Scrounging Firewood (and other stuff)

[LondonNeil]

I've done a couple of runs to my normal tree guy in the last few days, no hickory or beech, just oak, standing dead pear, a round or 2 of silver birch and a lot of sycamore, sorry Dancan, no spruce. When sorting through the pile I always try to get the straight pieces and leave the nasty crotches. If straight bits only give me half a load I then usually get some crotchety bits to fill the car a bit more but wont cram quite as much in as on other occasions. Tonight's load was half a car load of straight oak and dead pear but I then filled it with the sycamore which remained after my previous visit, and that previous visit had cleaned out all the straight stuff so tonight its a lot of crotches...ugly. Oh but I have a new saw to test.....oh yes .
Overall I'm quite pleased as I suspect that I'm now 3 years ahead with my wood stocks. I've about 1.5 cords worth of processing to do, which is 3/4 of a years worth of wood for me, looking forward to running the new (old) saw to buck and noodle some of it.

On a down side, I broke the handle on my new pickaroon the other day, its only a few months old! The handle did look **** when it arrived, grain orientation was as bad as it could be. New hickory handle ordered on ebay, so cross your fingers for me its better than the first one. Guess I'm ging to have to learn to fit a handle too. Since its a pickaroon I may drill through the head from the side to add a screw or pin to secure it from pulling off.

 

[Jeffkrib]

Casuarina burns very hot, when you look into the hot coals under the wood normally its glowing at the 600 - 700°C range. Casuarina is up into the white scale I would say over 1000°C

 

[Cowboy254]

Casuarina burns very hot, when you look into the hot coals under the wood normally its glowing at the 600 - 700°C range. Casuarina is up into the white scale I would say over 1000°C

View attachment 589866

1150kg/m at 12% MC, Jeff. That's up there. Very concentrated BTUs!

 

[Jeffkrib]

This stuff is coastal high rainfall grown so not that dense. Although they say pound for pound pretty much all wood has the same BTU's based on how hot it burns I can see how willow has as much energy as casuarina. I'd love to have my own bomb calorimeter to test this stuff.

 

[Cowboy254]

This stuff is coastal high rainfall grown so not that dense. Although they say pound for pound pretty much all wood has the same BTU's based on how hot it burns I can see how willow has as much energy as casuarina. I'd love to have my own bomb calorimeter to test this stuff.

Pound for pound most softwoods have more energy than hardwood depending on resin content but all hardwoods are much the same as each other. Energy (determined by mass) relative to volume, that's a different matter.

 

[MustangMike]

There is more to wood burning than just BTUs. How a wood coals up, or not, can also be important.

I can also tell you from experience, just changing the chimney on the same stove can result in a preference for a different wood.

With the old chimney (or venting), which was rudimentary, it preferred Ash as that wood generally dries easier and burns easier. With the new triple lined - more efficient chimney, the Ash burns too quickly and does not last the night, Cherry seems to work better for the over night periods.

Nothing worse than a cold stove in the morning.

Ash & Cherry are the two most common trees up there.

 

[svk]

Mike is right.

In my indoor boiler (when I use it), the size of splits and species of wood makes a big difference.

On a cold day, a full load of balsam splits (fireplace sized splits) lasts 45 minutes. A full load of fireplace sized aspen splits lasts 90 minutes. Aspen in larger rounds or blocks lasts 3.5 hours, birch and maple lasts 6 and oak lasts 8-12 hours. Red oak is about double the density of balsam yet it provides heat for ten times longer.

 

[Cowboy254]

There is more to wood burning than just BTUs. How a wood coals up, or not, can also be important.

I can also tell you from experience, just changing the chimney on the same stove can result in a preference for a different wood.

With the old chimney (or venting), which was rudimentary, it preferred Ash as that wood generally dries easier and burns easier. With the new triple lined - more efficient chimney, the Ash burns too quickly and does not last the night, Cherry seems to work better for the over night periods.

Nothing worse than a cold stove in the morning.

Ask & Cherry are the two most common trees up there.

Mike is right.

In my indoor boiler (when I use it), the size of splits and species of wood makes a big difference.

On a cold day, a full load of balsam splits (fireplace sized splits) lasts 45 minutes. A full load of fireplace sized aspen splits lasts 90 minutes. Aspen in larger rounds or blocks lasts 3.5 hours, birch and maple lasts 6 and oak lasts 8-12 hours. Red oak is about double the density of balsam yet it provides heat for ten times longer.

Yes to all this. The other thing that influences burn times - here at least - is emissions standards. Wood heaters here now have a limit to which the air intakes can be closed down to - which is higher than most would prefer so that even when fully shut down, wood will often burn out if you're not a bit careful. Older heaters such as the one that was originally in our old house could be shut down further allowing it to burn through the night or even closed off completely.

@svk , I agree. Burn time appears to be more or less exponentially related to density and ease of ignition inversely related. Another complicating factor being ash content which can reduce air access to the combustible material in the wood once it has burned down a bit which can make it burn longer, albeit with more cr@p in your wood box. A further complicating factor may be the composition of the wood itself in terms of volatile content. The volatiles ignite a few millimetres from the wood and burn with bright flame and burn faster and more easily than the remaining carbon/charcoal which is what is left after the volatiles have gone up in pyrolysis. Softwoods have a much higher volatile content and lower remnant charcoal, along with lower density overall but there also appears to be a fair bit of variation in hardwoods as well.

Two of our local eucalypts are quite close to each other in terms of density but burn very differently. Candlebark (e. rubida) burns brightly and produces ok coals while peppermint burns with a low flame (as the latter has lower volatiles) but produces great coals and lasts a fair bit longer than candlebark. With the lower volatiles, peppermint is also slower to get going as a result so if you get home from a weekend away and want to get it heating quickly, the candlebark is the better of the two. Neither have much ash at all. Blue gum is somewhat denser than both and produces plenty of ash and will outlast both by a significant margin so is better for the nights. I can appreciate each in different ways.

I have read a few times here that cherry coals up well - perhaps it has a higher carbon content to volatile?

 

[dancan]

Cough , cough , Spruce ,,, cough ....

 

[Cowboy254]

Cough , cough , Spruce ,,, cough ....

Spruce? Never heard of it

 

[LondonNeil]

Agree, its very variable depending on stove and set up, weather, and what you are trying to achieve. I find a damp, misty or rainy day and my stove won't draw as hard. The emissions control thing meaning air is wide - ish open, means split size, moisture content and wood type have more control for many of us than the air controls. It gets a bit scary when you over cook it and can't shut things down that fast, but at least with an 'ickle stove' it burns itself out fast.
I've only been burning a year so have a lot to learn but so far I know softwoods are easy so long as you can load often, Holly and sycamore seem as easy but a fair bit denser and more long lifed, but for me Oak seems to sulk. in my stove Oak only burns well when it has company....it then shows off and chucks out nuclear heat, but on its own it gets lonely, sulks and just smoulders. It was dry, down 3 years, splt small, all measured 18%MC on my cheapie meter, yet left to amuse itself and it just woudn't.

Given the performance, ease of splitting and drying and how easy it is to come by, I quite like Leylandii. So long as its had time to dry and isn't a big sticky mess. However I am looking forward to trying the Ash and the Locust in coming years. Both woods I read good things about. Hope the Ash burns well....it has been a long and hard battle to get it processed!

Spruce...there are so many more woods I've yet to try.

 

[svk]

I burned up a big white spruce that had been blown down for about 5 years.

On paper it's a tad above aspen. In reality it was about halfway between aspen and white birch for burn times.

 

[dancan]

Black spruce , slow growth , polly 1/2 inch or less for every 25 years , real tight rings
White and red , well , if that's what you've got ...

 

[Jeffkrib]

Wow Mustang Mike, wouldn't expect a chimney change to make a difference, was there a change in inner Ø or was the change like for like.
If you tell me Ø didn't change I'll really be scratching my head.

 

[MustangMike]

Inside diameter did not change, but the new flew has a lot more vertical and the part that goes out of the cabin is triple lined (insulated). The old cabin was much smaller, so the pipe went up a bit, then out through the wall.

The new cabin is two stories high, and the pipe goes right up through the roof. It makes a huge difference.

 

[MustangMike]

Had a very busy day today. Delivered 3 cord of wood (that is 6 of my trailer loads, neatly stacked each time to provide the right volume), then unloaded & stacked again.

Tested a couple of saws, my new Chinese MS 660 knockoff with the Cross cylinder runs very strong.

Then I took the ATV and hauled the splitter up a hill with it to split up a Black Birch I dropped about a month ago.

Had other things I had to do in the early morning, so really did not get started till 9:30, took a lunch break and had to do more work for a client, then went back to the wood stuff and got it all done by 5:00 ... not bad if I may say so myself! It was constant motion!

 

[Cowboy254]

Had a very busy day today. Delivered 3 cord of wood (that is 6 of my trailer loads, neatly stacked each time to provide the right volume), then unloaded & stacked again.

Tested a couple of saws, my new Chinese MS 660 knockoff with the Cross cylinder runs very strong.

Then I took the ATV and hauled the splitter up a hill with it to split up a Black Birch I dropped about a month ago.

Had other things I had to do in the early morning, so really did not get started till 9:30, took a lunch break and had to do more work for a client, then went back to the wood stuff and got it all done by 5:00 ... not bad if I may say so myself! It was constant motion!

Sounds like you've earned a beer!

 

[Marshy]

Wow Mustang Mike, wouldn't expect a chimney change to make a difference, was there a change in inner Ø or was the change like for like.
If you tell me Ø didn't change I'll really be scratching my head.

The draft in a chimney is largely due to the temperature difference of the flue gas and the outside temperature. It's a air density and a bouncy thing to make a stove breath. If you insulate the chimney and give up less heat to the chimney it will have a greater temperature at it's exit point and have a stronger draft. Adding length to the chimney also increases draft.


I haven't had a chance to go back for the rest of that locust yet. That stuff splits like a dream. Maybe it's just the stuff I got (cut down last year) but it splits easier than straight grained ash and oak.
I did work on my wood pile though. Got my cutting/splitting area all cleaned up with the tractor, positioned my splitter and started cutting/splitting when my neighbor came over. He was talking delivery of his new maple syrup evaporator and needed help. So I went over and helped him and the delivery guy (who had terrible English) unload. Apparently they didn't call him to tell him they were bringing it so he was scrabbling to find help. Luckily I had the day off and assisted. As a token of appreciation he gave me a half gallon of syrup! Talk about a sweet reward.

 

[Jeffkrib]

Makes complete sense Marshy, I'll lock that into memory bank of useful knowledge.

 

[MustangMike]

Adding to what Marshy stated, more vertical (less horizontal), and fewer elbows also make a huge difference.

The old flue only went up a bit, then mostly horizontal (a bit of a pitch, but not much). The new flue is much longer and entirely vertical, makes a huge difference. Also, the new one is insulated after it passes through the roof. It all makes a difference.