'Bad' wood?

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Newschool

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Nov 1, 2012
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My 2nd year burning, I purchased wood the last two years and am a year or so ahead.

The area I live in is semi urban with a lot of new developments. In our borough recycling/composting place there is always a giant pile of rounds that people leave there (mostly locals who take down trees, etc.).

I am thinking of trying my hand at collecting these from time to time and splitting them (friend has a powered splitter). When I mention this to people, I always get warnings about 'bad' wood or wood that will somehow be bad (or something).

So really, what's the worst case scenario? I get some soft woods that burn quick? Am I missing something?
 
Newschool said:
So really, what's the worst case scenario? I get some soft woods that burn quick? Am I missing something?
Click to expand...
Nope. I think you are right on point.
 
Thanks. I keep seeing this pile get larger all summer as I dump my grass clippings each week. It seems crazy to not start doing this. I'm sure I'll have a lot of wood IDs to post here ;em
 
bad wood...runs with a rough crowd, uses foul language, always dropping leaves in your yard. not to be confused with naughty wood...totally different....full of naughts ;).
 
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Lots of folks including me scavenge tree dump sites. To me bad wood is oak (dont have much storage space for slow drying wood currently). Very low btu species since that requires more space but with a quicker dry time. Lastly is the hard to split or need to be noodled rounds. Larger saw and a splitter rental will take care of that. I do however have all three types of bad wood mentioned. So is there really bad wood? If its not rotted or full of metal my answer is no.
 
If you have access to a splitter and truck to haul it, there is nor such thing as bad wood. Generally the length is wrong and recutting it is risky with urban wood. Frequently you can see stains in the grain that indicate that there may be metal but a metal detector is the way to go. Lot to be said for vertical splitter as moving a 100 plus pound round onto a truck and then off of it and then back up on a horizontal splitter is great way of screwing up a back.
 
Punky/rotten wood that falls apart rather than being split... Wood that has major infestations of bugs (often times punky/rotten). That's what I call bad wood. If you are pulling rounds from a dump site you should be able to easily avoid those.

Now - if you can be picky, there certainly are woods that are more nicer than others. With limited space to dry wood I go for more dense species - I used to collect softwoods but now only go for harder species simply to not have to store as high a volume for the same BTUs. Since I split by hand I also avoid the really knotty pieces when given a choice.
 
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Slow1 said:
Punky/rotten wood that falls apart rather than being split... Wood that has major infestations of bugs (often times punky/rotten). That's what I call bad wood. If you are pulling rounds from a dump site you should be able to easily avoid those.

Now - if you can be picky, there certainly are woods that are more nicer than others. With limited space to dry wood I go for more dense species - I used to collect softwoods but now only go for harder species simply to not have to store as high a volume for the same BTUs. Since I split by hand I also avoid the really knotty pieces when given a choice.
Click to expand...

My thoughts exactly - other than rotten or punk it will all burn. I split by hand also and those knotty pieces are reserved for the chainsaw.
 
There's also the myth that pine is bad to burn, but that's not true either.
 
Other than punky, rotten wood or wood full of nails I don't think you can go wrong scavenging at a place like this . . . sure, you might find a lot of softwood there as folks may not consider it suitable for burning . . . but hearth.com folks who are in the know realize that to every species there is a season and burning pine or other less desirable wood is fine.
 
I liked that, too. Pete Seeger would be pleased, I think.

If you have a power splitter, this seems like a great option. You could even take the splitter with you to the site and only have to handle the big wood once.

If you don't have a power splitter, I'd just be more judicious of what I took -- I spent about two hours trying to hand split a few big hemlock rounds this weekend, and it was really a workout, with surprisingly little to show for it.
 
Some of my best and easiest scrounges has been from the local debris dump. Cord and a half of ash
Cut in 48 inch pieces. Loaded them in my truck. 2 cuts to each. 16 inch pieces. Split and stacked in one day
Don't tell anyone where you get it though.;) Your secret.
 
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