Type of wood makes a big difference too!?

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muncybob

muncybob

Minister of Fire
Apr 8, 2008
2,158
Near Williamsport, PA
It's been well documented that dry wood makes a world of difference in any wood burner. And the btu ratings of different woods is also easily found. I have discovered(not to my surprise though) that hardwoods make a big difference versus soft woods in sustaining hot coals to make "re-ignition" so much easier. We have enjoyed a much warmer than normal heating season to this point so I have been burning a lot of pine since we have not had much of a need for daytime heat. I've been trying to save my dry oak for the winter. The pine burns so fast and leaves mostly just ash and even using the timer on my WG it has been difficult to maintain a hot bed for easy morning lighting/feeding.
I did not get a new supply of pine into the basement this week before the 3+ inches of rain fell so I was forced to use my oak which was kept dry the last 2 days....what a difference!!! The first morning I opened the door I had plenty of hot coals glowing at me after a night of fairly warm temps and I did not use the timer to keep the coals going through the night.

So this makes me wonder how do the folks that have to burn soft wood manage?? It was actually getting to be a bit of a pain feeding the boiler so frequently as the pine would burn down so quickly. Granted, I was burning fairly small fires due to small demand but it seems soft wood burns so fast people must have to load their boilers 4 to 5+ times/day?? I'm hoping with good dry hardwood I will be loading 3 times max per day??
 
Some folks, depending on where they live, don't have any options other than soft woods. Those of us who scoff at pine - we should all consider ourselves lucky!
 
Some firewood charts will list 'coaling ability' along with 'smoke', 'sparks' and some other firewood attributes. It can vary quite significantly even within hard woods. But pine would definitely be on the low end and oak on the high.
 
Munybob, I could not have said it any better. Word for word. I got into a portion of my pile that is nice and dry/hard stuff after weeks of crappy wood burning. It has gotten slightly more fall like now, and still I am going way longer on a burn even with the colder temps. I think it is a walnut/cherry mix right now. The smoke smells pleasant at times too.

We had a major pipeline come through here this summer. I now have piles and piles of topped and stacked logs all around the farm I have been working on. I think I have enough cut and split for next season already, I am working on 2 seasons ahead right now.

To keep in tune with the thread, much of this wood is some kind of gum tree. Very big rounds, hard to cut, and my 23 ton splitter wont hardly split it. I think i'll have to abandon this stuff, but I have no idea how it burns. The wood looks funny, kind of stringy on the inside. If I had a pic i'd share.
 
Muncybob, Perhaps it would be gest to describe wood by weight for heating purposes rather than by "soft or hard" as most woods that burn longest weigh the most. But I know your elation in the longer burns. Until this year I have not had much hickory. The improvement over red oak is noticeable and the oak was great compared to walnut and cherry and they were a vast improvement over pine and spruce. But in the summer I burn the pine and spruce for short burns to heat my dhw. By the way red elm fits in there between the red oak and the walnut and every variety I have burned has been a different result.
 
I own a 125 acre woodlot and in 8 years of exploring it have only found a single oak tree (about 4" in diameter). Maple, I got a lot of, probably 90% of my trees...what I lack in quality, I make up in quantity. Part of me would love try try a cord of oak or hickory (or any other really good wood), but then it might spoil me.

The one nice thing about maple is its goes from being dropped to ready to burn in less than 12 months, at least it is the way I split it.
 
Borderline between Boiler room and Woodshed for content, but what some of the folks in pine country do is go up a size on their units - I know that was what we often used to suggest in the Hearth room with stove sizing...

I think it is worth pointing out that there is very little difference between the different woods in terms of BTU's per POUND of wood - the big difference is in the density of the wood, or how many pounds per VOLUME the wood has... If you look at the charts, the good burning woods are all also the woods with very high weights per cord... If you have a low density wood, you just need to have a bigger firebox in order to stuff more BTU's into it.

There is also a great deal of variation between varieties of a given tree - Rock or Sugar Maple are way up on most lists, while Swamp maple is way down near the softwood area. Likewise there is a big spread between red and white oak...

Barnartist - sounds like it might be either elm or gum, either of which is hard splitting, but reasonably good burning wood. If it is hard to split now, you might try cutting to length and stacking it to season for a while... Some stuff splits better after it has seasoned for a while, other stuff seems to do better green. Also always remember that if you can't split it down the middle, I haven't found stuff yet that could withstand having slabs taken off the sides...

Gooserider
 
When I had my Wood Gun,I would always tell people that I saved the pine for the colder days and burned the hardwood during the warmer season and they thought I was dyslexic. Like saying I stacked all the hay I could outside and put the rest in the barn. When there is idling involved, you need wood with good coaling qualities and pine has poor coaling qualities. Therefore pine works best when there is a high load on the system so there is little or no idling.
I've commented in the past on Wood Gun's claims that " the residual heat in the refractory will re-ignite the fire" is bull s**t.
 
I've been burning pine for the past month and my OWB could care less what I burn. Fresh pine burns awesome, so does hardwood. At night, I load it up with 80%hardwood and 20% soft wood. During the day I burn nothing but pine, as I can check it and add more in the middle of the day if needed. I'm heating 2800 Sq. Feet of house, plus domestic hot water and a 1500 sq' two story barn, no problem. I do, however burn 20 cords of wood for the season, due to picking the wrong underground pipe. I'm still not giving the Arabs any money for oil, so...I'm ahead as far as I can see.
 

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20 cords...wow! That's a lot of splitting, etc.! Good thing you have a hydraulic to do the work for you!

Fed, I have to agree that it's not the heat from the refractory that will re-ignite the WG after a prolonged period of "idle" time. They should change that to read the 4 hour cycle timer will keep the coals hot to re-ignite.

Still, this newbie is amazed at the difference I have seen between the dry pine I've been burning and the dry oak I recently used. Yesterday temps were near 60 again...so it was back to pine! The local hunters are not happy with the temps...1st day of buck season and it will be in the mid 50's!!
 
I had an early 1980's 140 -- no cycle timer!
Wouldn't want to hang a buck too long in that weather!
 
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