Boxeleder....
Any firewood you won't take (cut)for free
- Thread starter fred bergman
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At the moment I have hundreds of cords available of all kinds of wood just to go get it. My least favorite is Cedar is because it is the worst wood there is. However campers like it because it is lively and does not burn as fast as Pine. Dry Cedar will get started then just become a clump of charcoal that does not do so much. Mix it with some thing and it is OK for sitting around it. Fir is not worth much unless putting it into a wood stove, but there again campers like it better than Cedar. Last year I had about twenty five cords dumped at one of my places. It is looking like I will be getting twice that this year. Thanks
spike60
Addicted to ArboristSite
I joined this site back in 2005. These wood preference threads usually break down between the scientific guys with their data and charts and the real world experience guys. In a sense, everyone is mostly right within the context of their argument. But there's no need to dismiss someone elses conclusions that are based on the parameters that exist in each of our own realities. Yeah, the "science" is correct as far as it goes, but it doesn't take into account the many different variables that each of us deal with. And there are SO many variables. What you have to choose from in a given area is one for sure. Got plenty of your favorite species or are you running a bit low and need to consider taking some less desirable wood? Different stoves in different houses with different chimneys. Indoor vs OWB's. So many choices that yield different results. It just goes on and on.
White Pine is one I'll leave behind, but I'll use it from my own property.. Sticky, messy, on the gloves, on the saws, on the clothes. Doesn't dry that quick out in the air. Won't use it in the wood stove, but It's great in the outdoor fire pit.
Doesn't get mentioned much but I'll take Hemlock. Drys quick and burns hot. Nice early season wood.
Lot of guys don't like Poplar, and I wouldn't want a whole row of it in the woodshed, but I like having some mixed in. Lights off quick when I come home to a marginal bed of coals. IMO, most of these second tier woods are fine in limited quantities mixed in with your favorites. It's when you burn them exclusively that their shortcomings become apparent.
White Pine is one I'll leave behind, but I'll use it from my own property.. Sticky, messy, on the gloves, on the saws, on the clothes. Doesn't dry that quick out in the air. Won't use it in the wood stove, but It's great in the outdoor fire pit.
Doesn't get mentioned much but I'll take Hemlock. Drys quick and burns hot. Nice early season wood.
Lot of guys don't like Poplar, and I wouldn't want a whole row of it in the woodshed, but I like having some mixed in. Lights off quick when I come home to a marginal bed of coals. IMO, most of these second tier woods are fine in limited quantities mixed in with your favorites. It's when you burn them exclusively that their shortcomings become apparent.
I'll agree to a point. Hard to dispute the science, especially when its proven. I grew up the same as many here where daddy cut and brought the firewood home. As I remember, daddy didn't do to much pre cutting and seasoning his wood. We cut 5 ft pulp wood year round, so when it came heating season, we would bring a load home and split it for the fireplace. We didn't have a wood stove. I remember the hard to start fires and heavy creosote build up in the chimney. Its a wonder Dad didn't burn the house down. I also remember when dad built the house I just sold. House built out of lumber we harvested our self. This was in 1984 and Its the first time dad had a actual wood stove. Dad almost did burn the house down with the wood stove. When I moved into the house in 1999, the first thing I did was get rid of the wood stove. After a winter of $300+ electric bills, my wife surprised me one Oct with a wood stove. I didn't have any wood to put in it, but my wife said I had a saw and a truck, get to work. The first winter, all my fire wood was freshly cut and split. Creosote was a big issue. It would accumulate so much so fast that it would actually clog up the screen on the chimney cap. I wasn't burning any pine at all, yet I was having a terrible creosote problem. The next winter wasn't much better, I had stored up some wood but it wasn't enough for the winter and it certainly wasn't fully seasoned. I continued with regular chimney cleaning a couple times each winter until I got a couple winters ahead with my wood supply. That's when the creosote problems mostly went away. Dry wood just burns cleaner. When it comes to pine, especially whitepine, I cut it and let it lay with the bark on for a year. The wood doesnt really dry, but the bark will loosen up and start falling off. At that point I will buck and split and then just leave in a pile until the next year. Pine will dry pretty fast once split and if put into a stack will dry enough to be burnt without any creosote problems. I don't make separate stacks for my firewood. When I stack it I usually push all the splits in a pile and then scoop the wood up with the loader and carry to the front of the shed. What ever wood is in the bucket is what gets stacked, so its pretty much mixed. When it comes time to carry the wood into the house, I pickup the first stick of wood my hand falls on, it doesn't matter if its pine, oak, dogwood, popular, maple, it all burns in the stove.. When it comes time to load the stove for overnite, I will sort and throw in the largets hardwood splits from my racks. I pack the stove full, throwing small chunks to the back of the stove to leave room for the longer pieces to fit in the front. I leave the draft wide open for about 30 min to allow the wood to get really hot and then cut down the draft. I usually wake up to a warm house and a large bed of coals in the stove. I then throw in the pine and lower density woods such as the popular and maple to get the fire going good in the morning. I let the fire roar, which will burn out any creosote build up from the overnite fire. During the day, I throw in just enough wood to prevent the fire from dieing out. Rinse and repeat in the evenings.
What's the variable from my experiences with a wood stove and my dads. Its simple, I learned that dry wood burns better, hotter, cleaner and is easier to get started. I have no doubt that I can go anywhere in the country and burn green wood and have a creosote problem. I am also fairly confident that if I let that same wood season properly, any creosote problems will take care of themselves. Creosote problems are operator error, not type of wood that is being burnt. Scrounging wood is a year round occupation for me. I don't actively go searching for wood, but I try to take advantage of any opportunity I get to score a load or two of free wood. I don't get in any hurry to process it and often let it lay in a pile until it starts getting in the way of the mowing. I realize not everybody has the room to store logs or large piles of wood, and many are at the mercy of buying wood from venders that cut and deliver the same day the wood is harvested. I don't have a solution for that except to say buy as early as possible and stack either inside or in a very sunny spot. I use roll around wood racks to stack wood inside next to the stove. A small rack of wood stored right next to the stove will dry pretty fast. I have two such racks and try to keep one full pushed right up to the chimney blocks. The second I park a couple feet from the side of the stove. I can store a couple weeks worth of wood this way. Dried wood that has been rained or snowed on will dry out almost overnite. Green freshly cut wood will dry pretty fast, but wont be completely dry even after two weeks of setting next to a hot stove.
homemade
Certified Chainsaw Tester
That is the only wood we have around here that nobody fights for cause it’s everywhere. Easy to get to cause it grows in every ditch or fence line and the farmers love to get rid of it because of the way it damn neer grows horizontal into the fields trying to grab more sunlight.
cornfused
Saw & Firewood HACK
I'll take about any kind of wood - it all burns
The only exception is cottonwood. Not worth the time and labor to process for the amount of heat it yields.
The only exception is cottonwood. Not worth the time and labor to process for the amount of heat it yields.David Gruber
ArboristSite Member
Willow, cottowood, and pine. Right now I have about a cord of split pine that fell on my house. Been cut and stacked since April. Its almost shoulder season right now in Northern Ohio so it should be gone soon.
Cambium
ArboristSite Guru
Elm. Tulip. Any evergreens.
I don't take Boxelder either.
So much of it here but it sux.
If I'm going to take lower BTU wood, I'll take Pine or Spruce first because at least It's great for kindling.
chilly460
ArboristSite Lurker
Sweet Gum, never again. I cut two 23" DBH trees in my yard, splitting is a nightmare as I split by hand. Take a nice looking 14" round with no knots, and I'd still have to drive two wedges 3/4 of the way through it, flip it over and hit it with maul to fully split it. Amazing stuff. I noodled much of it, but that's a lot of work and wear on the saw and makes a mess. Wood is wet and heavy as hell when green, but by the time it dries it feels like poplar, and I found out this year that it rots very easily once dry even when stacked off the ground. Just garbage as far as firewood goes.
There is one that I apparently would not go and cut for free and I might get flamed for this as I have access to piles of logs 10 minutes down the road and I'm not motivated to go and get it.
Black locust.
I was keen to try it and cut 5 cubes worth and burned it. Some of it went in the heater, some in the firepit and some in a bonfire. It was by far the ashiest wood I have come across. I suspect the local growing conditions may play a part since no-one in North America complains about it. I suppose it all depends what you want your firewood to do. I'd take pine because it is great to get the fire blazing from a cold start but have plenty of eucalypts that easily have the density of locust without the mess.
Morning coals - Manna gum
Morning coals - Black locust
Black locust.
I was keen to try it and cut 5 cubes worth and burned it. Some of it went in the heater, some in the firepit and some in a bonfire. It was by far the ashiest wood I have come across. I suspect the local growing conditions may play a part since no-one in North America complains about it. I suppose it all depends what you want your firewood to do. I'd take pine because it is great to get the fire blazing from a cold start but have plenty of eucalypts that easily have the density of locust without the mess.
Morning coals - Manna gum
Morning coals - Black locust
Multifaceted
Firewood Hoarder, Axe Enthusiast
Your words in bold are the truth!
Here in North America, Oak is the gold standard, but I'm growing tired of it. Yes, it burns long and hot with good coals.... When it's dry! The only good thing processing it is that typically it's not difficult to split provided it is somewhat straight grained. What I dislike about it is how long it takes to dry, and if you don't get every single little stupid piece of bark off of it, it'll hold on to moisture and either start to rot, or won't dry completely.
I just moved part of a straight row of Northern Red Oak today into dry storage for burning, and maybe half of it was still at 23° MC, while the rest was at a nice 20° — after two years of drying! I'd say that maybe 2-3 % of it has started to rot (because of attached bark), though most of that small percentage was salvageable by slabbing off the punky part.
Hickory takes a while too, but it seems way more rot resistant. If I could, all I'd burn is Ash. It's what we burn mostly, but the bounty will not last forever...
Square Cutter
Chain Sharpening Enthusiast
I really like your post. Spot on in my opinion. I liked the concept of the variables you put in. The idea that different areas and environments validate a persons opinion on what works best for them.
Experience has definitely changed my opinion. I used to like alder until I found other hardwoods and fruitwoods. Before I'd find anything to burn and now I tend to be more picky because of the work to heat ratio. It takes me just as much man power to split and stack cottonwood as it does maple so I would pick up the maple if I have the option. My favorites now are cherry and maple. English laurel is a new one on my favorites list. We don't get a lot of oak, ash, or birch out here in Washington. Its mostly conifers, I do see a lot of madrona by the water but never see it available.
I love it when someone's idea of firewood is more like a compost project gone wrong.
Yes, I wholeheartedly agree in the difficulty with splitting
. However, when dried it burns well and good to mix with oak and other hardwoods to get the wood stove going
. My wife likes to use it this way and that's the ONLY reason I cut it. That and to get it off our acreage!
Around here you steer clear of gum because its full of water, rots easily and when dry burns like paper not to mention it must be dried to split manually . Southern yellow pine is never used inside fireplaces, its loaded to the brim with sap filled with terrapins and no matter how much you dry the stuff it produces lots of smoke/soot, works great as logs in fire pits but the beetles get into it and destroy it quickly if left on the ground even for a week in the woods. Poplar/cotton wood is avoided unless cut down in winter then split and stacked to use as kindling. We get so much rain here the trees are full of water except for a few months in winter. It is not uncommon to see a waterfall poor out of a tree being topped here during spring/summer.
I only take oak...red, white, live. Usually dead standing, freshly fallen dead or a tree that was cut down then left in a spot i can park next to it for loading so it will be fully dry by next winter. My issue is it can easily be more than a 36" diameter trunk making it super heavy. Red and white oak hand split easily if left to sit for a month as rounds but live oak will make you cry and give up with its wavy stringy grain.
I only take oak...red, white, live. Usually dead standing, freshly fallen dead or a tree that was cut down then left in a spot i can park next to it for loading so it will be fully dry by next winter. My issue is it can easily be more than a 36" diameter trunk making it super heavy. Red and white oak hand split easily if left to sit for a month as rounds but live oak will make you cry and give up with its wavy stringy grain.
I avoid all evergreen trees because of the pine tar and no fun to cut and no fun to split. The worst of them all, however, is box elder. My nose will not tolerate that stuff. Some vendors have tried to sell box elder for $40 a truckload and nobody in their right mind will buy it even for that price.
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