Any firewood you won't take (cut)for free

[Kevin in Ohio]

I love honey locust unless they look like this. I won't touch them even if I'm paidView attachment 689945

At least you can see some of the trunk on yours. LOL

The only one wood I'll avoid burning is Poison Ivy. Sycamore, willow and cottonwood are at the bottom though.

 

[Firewood Daddy]

The only wood that I’ll leave local to me is willow. Offers little btu’s and burns quick . Total waste of time


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[Streblerm]

I’ve been watching this thread and thinking that there are a bunch of wood snobs out there. I’m pretty happy to burn just about anything that is dry and I like a mix. I try to follow a first in/first out order and right now I’m buried in oak and locust so I’m raiding next year’s stack for some soft maple and poplar to mix in. I did come up with one type of wood I wouldn’t cut or take for free.

My definition of “cut” is that it has to be on the ground. I don’t cut down trees unless it is a close friend or relative and there is little to no chance of any kind of damage to body or property. This goes for trees on my property as well. I don’t haul brush or do cleanup with the exception of friends/family/self. The variety of wood, amount of labor to get, and distance to travel all factor in to the decision of what I’ll “take”. For example, I travelled about 30 minutes which is about my max travel distance for three cords of pine rounds that were stacked where I could back right up to them. I thought that was a great score. Most of the wood I get comes out of city/ suburban yards within 5 miles of my house. I hauled a six cord mix of oak, hard maple, cherry, black walnut, pine and basswood out of two back yards literally less than two miles from my house. I hauled it all on dollies through a gate. The basswood was the second worst firewood I’ve ever encountered and if that was all there was I wouldn’t have done it but since I was already there... Now if somebody was going to drop it for free I’d take it.

So what won’t I burn? Anything that’s gone mostly punky. Early on I dragged home a pile of wood that had been on the ground in the shade for many, many years. It was a couple miles from home and I should have just walked away. Live and learn. I thought it would mix in and be a good fire starter. I even stacked it top covered in a single row. It made a mess bringing it into the house and really didn’t burn well. When it did finally burn it just smoked like crazy. I finally gave up and threw it in the burn pit where it did much the same.

 

[JoshNY]

I pass on boxelder, poplar, basswood and willow. Just burns so fast and the boxelder seems to foul up the chimney fast.
I like pine for a campfire, not so much the woodstove, but I'd probably burn some if I needed to.
Around the woods of upstate NY, there is plenty of maple, cherry, birch, hickory and ash (unfortunatly the Ash won't be around long thanks to the Ash border beetle).

 

[Wood Doctor]

Sycamore, elm, and sweet gum.

I believe you have to classify that elm. Red elm is excellent firewood. Siberian elm burns surprusingly well. On the other hand, I agree that Chinese elm is in the same league as box elder, basswood, and willow.

 

[Acornhill]

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[Wood Doctor]

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Wow, I forgot about rock elm. I believe red elm has slightly less heat content than ash. Once again, I think we have to divide the analysis between campfire wood and wood for fireplaces and stoves. Many campers have no complaints against poplar, aspen, and cottonwood. Many campers do not even want firewood that burns slowly and all night.

 

[JoshNY]

I have some locust trees on my property and have cut a few and burned them. Tough to get it going, but once you get it burning, it burns very hot and burns slow, lasts a long time.
I sweat my buddy right out of the hunting camp, he said the wood stove was glowing red, and he had to crack windows!

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[Wood Doctor]

I have some locust trees on my property and have cut a few and burned them. Tough to get it going, but once you get it burning, it burns very hot and burns slow, lasts a long time. I sweat my buddy right out of the hunting camp, he said the wood stove was glowing red, and he had to crack windows!

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I've had guys tell me that they won't cut thornless locust because it weighs a ton. True, it's as dense as oak, but it dries twice as fast and has excellent rot resistance. The locust tree also grows twice as fast as oak. I must admit that the only time I truly overloaded my truck was the day I packed it with green locust.

 

[Streblerm]

Locust is about as good as it gets around me. I have one next to the house that’s 48” DBH and about 7o’ tall. It’s actually more like four 24” trees grown together. I have mixed feelings about it because it really shades the house from the west in the summertime but it might provide a whole season’s worth of firewood.

 

[Hinerman]

I believe you have to classify that elm. Red elm is excellent firewood. Siberian elm burns surprusingly well. On the other hand, I agree that Chinese elm is in the same league as box elder, basswood, and willow.

Whatever kind of elm that grows in Oklahoma, I am assuming American Elm is 95+% of the elm growing here.

If it (elm) was all I had I would burn it and/or sell it, but it's not, so I don't. If somebody calls me for elm, sycamore, or sweet gum, I say "no thanks". I have never cut or split the "good" elm species, as far as I know anyway.

 

[old CB]

When I started out years ago in the east, dead elms were everywhere on account of dutch elm blight. As a poor boy, I burned more than I wanted to. And once I had other wood available--burned almost entirely oak for many years--I figured I'd never again burn elm.

Now I live in a pine forest--Ponderosa pine, which is quite a step up from white pine, but it's still pine (also some Doug Fir and lodgepole). So I scrounge all I can of hardwoods that grow in the towns downhill from here.

Siberian elm grows like a weed down on the plains. I just brought home several loads yesterday and today. It burns pretty decent. It's still elm, so I'm not thrilled with the smoke aroma when I step outside. But it's not bad firewood. And maybe it's our dry climate, but the stuff dries well in a few months.

Another reason I used to hate elm, was its un-split-able nature. (Until a few years ago I hand-split everything.) But I learned a trick with elm. Where you'd normally sink your splitting maul or wedge in a line thru the center of a round, with elm you'd split pieces off the outside, by striking the sharp edge parallel to the bark and just a little ways into the round. (My hydraulic splitter goes thru whatever I feed it.)

 

[Wood Doctor]

Old CB said,
"... but the stuff dries well in a few months..."
"... split ... by striking the sharp edge parallel to the bark..."
------------------------------------------
That's how I do it also.
(1) Let elm dry at least six months before you split it.
(2) Spit as many rounds as you can on the outside with the blade parallel to the bark. Go around the outside before attacking the center.

I split and delivered a full truckload of Siberian elm today. I threw in some other hardwood splits for salt and pepper. This firewood has never generated a complain from anyone who buys it from me. That's because it heats the building, throws no sparks, is easy to light, etc.

I'm delivering another truckload tomorrow.

 

[Mustang71]

I burn it all and dont care. Using a furnace vs a EPA stove it really doesn't matter what you burn, it all burns fast and hot.

I did get some osage orange a while ago and stacked it throughout the piles. I was not impressed with it. I had about an 8 inch round and hit it with the hatchet and it didnt make a dent. Its heavy and supposed to make a lot of heat but after a few hours it looked the same as when I put it in. Maybe if I could split it smaller it would be great. Interesting stuff and very dense.

 

[NSMaple1]

It doesn't matter what you burn in an EPA unit either, as long as it is dry.

Which it really should be anyway no matter what you burn in.

 

[Wyrdman]

I love honey locust unless they look like this. I won't touch them even if I'm paidView attachment 689945

Buddy wanted one of those removed. leaning over the house. I said no, it needed a climber. Tree service came, climber had to basically shave the whole trunk as he made his way up. Each groundsman at one point had to drop his saw and hop on one foot to a bench and borrow a pair of pliers to pull out a spike that went through his boot sole. When they looked at the bottom of their boots they saw a good 15 thorns embedded and broken off in each sole, that was just the first thorn to make it all the way through.

 

[Mustang71]

It doesn't matter what you burn in an EPA unit either, as long as it is dry.

Which it really should be anyway no matter what you burn in.

What I ment was that if you are looking for efficiency and heat out of a newer stove then you may be picky on what wood you burn but when 40 percent of the heat goes out the chimney it doesn't really matter what u burn. Lol

 

[Wood Doctor]

What I meant was that if you are looking for efficiency and heat out of a newer stove then you may be picky on what wood you burn but when 40 percent of the heat goes out the chimney it doesn't really matter what you burn. Lol

What many here still do not realize is that you receive a million BTUs of heat from 134 lb of firewood, regardless of what tree produced it: poplar, cottonwood, oak or hickory. I tried to convince one of my customers last year to try red elm but he refused. All he wanted was ash, oak, hard maple, and walnut. This year he finally agreed to try it and said, "That red elm you brought last time is really good firewood. Thanks for finding it. Do you have any left?"

Guess what. I'm sold out of red elm and it's really rare and tough to find. Not many of these trees remain.

 

[Mustang71]

What many here still do not realize is that you receive a million BTUs of heat from 134 lb of firewood, regardless of what tree produced it: poplar, cottonwood, oak or hickory. I tried to convince one of my customers last year to try red elm but he refused. All he wanted was ash, oak, hard maple, and walnut. This year he finally agreed to try it and said, "That red elm you brought last time is really good firewood. Thanks for finding it. Do you have any left?"

Guess what. I'm sold out of red elm and it's really rare and tough to find. Not many of these trees remain.

I'm crazy and control my wood usage to a specific amount for every 2 weeks and it does not matter what kind I have stacked it all seems to be pretty consistantly. So I'm not picky.

 

[Wood Doctor]

I'm crazy and control my wood usage to a specific amount for every 2 weeks and it does not matter what kind I have stacked it all seems to be pretty consistently. So I'm not picky.

As long as it's dry, I have to agree. Just mix it up good. Different species work as a team to make the best fires. You are not crazy by any means.