Burn Time Softwood vs Hardwood?

[EXCALIBER]

I was thinking the other day that many of you guys on the eastern side of the U.S. are used to burning all hard woods. The thought came up that many people, myself included, never have seen a real piece of hardwood. Pine, Aspen, Cottonwood, ect. every once in a while I find some Elm. So I am curious to see how your burn times differ in your stove from full load of hard wood to full load of softwood. It would be good to include stove model/make, how much wood, what species of wood, ect. I am anxious to see the burn time (usable heat) your stove gives with less than ideal softwood keeping your house the usual temp. Can you still get an overnight burn, how much difference does the wood really make? So I challenge you guys to burn some softwood and see what you come up with.

I have a Blaze King King model stove with a cat, and I can get an easy 12 hour burn every time if I fill the stove with cottonwood cut to 16". I usually can fit about 6-7 pieces of wood in the firebox, split in fairly large chunks. I run the stove at about half throttle, low would be much more but I like the house 75 plus in the winter. Wish I had some hardwood to experiment with but alas no go for me. If I run it wide open I get a burn time of about 4-5 hours.

 

[rob206]

I know that I can get an over night burn with pine in temps just above single digits. It takes a wheelbarrow full to do it. I have a CB 5036. I think the biggest differnce for me, is the amount of coals left from hardwood vs softwood. I fill my woodshed with oak & maple, the pine stays under a blue tarp as that is what I use until January.

 

[Storm56]

I have an outdoor wood boiler, CB 5036, live in NE PA and am blessed to own 343 acres of mostly mixed woods. I no longer waste my time cutting soft wood, just as much work for about 1/2 the burn time of hardwoods. The softwoods on my property include pine, hemlock, poplar, aspen and basswood. Hardwoods are maple, cherry, beech, ash, oak and some hickory. I used to clean up softwood blow downs and use them, not anymore, (I still clean them up), just not worth it with the other hardwoods available to me.

 

[beerbelly]

Not really a fair answer on my part. I have an OLD Jewel Oak Stove, made by Burrows, Stewart & Milne Co, Hamilton Ont. It is small, but so is my house (850sq ft). I only burn hardwood. Mostly cherry, maple, ash & oak. I cut & split it small so burn times are not very long. With a good bed of coals I get 4-5 hours from it. However, it puts out so much heat in 10-15 minutes, that I have no need to keep it going. I get the house up to about 80 deg. (my wife loves it, I am usually peeling off layers!) before I go to bed. At 5am, I light it again before work and the house is around 60. I try not to let my furnace run too much. But I like to have the furnace (which I didnt have for 7 years) so i can leave the house for a day or 2 between october & may. Sorry about the tangent. Answer: hardwood, 4-5 hours, never use soft wood.View attachment 267242

 

[rob206]

I have an outdoor wood boiler, CB 5036, live in NE PA and am blessed to own 343 acres of mostly mixed woods. I no longer waste my time cutting soft wood, just as much work for about 1/2 the burn time of hardwoods. The softwoods on my property include pine, hemlock, poplar, aspen and basswood. Hardwoods are maple, cherry, beech, ash, oak and some hickory. I used to clean up softwood blow downs and use them, not anymore, (I still clean them up), just not worth it with the other hardwoods available to me.

I have to cut on state/federal land which means I have to haul it out by hand. I like cutting pine cause it is so much lighter and easier to load. I find I can cut a truck load much faster, never timed it to the exact minute though. I usually cut 6 or 7 loads to stack next to the woodshed to use until serious cold weather has settled in.

ETA: people aren't required to haul by hand on state/federal land, I just don't have a quad to help out.

 

[Storm56]

I have to cut on state/federal land which means I have to haul it out by hand. I like cutting pine cause it is so much lighter and easier to load. I find I can cut a truck load much faster, never timed it to the exact minute though. I usually cut 6 or 7 loads to stack next to the woodshed to use until serious cold weather has settled in.

ETA: people aren't required to haul by hand on state/federal land, I just don't have a quad to help out.

Guess you do not need that gym membership??

I take it the pine you are cutting/hauling is seasoned wood that has been down/dead a while? Here green pine seems to weigh almost the same as any other green wood.

 

[autoimage]

i was tired last night and wanted to go to bed so at 930 i put 4 18" small split pin oak and one black locust that is after i had it at full temp for 4 hrs. this morning at 7 house is 67 threw several pieces of ash on and they caught fire immediatly. its just math we get to use less wood becuase it has more btu's and got lucky with geography

 

[Yerpdog]

If anyone is wondering what that firewood your burning is really worth. Here is a list sorted by pounds per cord and MBTU (million BTU per cord).. So you can take a look at what packs the biggest punch per pound.

 

[rob206]

Guess you do not need that gym membership??

I take it the pine you are cutting/hauling is seasoned wood that has been down/dead a while? Here green pine seems to weigh almost the same as any other green wood.

Still do deadlift's in the gym. Makes picking up heavy rounds easier. About the pine, yes, all the pine I cut is dead standing or on the ground dead. Had a big fire in Roscommon a couple years ago and there is a #### ton of standing dead pine, oak and maple.

 

[mizzou]

I put about 15 2ft. pieces of hedge in the stove at 5 pm yesterday. Will load it back up around 9 am today with silver maple since it is going to be in the mid 50's today. It takes 3 5 gallon buckets of splits to fill the stove. It is a Nuaire.

 

[Rattler05.5]

I was thinking the other day that many of you guys on the eastern side of the U.S. are used to burning all hard woods. The thought came up that many people, myself included, never have seen a real piece of hardwood. Pine, Aspen, Cottonwood, ect. every once in a while I find some Elm. So I am curious to see how your burn times differ in your stove from full load of hard wood to full load of softwood. It would be good to include stove model/make, how much wood, what species of wood, ect. I am anxious to see the burn time (usable heat) your stove gives with less than ideal softwood keeping your house the usual temp. Can you still get an overnight burn, how much difference does the wood really make? So I challenge you guys to burn some softwood and see what you come up with.

I have a Blaze King King model stove with a cat, and I can get an easy 12 hour burn every time if I fill the stove with cottonwood cut to 16". I usually can fit about 6-7 pieces of wood in the firebox, split in fairly large chunks. I run the stove at about half throttle, low would be much more but I like the house 75 plus in the winter. Wish I had some hardwood to experiment with but alas no go for me. If I run it wide open I get a burn time of about 4-5 hours.

I burn what I can get for free; pine. I have a small amount of elm from some dead trees on our property and I have that all piled under the pine so that I don't get tempted to use it before the really cold temps come.

I fill the firebox before bed and can burn slower and still have a few coals to get it going early the next morning. If I fill with elm then there is a nice large bed of coals the next morning. I'm so used to the pine that I don't know what to do with all those coals! How do I get them out of the way for more wood!?! :msp_ohmy:

** Where abouts in Western NE?? Is Ole's any good these days? I used to live South of Paxtun. Those that are curious should google "Ole's Big Game Bar" There are stuffed animal from all over the world. Elephant, polar bear, giraffe, lions, bobcat, water buffalo, and lots of others.

 

[CTYank]

If anyone is wondering what that firewood your burning is really worth. Here is a list sorted by pounds per cord and MBTU (million BTU per cord).. So you can take a look at what packs the biggest punch per pound.

Funny 'bout that. Once they're air-dried, variation of energy/pound is next to nil. Conifer pitch puts them a little ABOVE deciduous per POUND.

Now, if you're talking energy/volume, there's a wide range. Thus the numbers/cord (volume.)

 

[Fyrebug]

That's why big Cat stoves are so popular on the West Coast. Since they cant get decent burn time with soft wood a Cat stove is the perfect solution: ie. Huge firebox with long burn times.

 

[Steve NW WI]

Ex, in my big non-EPA Woodchuck furnace, I can expect 8 hours or so before the firebox is down to just enough coals to relight when burning the "junk" hardwoods - poplar, box elder, cottonwood, etc. Elm IS a real hardwood, good and seasoned elm comes close to oak, burning wise.

With good hardwoods, I can be gone to work for 12-13 hours and come home to coals enough to refire from, using pretty much the same draft settings as with the low grade stuff. If I've been gone over the weekend and the house has cooled down, I can send a load of oak to the ash pan in half that time burning wide open to warm the house up, though.

Having all the different varieties of woods available that I do, I like to mix as needed, the hardwood percentage gets higher as the mercury drops.

 

[Larry Ashcraft]

We have an 18 year old Vermont Castings Encore cat stove in our old farmhouse. I burn primarily cottonwood since we have plenty of it.

My woodbox in the house is about 30" wide by about 16" deep. Saturday when it was snowing and in the twenties I went through a full woodbox, throwing a split or two in about every 1.5 hours. Keeping the stove set at about half throttle will keep the house around 75*. I can get an all night burn if I have some rounds about 6" in diameter, but I usually sacrifice some of my hardwood stash on cold nights. Last night about 8:30 I put three chunks of apple in and still had coals this morning, and the topp of the stove was still 150+.

The thought came up that many people, myself included, never have seen a real piece of hardwood. Pine, Aspen, Cottonwood, ect.

To the OP, if you make friends with a professional arborist or two, they'll usually help you out with some hardwood. Locust, mulberry, ash and fruitwoods grow in your part of the country, also hedge, but it's pretty rare. I have one friend who works for Asplundh and lives about 50 miles away. He likes to hunt doves on my place so he always brings me a van load of hardwood every September. Another local guy does my tree work, and he knows he can drop off logs at my place instead of paying dump fees. He brought about a 1/4 pickup load of mulberry by my shop yesterday when he was cutting in the neighborhood. Win win for him since he usually has to take it to the dump.

 

[Yerpdog]

Funny 'bout that. Once they're air-dried, variation of energy/pound is next to nil. Conifer pitch puts them a little ABOVE deciduous per POUND.

Now, if you're talking energy/volume, there's a wide range. Thus the numbers/cord (volume.)

I'm actually in the middle of working up a list for that. There are plenty of firewood BTU charts online but i'm trying to get a full list..

And you are correct, all woods have almost the exact same energy per pound. Seasoned wood works out to be around the same BTUs per pound regardless of species.

 

[Fyrebug]

And you are correct, all woods have almost the exact same energy per pound. Seasoned wood works out to be around 6,200 BTUs per pound regardless of species.

There's 2 ways of measuring the moisture content for cordwood. One is the 'wet' method and the other is the 'dry'.

As long as we talk about the same method, wood at 15% humidity should be around 7,500 BTU per pound.

 

[Steve NW WI]

There's 2 ways of measuring the moisture content for cordwood. One is the 'wet' method and the other is the 'dry'.

As long as we talk about the same method, wood at 15% humidity should be around 7,500 BTU per pound.

Care to fill in the firewood geeks among us on the difference in the two measurements? Seeing 20 different charts and no two the same makes me pull out my hair, which is falling out by itself nicely enough and doesn't really need my help.

 

[WidowMaker]

As obvious as it sound, I'm not sure I understand the differance of Wet vs Dry Method, talking firewood here....

 

[Yerpdog]

There's 2 ways of measuring the moisture content for cordwood. One is the 'wet' method and the other is the 'dry'.

As long as we talk about the same method, wood at 15% humidity should be around 7,500 BTU per pound.

Yeah we're pretty close on the numbers here. I was going with seasoned wood 20%+ moisture to get 6,200 BTU per pound. I think max BTU per pound is over 8,500 btu's per pound. I know there is a laboratory number for it.. Like 8,600 something.. I haven't gotten gotten that far. I'm actually in the middle of converting the lumber industry weighs of wood to usable numbers. The lumber industry has much more extensive and precise numbers for wood weights than any of these hokey BTU charts online do. It's a long process. Should be interesting information when all is said and done. So out of curiousity, how do you know so much about all this?