What Is In Your Stove Right Now?

  • Active since 1995, Hearth.com is THE place on the internet for free information and advice about wood stoves, pellet stoves and other energy saving equipment.

    We strive to provide opinions, articles, discussions and history related to Hearth Products and in a more general sense, energy issues.

    We promote the EFFICIENT, RESPONSIBLE, CLEAN and SAFE use of all fuels, whether renewable or fossil.
Have been saving some bone dry locust for when it finally got real cold. Have been running a mix of mostly oak with some sugar maple, ash, cherry and mulberry scrounged splits mixed in. Was out for a ride today with the family and saw a large amount of oak on the side of the road. Hopefully I can get to it tomorrow or before they come back around to finish the line clearing.
 
Oak, ash, mulberry and hickory because winter hit with a vengeance the last few days. This mornings weather here lol

image.png
 
  • Like
Reactions: Ashful and Joe13
1f8d161df35ae36be272fa35acf1ba1e.jpg

Red oak and ash, possibly a stick or two of maple. -10 with wind chill to -35. Stove is taking care of downstairs, but propane is working on the rest of the house for now. Bitter bitter cold and 2700 sq ft makes it tough!
 
  • Like
Reactions: D8Chumley
It's not as cold here as they thought it was going to be. We hit the single digits, but it's 16::F now. Going to be in the 40's tomorrow and in the 60's by the weekend. Hard maple is about all I'm burning. I've mixed in a few sticks of ash, walnut, cherry, and pine. I've been putting black locust on at night just for the extended burn times. I hope this is the last blast of winter.
 
I managed to pull all hackberry from the mix stack earlier today. I just finished burning it and loaded up with all walnut for tonight. Totally random.
 
Ash and some cherry from a dead stander I just cut/split yesterday. Totally dry, lit quick and no sizzling. Amazing.
 
-10 again tonight, full load of of oak/ash combo

Yeah -10 here as well.. this I didn't expect tonight. They were talking 0 or a tad bit below. Last night I saw -18. No wind tonight if the wind didn't stay up all night last night it probably would have gone down to a crazy temperature.

Black Locust and Ash at the moment. I loaded the stove a little while ago and its I had to shield my face with my arm. No glowing or weird smells from the stove so I guess i'm cruising along OK.
 
  • Like
Reactions: FaithfulWoodsman
Yeah -10 here as well.. this I didn't expect tonight. They were talking 0 or a tad bit below. Last night I saw -18. No wind tonight if the wind didn't stay up all night last night it probably would have gone down to a crazy temperature.

Black Locust and Ash at the moment. I loaded the stove a little while ago and its I had to shield my face with my arm. No glowing or weird smells from the stove so I guess i'm cruising along OK.

Same here. They were saying 5 to 0, but it dipped below zero early in the afternoon, and dropped further after sundown. Much less wind tonight though (last night was brutal). After 2 days subzero, I actually got my wife to put a load of wood into the stove while I was away at work. Tomorrow snow is in the forecast and high temp of 25. HEAT WAVE!
 
Ashes considering it was in the low twenties the past 2 days and my thermometer is reading 50 right now. Gotta love MS weather [emoji1]
 
Some kiln dried red and white oak. Got almost two cords yesterday from a fantastic local dealer. He sells packaged firewood to hardware stores and sells the imperfects as bulk cords at 18% internal moisture. I can't put more than 2-3 splits in my stove at a time or it will get too hot!
 
Dieing remains of the mulberry from this morning. I'm shutting it down tonight. Supposed to be spring again tomorrow and through the weekend with 60 degree temps.
 
I started a fire around 530 am this morning before I left for work. A mix of Black Walnut and Sugar Maple.
My wife said the house was too warm today so she let it burn out. I doubt we have any fires this weekend, suppose to be very nice with near record temps.
 
except for overnite, I've been mixing in a pine split with two red oak splits. We've been letting the stove coals get down to almost nothing at least mid day before filling it up again as solar gain thru southern windows and not so cold outside during the center of the day hasn't really needed a rip roaring fire.
Plus I brought quite a bit of pine to the patio by the back door and would rather burn it than hoof it back to the pine stack.
 
Mostly Red Oak and Black Locust on the cold days,
with some soft Maple and Tulip (Yellow) Poplar
mixed in for starting. Also a little Cherry.
 
  • Like
Reactions: CentralVAWoodHeat
Mostly Red Oak and Black Locust on the cold days,
with some soft Maple and Tulip (Yellow) Poplar
mixed in for starting. Also a little Cherry.
I have to 'like' anyone's post that mentions burning Tulip Poplar. I love mixing that in. It is such a pleasure to work with from felling, all the way through burning. It is also extremely plentiful in my neck of the woods. I will cut at least a couple each year not only for firewood purposes but primarily so they don't shade everything else out.
 
I have to 'like' anyone's post that mentions burning Tulip Poplar. I love mixing that in. It is such a pleasure to work with from felling, all the way through burning. It is also extremely plentiful in my neck of the woods. I will cut at least a couple each year not only for firewood purposes but primarily so they don't shade everything else out.
Funny how some peoples' experiences can vary so greatly. I've split & burned tulip poplar but I'm not a fan of it. Seems like more trouble than it's worth. It's harder to split than oak and delivers a lot less heat. The only reason I split & burn it is that I have plenty around me and hate to see wood go to waste. Every time I split a poplar I swear never again. Every time I burn poplar I see how fast it burns and remember what it took to split and swear never again. I guess I have a short memory! It's easy to buck, I'll grant you that--cuts like butter.
 
Funny how some peoples' experiences can vary so greatly. I've split & burned tulip poplar but I'm not a fan of it. Seems like more trouble than it's worth. It's harder to split than oak and delivers a lot less heat. The only reason I split & burn it is that I have plenty around me and hate to see wood go to waste. Every time I split a poplar I swear never again. Every time I burn poplar I see how fast it burns and remember what it took to split and swear never again. I guess I have a short memory! It's easy to buck, I'll grant you that--cuts like butter.

Do you split green? I split some cottonwood every year but can't split green. I always have to let the rounds sit for 6months to a year.
 
Do you split green? I split some cottonwood every year but can't split green. I always have to let the rounds sit for 6months to a year.
Nope, never green. Either standing dead or fallen long enough for the bark to start coming off. The smaller stuff (8" or so) isn't too hard but I still find it harder to split than other woods. It seems stringy to me--hard to get a clean split. Not like oak, which pops apart. Have I mentioned that I love oak? I love oak. :)
 

oak,oak,oak,pine
 

Attachments

  • IMG_0015.JPG
    IMG_0015.JPG
    101.4 KB · Views: 175
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: Lakeside
Started with some cedar for kindling and then added sassafras, oak, and later some 6" rounds of fig. The previous two winters were brutal (by Northern Virginia standards) and killed our 15-20 foot fig trees. Sadly, nothing to do but convert them to firewood.
 
Funny how some peoples' experiences can vary so greatly. I've split & burned tulip poplar but I'm not a fan of it. Seems like more trouble than it's worth. It's harder to split than oak and delivers a lot less heat. The only reason I split & burn it is that I have plenty around me and hate to see wood go to waste. Every time I split a poplar I swear never again. Every time I burn poplar I see how fast it burns and remember what it took to split and swear never again. I guess I have a short memory! It's easy to buck, I'll grant you that--cuts like butter.
You must be having some weird splitting experiences between this and other posts you've done. Poplar is super easy to split. I would tie it nearly with the oaks. The difference is, oaks tend to be a bit more knotty than Tulip Poplar. In addition, it is so light that moving and stacking it are significantly easier. For me, it's so easy to fell and process and puts so little wear on me and my tools, that the quicker burn times are a fine trade off.