The worst firewood?

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StihlHead

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What is the worst firewood available in your area?

I saw this in ad posted on CL today. It looked good until I saw that it is Tree of Heaven, which is now listed as an invasive species in Oregon. So a lot of people are cutting them down. I never burned any of it, but I believe that this is the worst of any "firewood" available in this area.

Free fire wood (Portland, OR)

Had a huge tree of heaven taken down in my yard, and most of the tree is cut and ready to go. HUGE pile of wood. You will need a pick-up, don't think you'll get a trailer up the driveway.

Email reply if interested.


Anyone interested, its still available as of this posting time. ;)
 
Yeah I gotta go along with that as being the worst; have several huge ones in the work parking lot area -they LOOK impressive but they aren't as far as fuelwood goes!
 
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Probably Sycamore here.
 
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Yes, willow is one of the worst firewoods here too. Hard on saws, rots/piths out fast, low heat, some species smell bad when burned.

Ditto on the willow---made that mistake once....once.
 
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Down here I would have to say the pitch pine or the Virginia pine, were loaded with them. We have the pine barrens forest and preserve here, I don't burn it or cut it. Some do but I won't, gum's up the saw, nasty to work with and just a pain in the A$$ all around<>
 
Ailanthus or Tree Of Hell. Nasty stinking stuff.I had 2 very large & 1 medium sized ones removed from the property in March 2000.Didn't want to pay to dump it at county landfill & especially didn't want to dump it at parents acreage 1 hour away & risk any of those seeds sprouting & taking over their woods.Finally burned it all 2 years later,took another 3 years after that to be free of all the little sprouts that kept popping up all over the yard.


Very heavy when green,split easily,dried quite fast & really stinks.Left more ash than anything I've ever burned.

Never again.Its the only wood I wont cut or bring home.
 
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Sumac! The most useless wood ever. It is a pioneer tree that fills any void on land. The wood is soft and seasons to the consistency of styrofoam. Pretty tree in the fall, though.
 
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Dont see many willows down here , or up in the mountains area's But the little that i did have , was willow . Aint worth a hoot !
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What is the worst firewood available in your area?

I saw this in ad posted on CL today. It looked good until I saw that it is Tree of Heaven, which is now listed as an invasive species in Oregon. So a lot of people are cutting them down. I never burned any of it, but I believe that this is the worst of any "firewood" available in this area.

Free fire wood (Portland, OR)

Had a huge tree of heaven taken down in my yard, and most of the tree is cut and ready to go. HUGE pile of wood. You will need a pick-up, don't think you'll get a trailer up the driveway.

Email reply if interested.


Anyone interested, its still available as of this posting time. ;)

The worst one I have processed is sweet gum. I had trouble even with the 22 ton splitter. It was so stringy and would not split. It did burn pretty well, but it made a lot of fluffy ash.
 
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Of our 6 types of trees, Cottonwood has the lowest BTU .
Tamarack almost all gone due to the larch sawfly. A few areas in the center of the state have some, none near me.
Black spruce is small, mostly in swampy areas & usually crocked, or broken tops so not much used as fire wood & hard to get close to.
Cottonwood & Quaken Aspen (poplars) are easy to come by, but for me they have to be really easy.
That leaves me white spruce & birch. Spruce is 18.1k BTU/cord
I'll work extra hard to get birch. 23.6 k BTU/cord & is our best BTU wood.
ALASKA Fire wood BTU, .jpg
 
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Probably Sycamore here.

Yah, that is on my firewood 'no-get' list as well. I had a huge sycamore tree in California and the firewood was not very good for heat. It also left a ton of ashes, is hard to split, has a ton of water in it when green, and it can smell bad if it is not completely dry when burned. I wound up giving all my pruning wood from that tree to an ex-GF that was a firebug.
 
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The worst one I have processed is sweet gum. I had troubled even with the 22 ton splitter. It was so stringy and would not split. It did burn pretty well, but it made a lot of fluffy ash.

Sweet gum? AKA: liquidambar. Interesting. I have several of those trees here on my property. I felled one 2 years ago that died. It processed pretty easy and split OK. It burned OK. I only had about 1/3 a cord and I cooked it pretty fast. Cannot say I would pass it up, though there are several different types and they vary. I replaced the one that died with a red maple though, as the liquidambars have spikey seed balls that I am not thrilled with, and the trees do not seem to be too happy here (as compared to my Norway maples, cherries, apples, plums, Japanese maples, black pines, and dogwoods).
 
The worst one I have processed is sweet gum.
I get it here as well T, It burns fairly well in the Fishers and I get good burn times with it, but your right, it's a "BEAR" to split!!!. If I can get some 6" to 8" rounds, I'll take it all day as long as I can just cut and stack;)
 
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