Birch for firewood

[Marcus James]

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.

 

[buzz sawyer]

Here's a chart. Looks like about the same as Ash. Never burned any myself. https://forestry.usu.edu/forest-products/wood-heating

 

[Mad Professor]

Birch has little rot resistance. Get the stacks off the ground and covered on top and you'll be O.K.

 

[nathan4104]

Birch (white) is our main wood here to burn. Left in log lengths it won’t last much more than a few years till it’s punky. Don’t cover the log pile, unless it’s under a roof! A tarp will hold in the moisture, won’t breathe and it’ll rot out even quicker. If it’s piled off the ground like you say, and better yet in the sun it will be good. The quicker you get it processed rhw better though.
The bark is like Saran Wrap, you got to get it split open. Even cut into rounds it won’t dry the greatest.
It’s not the best for BTU’s compared to other species, but it gets to -40 here during our winters and we stay warm just fine.
I peel some bark off, or the stuff that comes off during the splitting, and save it for firestarter. Like any wood, keep it off the ground and let it season for a year and it’ll serve you well.

 

[Jed1124]

White Birch does not last very long at all, especially when it's not split and stacked. It holds a lot of water and once dried looses much of it's weight. But if that is what you have it's better than nothing.
Black Birch makes very good firewood, but also needs to be split and stacked in short order.

 

[GenXer]

I burn birch here myself, and like it was previously posted get it bucked up and split asap and it should be good, I love burning yellow birch, I find it burns hot.

 

[Marcus James]

Thanks for all the great replies. I love this forum. Just got a 620 Echo last year with a 27in bar for the birch and love it. I almost got a Stihl, but the Echo warranty couldn't be beat.

 

[Karrl]

Black or Sweet birch is probably my favorite wood to burn, great smell cutting, splitting and burning. Also one of the hottest woods I’ve burned. Heat wise the other birches aren’t as good but they’re all good firewood if you ask me.

Sounds like you have white or maybe silver birch. If you sell any wood you might be able to get a premium for pure birch loads or bundles. They have it in the grocery stores here in the.75 cuft bags.

 

[Jed1124]

Sounds like you have white or maybe silver birch. If you sell any wood you might be able to get a premium for pure birch loads or bundles. They have it in the grocery stores here in the.75 cuft bags.

Great idea! Women folk love the stuff. My friends mother in law puts a nicely arranged stack in her fireplace every year, then takes it out after the holidays. Never burns it mind you. That's too smelly and dirty.........

 

[Mad Professor]

Get it off the ground. Pallets work good, or use junk wood limbs if you have too ~ 4" diameter. Split at least once. They will still dry with a double row and you can use a wider top cover for both rows.

I get lumber covers for free. You can cover a 12-16' long double row of stacks with one cover, the cover doubled over. Put some ~2-3" limbs, wider than the stacks, on top of the rows for some cover "rafters". Put more of the same on top of cover to hold the cover down. Even thicker limbs on top so high winds won't take cover off.

 

[Marcus James]

Get it off the ground. Pallets work good, or use junk wood limbs if you have too ~ 4" diameter. Split at least once. They will still dry with a double row and you can use a wider top cover for both rows.

I get lumber covers for free. You can cover a 12-16' long double row of stacks with one cover, the cover doubled over. Put some ~2-3" limbs, wider than the stacks, on top of the rows for some cover "rafters". Put more of the same on top of cover to hold the cover down. Even thicker limbs on top so high winds won't take cover off.

Excellent! Thanks!

 

[old CB]

As mentioned above, left in the woods birch will deteriorate quickly, as in 2--3 yrs. Mostly because the bark seals in moisture and prevents the wood from drying.

White birch bark is one of nature's great fire starters. When I find the bark in the woods--even from long fallen and rotten trees, I bring it back to camp. I believe you could dunk it in water and still light it. Years ago on a kayak trip when we set up camp in pouring rain people were amazed when I got a fire going--with birch bark.

Near my camp I have a white birch I dropped several years back (clearing a road to the river) and left whole. I've been stripping the bark off and kind of experimenting to see if the wood will dry and season without the bark sealing moisture in.

 

[Whitespider]

Since you're in Michigan I'm gonna' assume paper birch (sometimes called white birch).
The white bark (that peels off like pieces of paper - i.e. paper birch) seals in moisture very efficiently. That's great for the live tree, but accelerates rot in the dead tree. Unless split, logs of paper birch will rapidly rot (turn punky). As has been already stated, paper birch bark is a great fire starter, even if the wood itself has become mush.

Get the logs split in half as soon as possible (in quarters for the big logs) and stack with the bark up (you can always split smaller at a later time). The bark will shed rain like a rubber sheet... no need to cover (actually, covering will slow the drying process). If possible, stack in an area with lots of sun and ventilation (same as any firewood)... shade and/or stagnate air is not a good place for paper birch. Paper birch is usually very straight-grained and splits with little effort.

Paper birch is a great firewood for open fires (when properly dried), producing beautiful flame and a pleasing smell. It's also not a bad "heating" firewood, however it likely will require reloading the fire box more often than using the more dense firewood species. It is not your "over night" choice... save your oak, hard maple, and such for that. Paper birch does not leave behind a heavy ash bed.

We've burned a lot of paper birch at the lake home in northern Minnesota over the years.
When split and stacked in sun and ventilation it will last for years (burn the small stuff not worth splitting ASAP).
*

 

[Marcus James]

Since you're in Michigan I'm gonna' assume paper birch (sometimes called white birch).
The white bark (that peels off like pieces of paper - i.e. paper birch) seals in moisture very efficiently. That's great for the live tree, but accelerates rot in the dead tree. Unless split, logs of paper birch will rapidly rot (turn punky). As has been already stated, paper birch bark is a great fire starter, even if the wood itself has become mush.

Get the logs split in half as soon as possible (in quarters for the big logs) and stack with the bark up (you can always split smaller at a later time). The bark will shed rain like a rubber sheet... no need to cover (actually, covering will slow the drying process). If possible, stack in an area with lots of sun and ventilation (same as any firewood)... shade and/or stagnate air is not a good place for paper birch. Paper birch is usually very straight-grained and splits with little effort.

Paper birch is an great firewood for open fires (when properly dried), producing beautiful flame and a pleasing smell. It's also not a bad "heating" firewood, however it likely will require reloading the fire box more often than using the more dense firewood species. It is not your "over night" choice... save your oak, hard maple, and such for that. Paper birch does not leave behind a heavy ash bed.

We've burned a lot of paper birch at the lake home in northern Minnesota over the years.
When split and stacked in sun and ventilation it will last for years (burn the small stuff not worth splitting ASAP).
*

Thank you so much! We live out in the woods and usually have someone deliver the split maple to avoid having to cut down the maple trees on the 25 acres that make for a nice environment, but we didn't want to give away all those nice logs of white paper birch. So, I got a log splitter and a nice new big chainsaw, watch Buckin Billy Ray Smith on YouTube for instruction and spend an hour or so every other day getting some good exercise. Your instruction is wildly appreciated.

 

[gggGary]

+20 LOL Even cotton wood can be decent fireplace wood if quickly bucked, split, and stacked out of the rain.
Had the last of the giant willow that was overhanging the power lines cut down. Cut it up and split it, tried to give it away on CL and FB no takers, I was getting bummed, then had a brilliant idea, got rid of the "free" ads, put up new $5 a truck load ads. They were literally lined up with trucks and cars to buy it. Several even made me take $20 instead of the $5. Was maybe third of the original tree but was still 5? cords.

 

[dboyd351]

People can be funny like that. Had a neighbor down the street that put a sign - For sale $1200 on a VW bus. I walked me dogs by it every day for almost a month. Then one day I walked by it and the sign said $1600. It was sold within the week.

 

[James Davis]

Thanks for all the great replies. I love this forum. Just got a 620 Echo last year with a 27in bar for the birch and love it. I almost got a Stihl, but the Echo warranty couldn't be beat.

White and yellow birch are good. We had a lot of gray birch in Maine and it could easily rot before it dried. As said above, it's best to break the bark on any birch. If I couldn't work up a birch log right away, I would use the tip of my saw to score the bark from one end of a log to the other. That was easy to do and seemed to help a lot.

 

[Marcus James]

Excellent idea. Never thought of just scoring it while it waits for me to cut it.

 

[Marcus James]

+20 LOL Even cotton wood can be decent fireplace wood if quickly bucked, split, and stacked out of the rain.
Had the last of the giant willow that was overhanging the power lines cut down. Cut it up and split it, tried to give it away on CL and FB no takers, I was getting bummed, then had a brilliant idea, got rid of the "free" ads, put up new $5 a truck load ads. They were literally lined up with trucks and cars to buy it. Several even made me take $20 instead of the $5. Was maybe third of the original tree but was still 5? cords.
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Pretty funny up here. The road crew just lets their buddies in on the downed trees and they're gone in days. They were nice enough to stack them all quite nicely off to the side on our property to keep them away from the scavenger crews. We had to stop a few from taking our neighbors' downed trees across the street while they were on vacation. Can't really fault them, but a few had gone on to their property to take them. That was a step too far. We were out there arguing with them as to what constitutes private property boundaries.

 

[Hermio]

Are new Birch trees growing as shoots off the old ones? Those would be sons of birches.