsaws and guns instead of buying fuel to heat their home?



Another drama king who doesn't get it.... good night.


----------



## slowp (Jan 16, 2015)

Here is where, poor old logger, trying to make ends meet comes from...(humor)


----------



## dhskier2 (Jan 17, 2015)

windthrown said:


> Many types of conifers have shallower root systems than other types of trees.





Ambull01 said:


> I wonder if confiers have a smaller root system? ...It had the most lightning I've ever seen and strong winds. Tree branches broke off all over the place with a lot of conifer species resting on homes.



Add shallower roots to a routinely watered urban setting and you get even more shallow lateral root growth. No wonder you saw so many propped up on houses after the storm.


----------



## Mr Anderson (Jan 17, 2015)

Thanks windthrown. Joe blogs rate monterey macrocarpa better than monterey pine. I find older pine puts out more heat for longer than macrocarpa. Young pine is not very dense when dry. 
Mr Anderson


----------



## slowp (Jan 17, 2015)

Different species of conifers have different root depths and patterns. A Ponderosa Pine has a deep tap root as it grows naturally in a drier climate. On the wet side, the preferred tree to use for tailholds because of root strength and wood strength is our Doug-fir. Spruce tend to be shallow rooted. I walked through a spruce shelterwood cut after a windy winter and it wasn't pretty. Opening up a stand of trees--thinning makes those trees more prone to blowing over for a couple of years. The crowns need to close in and the roots strengthen. We cross our fingers hoping that no wind events occur after commercial thins. There are root rots which weaken the roots and make a tree susceptible to blowing over or breaking off. One kind causes breaking at the roots and another breaks off the tree at the stump or somewhere along the bole. 

Trees along the edge of a clearcut are at risk. They do not have branches like open grown trees do and their crowns act like sails catching the wind and tipping them over.

If the weather forecast is correct, expect more blowdown this weekend in the PNW. Such storms attract the die hard firewood cutters because a tree blocking the road can be cut at least the width of the road for firewood no matter what management area it is in. 
.


----------



## dhskier2 (Jan 17, 2015)

Chris-PA said:


> Near as I can tell BA has been posting in this thread under two names, including having conversations with himself.





Ambull01 said:


> Kind of weird if that's the same dude. One alter ego tries to start an argument and the other tries to come across as a likeable chap. Schizophrenic?



Am I missing something here? Slowp, windthrown, and myself are the only ones with some forms of back and forth with pulp...
Am I the alterego, or did I miss a post and am just confused?


----------



## windthrown (Jan 17, 2015)

Its all designed to be confusing. That is the Brush Ape way. Ignore it.


----------



## Pulp (Jan 17, 2015)

windthrown said:


> Oh and Pulp Fiction, this is a pro arborist site, BTW. Perhaps you should consider limiting your posting to the "Homeowner Helper Forum" on this site? Maybe you should also consider not using something as dangerous as a chainsaw, or you might get yourself killed. Also you might want to post on some other more touchey-feelie sensitive wood cutting site, like say, Saw Haw gz (one word) dot com? I think they would be more than happy to help you out with your kind of feisty savvy over there.



Whoa big boy. Breathe. Forget your meds this morning ?
You got panties riding up.
Recall that this part of the site is about heating with wood, not your over the top bragging about being a "pro"......maybe.
Back off. 
The "Pro Arborist" Forum is available Windy. But you're not there...why ? You use wood to heat ?


----------



## Chris-PA (Jan 17, 2015)

dhskier2 said:


> Am I missing something here? Slowp, windthrown, and myself are the only ones with some forms of back and forth with pulp...
> Am I the alterego, or did I miss a post and am just confused?


Sorry, not you - there were other interactions.


----------



## Chris-PA (Jan 17, 2015)

Gologit said:


> I lost track of how many user names he had and how many times he was banned under each name. Many user names, many bannings.
> He'd run crying to the owners and they'd reinstate him. He'd be good for a while and then start his old behavior again.
> Nothing much has changed. He's registered here with at least four different accounts that I know of. I just add them to my IGNORE list as they appear.


Yeah, no matter how hard he tries to hide it, he's still himself.


----------



## Chris-PA (Jan 17, 2015)

Ambull01 said:


> I wonder if conifers have a smaller root system?


I'm pretty ignorant about conifers in general, as we really don't have many in this part of PA, and from what I have seen even in small areas they tend to die and be overwhelmed by vines and invasive species. The hardwoods are struggling too, but seem to hold up better. 

As for the root strength, they did seem to fall over with root balls intact. Then again, we've lost so many big oaks the same way in the last few years I've lost count. The Tulips seem to be much stronger than the oaks - perhaps because there is less mass up top.


----------



## slowp (Jan 17, 2015)

Chris-PA said:


> I'm pretty ignorant about conifers in general, as we really don't have many in this part of PA, and from what I have seen even in small areas they tend to die and be overwhelmed by vines and invasive species. The hardwoods are struggling too, but seem to hold up better.
> 
> As for the root strength, they did seem to fall over with root balls intact. Then again, we've lost so many big oaks the same way in the last few years I've lost count. The Tulips seem to be much stronger than the oaks - perhaps because there is less mass up top.



It also depends on soils and moisture and exposure. A wolf tree which is a tree grown out in the open without competition will have live branches to the ground and will resist the wind well because the wind can't get underneath and lift the tree up. The opposite is true for leave trees in a cut unit. On our coast, buffers are required to be left along streams when clearcutting. Often, those buffers blow down after a few years. We can get away with leaving buffers and leave trees here in the more inland areas.
I've been watching one hillside grow that was cut in 1980 something with big, DF wildlife trees left and spaced throughout. We all thought those would blow over. They are still standing today. It can be a crap shoot. On other units, where ratty hemlocks are left for bird trees, those go down pretty fast.


----------



## dhskier2 (Jan 17, 2015)

windthrown said:


> Its all designed to be confusing. That is the Brush Ape way. Ignore it.





Chris-PA said:


> Sorry, not you - there were other interactions.



Alright, thanks for clearing that up. I thought for a moment I was gonna have to go on the defensive or something.


----------



## windthrown (Jan 17, 2015)

dhskier2 said:


> Alright, thanks for clearing that up. I thought for a moment I was gonna have to go on the defensive or something.



Do not worry about it. Just put the wood pulp in your ignore file as Bob recommends and you will not see his posts, his comments, or get PMs from him. He knows way too much about things here to be a noob, and as Chris says he is his old self, all over again. Though I think there are several versions of his personality. It must be a 3 ring circus in his head.


----------



## Gologit (Jan 17, 2015)

windthrown said:


> Do not worry about it. Just put the wood pulp in your ignore file as Bob recommends and you will not see his posts, his comments, or get PMs from him. He knows way too much about things here to be a noob, and as Chris says he is his old self, all over again. Though I think there are several versions of his personality. It must be a 3 ring circus in his head.



Exactly right. If enough of us put him on IGNORE he'll pretty much cease to exist. If he doesn't get the attention he craves he'll go somewhere else.
We can hope.


----------



## regulate34 (Jan 17, 2015)

Pine and fir. A little birtch if I can


----------



## Ambull01 (Jan 18, 2015)

windthrown said:


> Multiple personality disorder... We have had that happen here before. There as a fellow by the name of Talon here that apparently had many AS login names. They supposedly collapsed all his user IDs into Talon, and he left the site. Brush Ape was banned from AS and has since gone rogue, and has logged in as other users. Its the internet. I could be some goon in prison for all that anyone here knows. Though I have met a lot of people on here in person at the PNW GTGs, including Bob/Gologit. There have been con artists that have logged in here wanting to sell stuff too, and we have flushed them out pretty fast.
> 
> Well, I have a long history and background, including being an electronics engineer, but I have owned several landscaping and arborist business in Oregon and California. I have owned and operated several plant nurseries, and I have certificates in ornamental horticulture and silviculture. When I joined this site I was living with my ex on a 100+ acre sheep ranch and forest site in the boonies in Southern Oregon. She sent me to silviculture school at OSU in Roseburg and I managed 85 acres of trees there, as well as 100 acres for our neighbor. We burned firewood there, and I have been burning firewood for the past 12 years or so now. I have since bought property here in northern Oregon and I have a small woodland lot here in the boonies. There are lots of boonies in the PNW.



Well Pulp is the first guy I've ignored here so far. Hope I don't have to ignore a lot of people, makes it interesting to read dissenting opinions. 

Anyway, have you found a lot of tree species that aren't supposed to be in the state? From the official MD website that lists all the trees in the state there's nothing about black locust. I see sellers advertising black locust firewood so I'm wondering where the hell they're getting it if it's not listed on the natural resources site.


----------



## treebilly (Jan 18, 2015)

Burning pine has always been a no no around here and was never sure why. Growing up my dad would burn anything in his insert( pine, pallets, construction scraps). Working as an arborist I have a pretty good supply of hard wood so I've never tried it. Maybe next season when I either have a newer stove and chimney or OWB. I have about 10 cord of Norway spruce that's been cut to 16' lengths, stacked, and covered for about 8 years that I need to make disappear. I could cut down on my hardwood use age leaving me more to sell. Anyway, it's not creosote I'm worried about, it's the high flame that scares me. My chimney only has a clay liner.


----------



## steved (Jan 18, 2015)

treebilly said:


> Burning pine has always been a no no around here and was never sure why. Growing up my dad would burn anything in his insert( pine, pallets, construction scraps). Working as an arborist I have a pretty good supply of hard wood so I've never tried it. Maybe next season when I either have a newer stove and chimney or OWB. I have about 10 cord of Norway spruce that's been cut to 16' lengths, stacked, and covered for about 8 years that I need to make disappear. I could cut down on my hardwood use age leaving me more to sell. Anyway, it's not creosote I'm worried about, it's the high flame that scares me. My chimney only has a clay liner.


Yeah, some pine I have flares up while other species don't...in a glass front stove, it can be pretty impressive to watch.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G730A using Tapatalk


----------



## windthrown (Jan 18, 2015)

Ambull01 said:


> Anyway, have you found a lot of tree species that aren't supposed to be in the state? From the official MD website that lists all the trees in the state there's nothing about black locust. I see sellers advertising black locust firewood so I'm wondering where the hell they're getting it if it's not listed on the natural resources site.



We have a long list of invasive species in this state. Black locust is fairly invasive. There are some black locust stands around here that are all that is left of some ghost towns in the Cascades, along the early Oregon trail routes. There is a lot of it in the burbs and cities here too, which are full of exotic and imported tree species. Tree of Heaven is a common invasive, as well as English hawthorn and English holly. Holly grows like a weed on my property here. There are several large holly farms out here where I live, they use it a lot of making Christmas wreathes. One property next to me is a tree nursery and all they grow are exotic conifer species. There are several X-mas tree farms near here as well, but most of those are natives. My property has mainly non-native species, planted by the original owners. Norway and Japanese maples, liquidambars, flowering and fruiting apple, pear, plum, and cherry trees. I also have native pines and birch trees.


----------



## Jon1212 (Jan 18, 2015)

svk said:


> Lol, love your sense of humor.
> 
> If someone joins in and starts posting right away and more importantly doesn't show up with an attitude ie you or ambull01, you will fit in pretty quickly. If a guy posts here and there, people don't get to know him/her as quickly. I've seen pulp post sporadically and I haven't read enough to formulate an opinion on him. Some like slowp already have.



I have a bunch of posts, and am generally disliked by those that lack an appreciation for sarcasm, or have met me in person.


----------



## PheasantHunter (Jan 18, 2015)

Mostly Doug fir (80%), some subalpine fir (5%) (but only because it is on the property and dead), lodgepole (10%) is better than I thought. The rest Western larch when I can find it.


----------



## Pulp (Jan 19, 2015)

Jon1212 said:


> I have a bunch of posts, and am generally disliked by those that lack an appreciation for sarcasm, or have met me in person.



Agreed. We're all faceless blobs, anons online. Some of these braggards may be 9 Y.O. girls in mommies basement. Who knows ? 
No need to demean or put down, or little babe name -calling. Read "fru-fru", " HAarry Homeowner", "Weekend Warrior" while
bleating about how "pro" one is. Delete all this and tell us what you know.
So these "pros" throw bombs, but can't take the talk back. Thin skins. Enough. Let's talk wood, give info, learn, have fun.


----------



## Del_ (Jan 19, 2015)

Gologit said:


> Exactly right. If enough of us put him on IGNORE he'll pretty much cease to exist. If he doesn't get the attention he craves he'll go somewhere else.
> We can hope.



Just added him. (Pulp)


----------



## Jon1212 (Jan 19, 2015)

Del_ said:


> Just added him. (Pulp)


Del_,

Thanks for specifying.


----------



## slowp (Jan 20, 2015)

I think he's mutated again. A post in his style has come up on the F&L forum as a new member today.


----------



## slowp (Jan 20, 2015)

Don't feel bad. The Seattle TV news people don't know the difference between a pine and a Doug-fir either.
http://www.komonews.com/news/local/...forces-family-to-find-new-home-289111371.html


----------



## Ambull01 (Jan 20, 2015)

Jon1212 said:


> I have a bunch of posts, and am generally disliked by those that lack an appreciation for sarcasm, or have met me in person.



Yep, I can see how many dislike you. Especially when you sell out the Sugi bars so quick and never carry something that will fit my Makita.


----------



## Jon1212 (Jan 20, 2015)

I wish we had more pine here, and less of these.



Central Utah Evergreen.


----------



## Ambull01 (Jan 20, 2015)

Jon1212 said:


> I wish we had more pine here, and less of these.
> 
> View attachment 396313
> 
> Central Utah Evergreen.



lmao. That's awesome. Probably easy to split. Stacking and handling may suck though. Of course you could get some Mormons to help out. There's two missionaries near me that follow along when I walk my dog. 

I'm hoping LDSS is the acronym for Latter Day Saint Sinner or something similar. If you're a good Mormon disregard my comment above.


----------



## benp (Jan 31, 2015)

Did I mention pitch? ........Giggle.







I hoard good Tamarack pieces like I do oak and sugar maple.

I threw some little split butt ends about 5-6" diameter into the stove the other night that I just cut and the outside of the piece became engulfed in a blue flame.

It was awesome.


----------



## ft. churchill (Jan 31, 2015)

Pinyon pine


----------



## DavdH (Jan 31, 2015)

Redwood, Douglass fir, Ponderosa Pine, Sugar Pine, tan-oak, madrone is my hardwood of choice. Any thing that will fit into the wood stove!!!!!


----------



## JackpineSap (Feb 1, 2015)

I burn a little white pine and lodgepole pine when I can get it, tried jackpine cause I have acres of it, but seems to make to much ash in my indoor wood boiler.


----------

