i got some cottonwood

[aaronmach1]

Not by choice but my dad had some cottonwood trees that needed to be cut down so i got the wood after we cut it. Two trees standing dead and a couple more live. Should i give the wood a year to season? Also should i leave it in the round till next year or split it now? I have heard this wood rots fast.i got about a cord or so.thanks

 

[arborealbuffoon]

Oh my.....bring on the wood species bashing....this could be as fun as another oil thread over on chainsaws....uttahere2:uttahere2:

 

[3fordasho]

The last couple times I've ended up with low btu wood I make some of it into swedish candles- cut some of the rounds 24-36" long and make your noodle cuts - cottonwood will dry down good enough to burn in a year or so. Otherwise I sell it to my firepit/fireplace customers.

Not by choice but my dad had some cottonwood trees that needed to be cut down so i got the wood after we cut it. Two trees standing dead and a couple more live. Should i give the wood a year to season? Also should i leave it in the round till next year or split it now? I have heard this wood rots fast.i got about a cord or so.thanks

 

[greendohn]

I've not fooled with any cotton wood. I've some sycamore to get on the truck.

It all burns better than snow balls. Work it up and burn a couple pieces in your out door fire pit. Let us know the results.

edit: me thinks i might have cut a cotton wood many years ago,,i can't recall the results,,light weight and fast burning? I dunno,,

 

[dingeryote]

Been burning Cotton wood for a couple weeks now. The heat is the same flavor as Oak and Cherry.:hmm3grin2orange:

Cottonwood splits better frozen, or bucked up and left for a couple months in a pile. Green, it can be stringy but no where near as bad as Elm.

Get it up off the ground once split. By early spring around late March, when it starts getting to be mud season, it should be 50% seasoned and not too bad to run, but still not optimum. For some reason Cottonwood seems to dry to a certain point real quick, and then takes longer to get the last bit of moisture out and stabilize, or at least it seems that way.

After a year in the stack, it goes up pretty quick but not real bad. There is worse.
If kept off the ground and with air free to move around the stack it dosn't rot real quick and can be kept for a couple years around here where humidity is kinda nuts.

One of my favorite mixes this time of year, is 2-3 big splits of Cottonwood or sassafrass put right on the coals for a restart, with 2-3 bigger splits of Oak or Cherry on top. It takes right off and makes for less overlap and then settles in with a nice medium fire and coal bed that can cruise for 4-5 hours overnight and have a good amount of coals left for a restart in the morning.

Some of the snobs scoff at cotton wood, poplar, Sassafrass, and silver Maple, but the lesser species will preserve the good stuff in the stacks longer and heat just as well with a little thinking and a few more steps to the stack.

Burn it!!
Propane and Fuel Oil ain't getting any cheaper, and wood heat is Tax free!

Stay safe!
Dingeryote

 

[jlromine76]

I am actually wrapping up a cord of it this month in my OWB. It has been fairly mild around here so I dont need the massive BTUs of the hickory/oak that I have in the barn so I am loading it up with the cottonwood. The tree I am working on now was cut early this summer by a tree service and I brought home several rounds that were 36" or bigger across and 12-15" thick. I rolled them up on my trailer and brought them home and rolled them off and stored them unsplit until a month or so ago. By the time I split them they were fairly dry and while they dont last all night they do a good job keeping the water warm during the 45-60 degree days. I am just trying to make them last long enough to make it to December or so when I can switch over to some seasoned poplar then if it gets real cold I will go to the hickory, cherry and oak I have seasoning in the barn. From what I can tell it doesnt coal real well and at least in an OWB it pretty much just burns down to a fine ash so I wouldnt rely on it to be an all day fire. I can get a 240 gallon water tank up to temp pretty quick with it so the BTU output is decent or at least in short spurts.

 

[ponyexpress976]

I've recently adopted Zogger's policy in that if I have to put a saw into it anyway, the wood might as well be put to use. Not great for long burns...but burning it now will save the oak for when you need it.

 

[Gjt1980]

i have been burning cotton wood in my stoves for 4 yrs now. it heats my garages just fine, easy to start and burns fast. i have a bunch of it i sell the hard wood and i burn the cotton wood

 

[3fordasho]

Dingeryote has nailed it.... a mix of medium/low btu wood and higher btu wood can be the best of both worlds- use the low btu stuff up front in the stove to get the flames kicking, high btu wood in the back to extend the burn. I'm finding this out the hard way as I sold all my lower btu wood and only have the good stuff left.... makes restarts painfully slow.

Course I still have plenty of siberian elm, a low btu wood that just does not seem to want to readily burn... yes it is plenty dry.

Been burning Cotton wood for a couple weeks now.

One of my favorite mixes this time of year, is 2-3 big splits of Cottonwood or sassafrass put right on the coals for a restart, with 2-3 bigger splits of Oak or Cherry on top. It takes right off and makes for less overlap and then settles in with a nice medium fire and coal bed that can cruise for 4-5 hours overnight and have a good amount of coals left for a restart in the morning.

Some of the snobs scoff at cotton wood, poplar, Sassafrass, and silver Maple, but the lesser species will preserve the good stuff in the stacks longer and heat just as well with a little thinking and a few more steps to the stack.

Stay safe!
Dingeryote

 

[SAWFORD79]

I burn a lot of it here in western Kansas. I have noticed if it is cut green and is much bigger in diameter than 24" and is in log form that the center doesn't seem to dry out. I had some 36" diameter logs for 3 years that was dry on the outside but I never cut it into firewood lengths and it was still wet when I cut it and tried to split it. The best thing I have found here is to cut it to firewood length then it will dry good and splits better.

 

[Mac88]

It's pretty low on the BTU scale, but so is cedar and silver maple. We burn both of those, especially when we don't need a really hot fire. They also make good starter wood for oak and hedge. If I had cottonwood, I'd burn it.

 

[taz17]

I have burnt a lot of different kinds of wood and it is all cheaper than propane!!! The cotton wood burns pretty fast but still makes heat, and in the OWB, it all seems to work, it just doesn't last very long.

BURN IT ALL!!! If I have a reason to cut it and move it, it is getting burnt! Just cut/split and let it cure...

 

[Larry Ashcraft]

You guys are spoiled...

Probably 90% of the wood we burn is cottonwood, since that's what we have. Hardwoods are rare in southern Colorado. In the mountains they have pine, aspen, and some scrub oak. On the plains we have cottonwood and elm. Occasionally an arborist friend gets me some fruitwood or hardwood such as ash, but hickory, cherry and oak don't do well here. I use my hardwood stash for "overnighters".

I do have 3 or 4 old mulberry trees that I'll cut when they die, but they're all over 100 years old and only about 18" in diameter.

Our cottonwood works pretty well. Once the fire is going in my Encore, a big split will last an hour or so on a cold day. My theory is that in our arid climate, cottonwood grows slower and is more dense than say in the midwest or south The rings in the logs I cut show that the large cottonwoods only grow about 1/2" in diameter each year.

 

[PEKS]

If I cut it, I burn it, so I do not cut much Cottonwood..
Having an abundance of many other hardwood's, does put them higher on the food chain..

 

[aaronmach1]

thanks guys. Looks like it will hit the splitter soon then.

 

[Steve NW WI]

Here's a couple of cords I worked up this fall: http://www.arboristsite.com/firewood-heating-wood-burning-equipment/207199.htm

Stringy splitting, I've been told it splits better after being left in the round a while, but I'm impatient and have a big splitter. Usually stinks like barnyard when green, not bad when good and dried out. Not a long burner, but will be great next fall for me.

Like the guys said, if you gotta cut it, might as well burn it.

 

[gtsawyer]

My area sounds the same as Larry's - Cottonwood and elm mostly. If I head to the mountains, it's pine and aspen.

Occasionally I get lucky with some better stuff - walnut and fruitwood. But that's rare.

Cottonwood is about the same btu value as pine, and without the messy pitch.

 

[Larry Ashcraft]

Stringy splitting, I've been told it splits better after being left in the round a while, but I'm impatient and have a big splitter.

It splits fine when dry. We lost 50 or so trees in the 2002 drought, and they've been blowing down the last few years. Anything under about 16" with the bark off will be dry enough to just cut and split. Anything bigger has to be blocked and stacked for a few months. As long as the logs are kept off the ground, they'll stay good for several years.

I had a problem tree in the yard dropped early this spring, maybe 30" in diameter at the base. I blocked it up and the bark is finally loose enough to strip off. That one probably won't be ready to split until next fall.

 

[Nosmo]

Cottonwood

Got some in the stove and its heating the house right now. Fellow down the road had a huge limb break off last summer and he cut it up.

I brought it home and ran all the rounds through my splitter. Probably had a little over a face cord (rick) and for free wood it is doing just fine.

No problem getting it to burn and no problem while splitting it.

Nosmo

 

[autoimage]

if you sell a cord and a customer sees it around here they will freak out, so i wont even cut it if its free. i do however use the method of mixing low and high wood, just use silver and red maple for that.