Birch for firewood

[Modark]

Your part of the world must have more areas that contain deeper/older soils.

The area around the Gulf of Finland is a mix match of a little bit of everything due to being a ancient seabed and the ice age pushing soil around. Acadia sounds more like northern Norway, Sweden and Finland where the bedrock is closer to the surface and the terrain is more mountainous.
We also have aspen (Populus tremula), we use it for pulpwood as well as oriented strand board along with alder.
A fun less known fact is that the northern less fertile soils are fertilized with wood ash from power stations. We use a lot of wood chips to power and heat larger settlements. The Finns and Swedes even dig up and chip the stumps after clear cuts.

 

[anlrolfe]

Growing up in Maine, we had a very special way of getting the most out of birch. We'd sell it to the paper mill for pulp. $ $

 

[oldercut]

I mainly used maple to heat my home for the last 15 years. The road near my log home was redone, and they cut down 45 huge birch trees that grew along the highway on my property. I loaded them with the help of my neighbor with a tractor into a massive pile over some felled skinny long birch trees to get them off the ground. How long do you think they'll last before rotting? I can only cut and split a few at a time. The bays are filling fast and I won't be able to stack all of the split wood under the roof. Are they good for firewood? Do they produce a lot of creosote from the bark? They average from 16 inches down to ten in diameter. A few are 20 inches. They were big beautiful trees, great for privacy. My wife called them the ladies in white. Now the ladies are going to keep me warm in the winter or next, hopefully. They don't seem to be drying as quickly as the maple did.

 

[oldercut]

I mainly used maple to heat my home for the last 15 years. The road near my log home was redone, and they cut down 45 huge birch trees that grew along the highway on my property. I loaded them with the help of my neighbor with a tractor into a massive pile over some felled skinny long birch trees to get them off the ground. How long do you think they'll last before rotting? I can only cut and split a few at a time. The bays are filling fast and I won't be able to stack all of the split wood under the roof. Are they good for firewood? Do they produce a lot of creosote from the bark? They average from 16 inches down to ten in diameter. A few are 20 inches. They were big beautiful trees, great for privacy. My wife called them the ladies in white. Now the ladies are going to keep me warm in the winter or next, hopefully. They don't seem to be drying as quickly as the maple did.

 

[oldercut]

I would get it split as soon as possible, covered or not. Also, some creosote from burning, not a problem
if you mix it with other hardwood. You might find a better use to sell the splits for decoration rather than
burning, small bundles for a few dollars.

 

[singinwoodwackr]

Anyone use River Birch? Lots of it in my area…now burning some dry I scrounged today. So far it works well in our stove…better than Poplar and Cottonwood but similar. It burns down to a nice bed of coals unlike the Poplar.
about the same dry weight. The green I got weighed probably 4x that of the dry.

 

[Captain Bruce]

Anyone use River Birch? Lots of it in my area…now burning some dry I scrounged today. So far it works well in our stove…better than Poplar and Cottonwood but similar. It burns down to a nice bed of coals unlike the Poplar.
about the same dry weight. The green I got weighed probably 4x that of the dry.

Birch is never firewood.......unless its sitting in a wicker firewood carrier, next to an open hearth, than, its still not firewood.....

 

[singinwoodwackr]

Birch is never firewood.......unless its sitting in a wicker firewood carrier, next to an open hearth, than, its still not firewood.....

If it burns...it's firewood

 

[chainbrake]

Acadia sounds more like northern Norway, Sweden and Finland where the bedrock is closer to the surface and the terrain is more mountainous.

The Acadian Forest comprises some of the Northeastern US and the Atlantic provinces of Canada. It is the NE extension of the Appalachian Mountains. The area was scraped and deeply compressed by glaciers. The glacial ice got so thick that it forced the mountains down (much of it below sea level). The land is still slowly rebounding out of the sea - but not nearly as fast as global warming is causing the oceans to rise. Some (mostly lowland) areas have deep rich soils formed from the sediment of the receding glaciers and by lands that had been seabed.