Eastern Cottonwood - not so bad after all...

DPDISXR4Ti · Dec 8, 2008

14 months ago I took down a couple 60-foot Cottonwoods on my property, literally 30 feet from my backdoor. Given the location, burning them was the obvious answer to their disposal, despite the bad rep that Cottonwood has as a firewood.

In the mean time I had heard some positive reviews of Cottonwood, but I was still skeptical. It seemed like such a wet wood, most of which I only got around to splitting ~3 months ago.

As I type this, Cottonwood is burning in the stove and supplying plenty of heat. It's burning very cleanly, as evidenced by the white ash residue on the glass door. Yes, it burns more quickly than Oak, but not terribly so. I just use the Oak logs as my over-nighters.

I'll still not travel any great distance for Cottonwood, but I think I've now increased the distance beyond 30 feet! :greenchainsaw:

chugbug · Dec 9, 2008

Sounds good , I'm glad your getting some heat from it !! After all the work of cutting it , its helping to heat your house . When I'm around the house on weekends I burn mostly pallet wood all day !! Cheap heat !!

Mike Van · Dec 9, 2008

Hey, if it's dry & makes heat, it beats paying opec :clap:

DPDISXR4Ti · Dec 9, 2008

Mike Van said:
Hey, if it's dry & makes heat, it beats paying opec

Not only that, but due to the wood stove, I haven't needed to place my annual oil delivery yet. I'm chasing the market right down to it's sub $2/gal price, last seen in 2003. And to think, earlier this year, we were worried that we might be paying $5/gal by this time.

Kansas · Dec 9, 2008

I like cottonwood it burns fast and hot and cuts and splits like a dream we have an abundance of it and even the big stuff is easy on the back!

Very few people here will pay for it or even harvest it, city folks just want expensive hardwoods for their fireplaces.

Kansas

Butch(OH) · Dec 9, 2008

DPDISXR4Ti said:
I'll still not travel any great distance for Cottonwood, but I think I've now increased the distance beyond 30 feet! :greenchainsaw:

LOL, Try some Buckeye and youll drive to the next state for some Cotton.

For years now I have burned mostly "junk" since my 53 acres of lowlands is covered with white Elm, Cotton, Sycamore, Willow and Buckeye. You get used to them after a while. When some kind sole gives me an oak or ash I save it for real cold days as when it gets below zero junkwood usage in the OWB gets a little large. Luckily but we dont see that often.

DPDISXR4Ti · Dec 9, 2008

Kansas said:
I like cottonwood it burns fast and hot and cuts and splits like a dream we have an abundance of it and even the big stuff is easy on the back!

Yep, I feel like Paul Bunyan out there when I'm splitting cottonwood, as long as I've given it some drying time first. And bringing a bag-full in from outside is child's play compared to a bag-full of back-breaking oak!

I think the key to burning cottonwood is NOT letting it sit for too long. Bugs love it since it's so soft, and it will rot quickly, especailly if not covered and/or split. I thought I might have issues since I only split this batch 3-4 months ago, but it seems to be fully dry.

Kansas · Dec 9, 2008

DPDISXR4Ti said:
Yep, I feel like Paul Bunyan out there when I'm splitting cottonwood, as long as I've given it some drying time first. And bringing a bag-full in from outside is child's play compared to a bag-full of back-breaking oak!

I think the key to burning cottonwood is NOT letting it sit for too long. Bugs love it since it's so soft, and it will rot quickly, especailly if not covered and/or split. I thought I might have issues since I only split this batch 3-4 months ago, but it seems to be fully dry.

Yeah agreed on the drying time and all, thats why I try to spot a big dead standing CW with no bark to harvest thats as good as CW gets imo. I hardly never mess with one thats already down unless I am the one that cut it down they do rot pretty fast.

This year I am burning mostly elm because we had terrible ice storms last year and lots of damaged elm laying around ready to go.

Kansas

DPDISXR4Ti · Dec 9, 2008

Kansas said:
This year I am burning mostly elm because we had terrible ice storms last year and lots of damaged elm laying around ready to go.

Funny you should mention Elm, as I just cut a small one of those down maybe a month ago. Only the first three or four cuts needed to be split, so I just figured I'd give it a go right away. Holy mother-of-god, that was like trying to split an anvil in half! :censored: I got absolutely nowhere and just stacked them as-is.

The flip side of that is some ash I just split, which was also very green. I was shocked in the opposite manner with how easily that split. I guess that's why ash ranks as "better" than oak - it's got all the heat value of oak, but much easier to split.

cfabe · Dec 9, 2008

I just had maybe 1.5 cord of cottonwood given to me by a neighbor. This was from a tree he took down and left the logs piled for a couple years. Some of it seems pretty dry some not, probably due to some sitting on the ground. I'm definately understanding why most don't burn this. I'm burning in a woodmaster 4400 and the cottonwood is very inconsistent, sometimes it will burn through a full load in under 12 hours and let the boiler cool down so the propane has to kick in. Once the fire has gone out completely. And sometimes it seems to do okay. I'm still a member of the if it's free, burn it group, but I'm not particularly looking forward to when the two large cottonwoods on my property need to come down.

DPDISXR4Ti · Dec 9, 2008

cfabe said:
I just had maybe 1.5 cord of cottonwood given to me by a neighbor. This was from a tree he took down and left the logs piled for a couple years. Some of it seems pretty dry some not, probably due to some sitting on the ground.

I had very similar past experience with cottonwood, and thus I also had very negative feelings about it's use as a firewood. I recall one year where I had a batch of older cottonwood, and it would practically put the fire out when I put a log in.

But again, the relatively fresh stuff I'm burning now is working very well - exceeding my expectations by a mile! I should also add that it is imperative that the wood is split, regardless of diameter. Even for the small diameter stuff, either split it or toss it.

For the larger diameter logs, I'd say that letting them sit at cut length for 6 months is a good target for initial drying time, then split them and let them sit covered for another 4-12 months, but not much more.

cfabe · Dec 9, 2008

Figures as soon as I post this I get home from work and it looks like I had a pretty good burn going today with the cotton wood. I did toss in a couple pieces of maple with it hoping that it might even the burn out a little. Maybe that's the key. There was actually so much wood left I figured it had gone out but the boiler was still up to temp. Of course it was in the 30s today versus the teens the last few days. I'm short on wood this year since we just moved in this summer so I don't have time to let this stuff sit, I'm burning as is.

Eastern Cottonwood - not so bad after all...

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