Cottonwood

You bet! I burned it when I had to cut it to get at higher value trees the first few years. Once the Emerald Ash Bore came though I was cutting Ash all the time.

It ca nbe a bear to split, and the bark can be a mess, but it does burn.

Enjoy!

I think on this forum you get an exaggerated idea of how bad woods like Cottonwood are compared to better woods. I am not saying Cottonwood, Aspen, White Pine, etc. are as good as oak or hickory, but they aren't as bad as some reports indicate.

Wood Duck said:

I think on this forum you get an exaggerated idea of how bad woods like Cottonwood are compared to better woods. I am not saying Cottonwood, Aspen, White Pine, etc. are as good as oak or hickory, but they aren't as bad as some reports indicate.

Click to expand...

I sometimes wonder if the EPA stoves with either the cats or secondary burning help "pull" out a little more heat from these types of tree species that a pre-EPA stove would lose with the heat quickly going up the stack . . . I know that while I wouldn't rely on pine, poplar or cedar to get me through the dead of winter -- in the Fall and Spring a load of this "crap" wood works wicked good at heating up the place.

Extremely well-seasoned aspen got me through last winter. I talked to someone who said he burned nothing but, as he was trying to get the birch and spruce to grow on his 7 acres. He'd been heating with it for 20 years. I wouldn't hesitate to do it again if I had a winter's worth of poplar like that.

Wood Duck said:

I think on this forum you get an exaggerated idea of how bad woods like Cottonwood are compared to better woods. I am not saying Cottonwood, Aspen, White Pine, etc. are as good as oak or hickory, but they aren't as bad as some reports indicate.

Click to expand...

Wood Duck, I'm with you on this for sure. People tend to make the different woods to sound like they are a long ways apart when in reality they are usually not as bad as most folks think. I've also noticed a tendency of folks to think that their stove will be hotter burning one species over another when in truth, it is mostly in the length of the burn where the difference lies. As snowleopard says, lots of folks burn those "lower quality" woods for many years and get along just fine.

I also recall fire_man Tony burning cottonwood and liking it. Got lots of heat from it.

Lots of people in my neck of the woods burn cottonwood. Provided it is dry (like every other wood), it's not bad whatsoever! Free wood is free wood!

Andrew

Back in the day when my Dad was burning first with his indoor wood furnace and then with his outdoor wood boiler he often burned poplar . . . saved the better wood for better uses . . . plus it seemed as though the poplars were a "weed tree" that tended to grow up quick compared to other species.

NextEndeavor said:

Put about four hours worth in tonight. Thought it might only go two hour but it's much better than I thought. 80 degrees in the living room with the furnace fan going. First time using this species. Think it's ggonna be fine for shoulder season.

Click to expand...

NextEndeavor, last year I cut up some down Quaking Aspen for this years shoulder, finding out that it makes great shoulder season wood also.


zap

Cottonwood burns alright.
Problem is splitting it.
I split by hand and that stuff it too tough for me, I've turned away free cottonwood only for that reason.

Great to hear folks burning cottonwood. I got offered some recently and wondered how it burns. Had heard a ton of negative stuff about it in the past.

NextEndeavor said:

Put about four hours worth in tonight. Thought it might only go two hour but it's much better than I thought. 80 degrees in the living room with the furnace fan going. First time using this species. Think it's ggonna be fine for shoulder season.

Click to expand...

Aspen, it's been doing the job since the beginning of October.


zap

payed $35 for a face cord of well seasoned "Popple" as the hard maple was burning too hot for these temps. I was pleasantly surprised. I'm back and forth to the barn all day so no prob. with the frequent loading. This load has given me about 4 weeks of heat.

Lots of talk about pine, is spruce similar?

Ehouse

snowleopard said:

Extremely well-seasoned aspen got me through last winter. I talked to someone who said he burned nothing but, as he was trying to get the birch and spruce to grow on his 7 acres. He'd been heating with it for 20 years. I wouldn't hesitate to do it again if I had a winter's worth of poplar like that.

Click to expand...

I may be wrong on this but it seems to me that the aspen in the far north is a bit different. It certainly is a lot different from what we have here in MI.

You guys must have different cottonwood then what we have here. The cottonwood here is easy to split.

I burn some that I've cut from trees that blew over. It makes heat but it doesn't last very long. It's not a dense wood at all. Equal size birch split is probably 2x the weight.

Cottonwood indeed can vary a lot from area to area. It is really heavy when you cut it here but after it dries, then it is very light. Drys quite fast too as most of the softer woods do.

Backwoods Savage said:

Cottonwood indeed can vary a lot from area to area. It is really heavy when you cut it here but after it dries, then it is very light. Drys quite fast too as most of the softer woods do.

Click to expand...

Kinda like cotton.... :lol:

One thing good I will say about Aspen . . . let it grow about 80' near a road or any other open area, and the next good windstorm will aleviate your need to test your felling skills.

For burning, it's just the greatest wood when the outside temps don't drop below, say, 50 degrees :shut: But I agree with Dennis, it can heat as well as oak, you just have to reload ever 5-6 minutes :lol:

I put in a good load of cotton wood last night. it was fine.

I just have to chime in here. Like Dennis said, I like Cottonwood! But there is a but.

The burn time is very low. Its the perfect wood for shoulder season and even can be used in the dead of winter to stretch out your fire before an overnignt burn and to burn down a big coal heap. It was just as much work (actually more work) to split that stuff, so BTU for BTU it's much more effort than most other species. I don't think I'd want to pay for it again on a grapple load, but it's not as bad as I initially feared - it has its place in the great burn cycle of life.

NATE379 said:

You guys must have different cottonwood then what we have here. The cottonwood here is easy to split.

I burn some that I've cut from trees that blew over. It makes heat but it doesn't last very long. It's not a dense wood at all. Equal size birch split is probably 2x the weight.

Click to expand...

Splitting Cottonwood from MA is like splitting layers of glued string. I had to run the splitter completely through every piece, and then rip it apart the rest of the way. That was for the nice and straight pieces. The crooked ones were a real pain.

ok so i am a somewhat of a noob to wood burning, grew up with it in Minnersoda don't ya know. but moved to central utah gots married and now have a house with a existing wood stove or wood sucking tin box. just replaced with a epa rated stove and i am on the learning curve. i have a buddy that works for the city, he works in the parks and recreation dept. they cleared out some city property for a new cemetery, all the trees they pulled out was cottonwood. so i not really knowing took home about 10 or 11 truckloads of cottonwood. i split about 80 percent by hand and borrowed a buddies wood splitter for the big stuff. it split great wet, hit it with the fiskars and water would spray everywhere. i split it in march, i am burning it now. no steam and no sizzle. i have tried now to split somewhat smaller for small splits and it is like trying to split construction adhesive glue. i am getting 3 to 4 hour burns out of two medium splits and at night i load in the biggest chunks i can find and have good coals in morning for restart. i started lurking here on the forum a couple of months ago and thought that i wasted alot of time and effort for just cottonwood. but it is turning out ok for me. i have a stack of cottonwood 30 feet long 7feet wide and as high as i could stack about 7 feet. but i have to admit am looking forward to burning some hard stuff, have some elm and sycamore that i will burn next year.

The stuff here splits nice and clean usually. It's usually easier and much faster to split by hand vs the splitter. Only reason I used the splitter is my back would never hold out to splitting more than a couple logs at a time (broke a few vertabrae about a year ago)

fire_man said:

NATE379 said:

You guys must have different cottonwood then what we have here. The cottonwood here is easy to split.

I burn some that I've cut from trees that blew over. It makes heat but it doesn't last very long. It's not a dense wood at all. Equal size birch split is probably 2x the weight.

Click to expand...

Splitting Cottonwood from MA is like splitting layers of glued string. I had to run the splitter completely through every piece, and then rip it apart the rest of the way. That was for the nice and straight pieces. The crooked ones were a real pain.

Click to expand...