What to take for firewood?

[VelvetFoot]

Our house is on 6 acres of mostly wooded and sloping ground in upstate NY. I would say it's mostly deciduous with some evergreens (hemlocks?). Will I be doing a good thing for the woods to take the dead trees on the ground if they're not too rotten and dead trees still standing? Thanks.

 

[Ekka]

My word you would be, otherwise mother nature may beat you to it with bugs, fungi and fires.

Dead trees are also a good breeding ground for borers and pests, they might have a go at your good trees when the good trees are stressed (drought) etc.

Some might argue that the dead stuff serves as a mulch but I assume we are talking larger wood here not sticks, bark and leaves etc.

Keep an eye out for habitat trees even if dead, look for hollows where some critter might be using it as a home, you may have to manage those ones.

So, fire up that saw and get cutting and burning, no fun watching mushrooms grow. :biggrinbounce2:

 

[windthrown]

Firewood gathering

On the 105 acres here, we collect firewood from newly downed trees that are not habitat trees or overly rotted out. We also harvest thinned trees for firewood, and windthrown trees. We leave them alone if they are really bug rotted, or bee hive active, or asthetic looking. We have some 4 ft diameter bucked doug fir and cedar logs here that have been there for 20-40 years or more that we leave alone. I also leave some nurse logs in some areas that we are thinning pretty hard. I also leave the thin branchy stuff for improving the soil.

We thin here under a prescribed forest plan. We also have to burn all slash by law (fire prevention). I also cut snags that may be a hazard, and undam the creeks of fallen logs (beavers are active again this year). I also cut down diseased trees to keep disease from spreading. All of this supplies us with a lot of firewood. May as well burn it, as others have said here, it will turn into carbon dioxide and water if you burn it or let it rot.

 

[VelvetFoot]

Thanks. I've already cut up and split a real big hemlock tree that died not too long ago - why I have no idea. The bark had a bunch of little holes in it, but I didn't see anything obvious when I split it. I'll see what else I can get but it won't be easy getting it up the hill.

 

[Dadatwins]

Just be careful with old wood laying on the ground that might have visible holes and be sitting outside in the cold for a while. Bringing it into a warm house might wake up some unwelcome visiters inside the wood, that is now in your house.

 

[Ekka]

Snakes!!!!!!!! :jawdrop:

That's the biggest worry around here with old wood lying around.

And most here could kill ya.

 

[stihlatit]

Snakes!!!!!!!! :jawdrop:

That's the biggest worry around here with old wood lying around.

And most here could kill ya.

My siste was in Penrith for ten years and she once told me them there Aussie snakes also come up through the toilet at times Ekka. Dang their mean.

 

[northernmover]

Hemlock does not make real good firewood in my experience. It tends to burn hot and fast and does not provide many BTU's. Here in Upstate NY, you probably have many Maple and Beech trees on your property that is much better for burning. Look for hardwood.

 

[windthrown]

Hemlock...

Yah, hemlock is a light wood and about like grand fir. Not the best heating firewood, but it will burn. I tend to pass them up for oak, alder, doug fir and madrone. Sometimes I will burn windthrown grand fir or hemlock that I have cut with heavy oak or madrone to get it to burn better in our OWB. That is because of the on-off cycle of the OWB; when the damper opens and there is only oak or madrone in there it tends to take longer to get hot again.

Here is a good simple firewood heat value chart that I found online:

http://www.chimneysweeponline.com/howood.htm

 

[NEK VT]

Burning Fir?

I will not burn fir or any softwood because it clogs up the chimney.... it burns too fast and back to the chimny.... I don't like it when my house burns down