stonykill
ArboristSite Guru
my favorite wood....thats easy. Whatever the tree service guys drop off already chunked up for free. Thats my favorite firewood, free firewood.
Favorite kind of wood...
- Thread starter Wood Junkie
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Feel Lucky
stonykill
ArboristSite Guru
KindlingKing
ArboristSite Operative
Fir, the cady of woods for general burning, esp. natural second growth or old growth (rarer and rarer to find, mostly blow-downs), medium ash, good steady heat, no big surprises, lots of it here.
Alder, faster than fir, good heat, less ash but more creosote.
Oak, ooo-la-la, wish more'd die around here (jk)
Arbutus (hey, burning some now, imagine that), called madrone down south of here, cuts and splits beautifully green, will kill chains and mauls and teenaged splitters when well seasoned (only time I've seen sparks that weren't rocks, sand or metal, gah!), burns and coals up nicely, medium ash, almost no creostoe, only wood I don't mind throwing on the all-nighter green. Wish I had more!
Pine/grand fir etc., yuck, if free ok, good for daytime burns, pops, farts, poof-gone.
Cedar, nice kindling, you have a screw loose if you burn logs of this imho.
Willow, run away! Will burn okay if seasoned for a year+, hot, ashy, and some of the american varieties stink like dried pee (yummy, not), bleh, hard to split too, I think like elm, stringy junk.
Fruitwoods, gotta love 'em, apple, pear, and especially cherry
Maple, love it but burns too quick, little ash, good coaling, bit of creosote especially if burning wet (not green but water wet), want more of this too, great heat akin to alder and arbutus.
My 0.02$ worth of blather fer the evening/afternoon.
Serge
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Yeah, Madrone, hard to beat. Next to that I like the black locust and then the oak, any variety. An earlier poster mentioned all the attributes (good and bad) of live oak, I agree. The almond is a great standby but generates a lot of ash. Seems the yuppies around my neck of the woods will fall all over themselves for it (guess I could be labeled a yuppie too, just not that fond of almond
). You can get $500 a cord here and I can sell pine/fir/cedar for $350, unseasoned, without any raised eyebrows. Its a crazy mixed up world but I'm happy to sell a truckload here and there to get some extra cash.Wood Junkie
ArboristSite Operative
Man,if I could get $500 per truck load I'd quit my job and become a tree baron!!:hmm3grin2orange:
bowtechmadman
Addicted to ArboristSite
I hope that is a big truck...if your getting 500 a truck load.
For the OWB...any wood that's easy to get to...burning alot of ash, some oak and maple.
Fireplace I love sassafras...heat value is poor but high on romantic value multiple colors when burning, snaps, crackles and pops and doesn't matter if seasoned or not.
For the OWB...any wood that's easy to get to...burning alot of ash, some oak and maple.
Fireplace I love sassafras...heat value is poor but high on romantic value multiple colors when burning, snaps, crackles and pops and doesn't matter if seasoned or not.
im2tall
ArboristSite Lurker
Man do I feel like an underprevlaged child. so many choices mentioned in this post. Pine is the main type of wood I burn. Get some Chiness Elm and Cottonwood sometimes for free. I guess thats the best kind, free!
2Tall
2Tall
max2cam
ArboristSite Guru
I don't play favorites. I like it all....providing it's dry.
cuttinstuff
ArboristSite Operative
+1 on the free part. The best kind is the free kind....
WVhunter
ArboristSite Operative
1, Red Oak
2, Locust
3, Hickory
4, White Oak
5, Cherry
But I will burn any hard wood.
Tom
2, Locust
3, Hickory
4, White Oak
5, Cherry
But I will burn any hard wood.
Tom
Any hardwood that is dry, but my two favorites that are available around here are hackberry and elm.
Especially elm (dead standing or deadfall). Just smells so good when I open the door to the woodstove and throw some more in.
Regards,
David
Especially elm (dead standing or deadfall). Just smells so good when I open the door to the woodstove and throw some more in.
Regards,
David
chainsaw kid
ArboristSite Operative
Free
I'm in MT and like 2Tall, we get what we can find in this area. I usually go with lodgepole and doug fir. You can tell when you get the pieces from the bottom of the dead standing trees because they are 3x heavier than the top due to all the pitch draining to the bottom and drying. I might consider ponderosa, aspen or cottonwood if it is dropped off on my steps for free, if it is already cut and split. Ponderosa is less dense, super pitchy and the bark acts like fireworks when you open the door. Needless to say, chimney sweeps are a necessity around here. This year my back was bothering me so I just paid to go to an arborist pile in town and am finally seeing what white/green ash, apple, mountain ash (all quite nice and heavy), Russian olive and who knows what else.... You lucky b.....ds that have hardwood. Ahhh, but you don't get to enjoy MT. I think there was some blue spruce in there that I grabbed for kindling; it's lighter than toilet paper. The Russian olive is dense but likes to smolder, has the worst smelling smoke and has heavy ash even though it is quite dry. But it's better than pine/fir for overnights cause it's dense. Using all the hardwoods produce 3x the ash as pine/fir and I'm sure the Russian olive contributes 50% of it even though it is 1/4 my pile. This unplanned burning experiment has made me realize I really like the overall qualities of Douglas Fir............Although I would take ash and apple over the fir, but fir is 5$ chord USFS permit and my time/gas. Mixed hardwood was 100$ chord with me hauling (Not some crazy 500$ as in CA).
Anir Dendroica
New Member
Best woods in southwest MN
1. Ironwood (eastern hophornbeam)--rare but excellent
2. Bur Oak
3. Red Oak
4. Red Elm
5. Green Ash
6. White (American) Elm
7. Hackberry
8. Eastern Redcedar
Low end: Boxelder, Silver Maple, Basswood, Cottonwood, Aspen
Hackberry seems to rot before we can burn it, though it looks good at first.
White elm is unpredictable--many trees (especially small ones) are rotten the year after they die, while some are solid and burn hot. I just cut down a very large white elm (34" diameter at the base and 170 years old) that recently died of Dutch elm disease. Not one rotten piece in it. The rounds near the base are so tough and that I have to saw them 3/4 of the way through before I can drive a splitting wedge--and with each round weighing about 500 lbs that's a lot of cuts! I can only hope it's worth it when it dries and heats the house.
Has anyone else had this experience with inconsistent quality of white elm? Different subspecies? Different densities from different growing environments? Something else?
1. Ironwood (eastern hophornbeam)--rare but excellent
2. Bur Oak
3. Red Oak
4. Red Elm
5. Green Ash
6. White (American) Elm
7. Hackberry
8. Eastern Redcedar
Low end: Boxelder, Silver Maple, Basswood, Cottonwood, Aspen
Hackberry seems to rot before we can burn it, though it looks good at first.
White elm is unpredictable--many trees (especially small ones) are rotten the year after they die, while some are solid and burn hot. I just cut down a very large white elm (34" diameter at the base and 170 years old) that recently died of Dutch elm disease. Not one rotten piece in it. The rounds near the base are so tough and that I have to saw them 3/4 of the way through before I can drive a splitting wedge--and with each round weighing about 500 lbs that's a lot of cuts! I can only hope it's worth it when it dries and heats the house.
Has anyone else had this experience with inconsistent quality of white elm? Different subspecies? Different densities from different growing environments? Something else?
ak4195
ArboristSite Operative
The selection here in alaska is limited,top of the list is birch,2yr season,but of course the blue spruce smells the best when you open the door,or are outside downwind of the stack,burns way to fast,and since we are just barely on the downhill side of the last beetle infestation,good solid spruce is getting hard to find relatively speaking,and of course depending on local geography.
This time of year is the best time to split any green wood.
ak4195
This time of year is the best time to split any green wood.
ak4195
My experience may not be the same as others, I burn standing dead elm in the 6-12'" diameter range, the best is with no bark and the whiter the outside of the tree the better. This is cut and goes right to the burn pile, no splitting and I only handle it once. That being said my favorite kind of wood:
Hickory
Locust
White Oak
Above stated Elm
Red Oak
:greenchainsaw:
Blazin
Addicted to ArboristSite
In the fall I'll burn most anything from softwoods to hardwood. After December I like to have some Oak, Beech, Elm, or Hard Maple for btu/burn time when the colder temps hit.
We burn oak and madrone. Almond is a good second choice but since most orchard removals are chipped it's getting hard to find. Incense cedar for a quick fire and for kindling. Doug Fir blue-butts for pitch chunks that we shave out and use for fatwood. These also make good Christmas presents...or even trading stock.
Like so many on here have said...the best wood is free wood.
Like so many on here have said...the best wood is free wood.
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