The harder the wood, the longer it burns?

[BlueRidgeMark]

Well, I know about locust, and I've heard about madrone, hedge, osage, etc. I don't doubt those are great woods to burn.

But I've been pretty amazed this week at some oak I got this summer. Some of you may have seen my thread on the standing dead oak that bent my splitter. That stuff is HARRRRRD!

I split about a quarter cord, and stacked the rest for later. (I have some other stuff that needs to be split and used first.) So this week I've been burning that old, dry, HARRRRRD oak, and I'm getting an easy 14 hours out of a load in my old Fisher. With 'normal' oak, I get 10-12 hours.

Anybody else burned some old hard stuff and noticed this?

 

[Moss Man]

An extra 2-4 hours is damn impressive. Mostly we think of oak here as either being red or white, not sure what you got there.

 

[windthrown]

The denser the wood, the longer it burns. Or rather, the more heat it gives off. Burn time varies on how you set the damper. I have found that the heavier the wood, per volume, the more heat value it has. Toughness seems to vary (like, try splitting cottonwood!)

But yes, some old crusty dry hardwoods will burn for a long time. For me its madrone here in Oregon. That stuff will dull a chainsaw pretty fast if you salvage cull logs that are fully dried like I have. But it was worth it, becasue one fat log of madrone in the OWB would burn all night.

When I lived south of here, we found that some types of eucalyptus down in California burned for a really long time. Hard as a rock when dry, we could not split it al all. So we would shove one end in the fireplace and let it roast for a night, then shove the rest in and let it roast for another night. Two night logs. Then my brother got a bright idea and bought some anthrosyte coal from a guy and threw it in to burn the eucalyptus faster. It did! That stuff was white hot! ...and then it melted right through the iran fireplace grate. So we bought another iron grate and decided to go back to the two night log burns.

Oak is hard and heavy wood though. Several types around here though, some are really heavy and some are not.

 

[KsWoodsMan]

Wasn't it mostly heartwood ? Sounds like that great score you had just got even better.

 

[BlueRidgeMark]

Good to hear you are getting your revenge on that oak!

Yeah, the best kind!

Mark is there any possibility that the sapwood is gone and what you've got now is all heartwood?

Oh, no doubt, guys, this stuff is heartwood. Depending on the location on the tree, the sapwood is mostly punky. Some places it's 4 the outer 4 inches or so. I just kind of shave that off with the splitter. The stuff I'm burning is heart, and did I mention that it's harrrrrd?

I burned a gnarly crotch piece the other night, and it was only about half gone by morning.


windthrown, I know about that California eucalyptus. That's NICE stuff. Smells good, too. Not much left in So Cal since all the orange groves are gone. (Eucs were planted as windbreaks back when Orange County was full of orange trees.)

Orange tree wood also burns very nicely, but it's very nasty to handle. Very dirty, thin bark, that always seems to have some mold or other gunk on it.

 

[Octane]

I find that the harder woods do burn longer, but I dont think they put off as much heat.
If Im burning oak, I have to run the dampner wide-open and it still will only go up to about 800 degrees.
If Im burning birch, it doesnt last as long, but it puts out a lot more heat. With birch I often have to close the dampner almost all the way, otherwise the stove will easily run 1,200 degrees or more.