So what's ya favorite wood?

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ruserious2008

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Jan 24, 2011
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Well merrily entering my 2nd season burning and spent many a days this spring/summer/fall scrounging wood anywhere I could find it, cutting some trees down, chunking, hauling, splitting stacking etc. . Been joyfully burning this year and have been feeding many different species into the stove. As I was doing that tonight I was thinking about what species I would target going forward and which I would pass on. I was wondering what you folks would call your overall favorite wood to burn (and before anyone says "the kind that I can light on fire" let me beat you too that:) taking into account everything from dropping to chunking to splitting (by hand) to seasoning time to burning/btu's. If you had an abundance of wood potential and could afford to pick and work with only one species which would it be?
I guess so far I would vote for ash. Seems pretty easy to split, dries fast and is still a nice heavy chunk when dry and gives nice long burns at a good temp. Second I'm leaning towards White Birch. Seems to split without too much effort. Around here we call the white birch "paper birches" as the bark peels into rolls even on live trees and that stuff acts like built in kindling flaming hot and fast and making for easy fire starting. Don't have enough seasoning experience with it and I think it burns faster overall when compared to ash but still like it. Got about a cord of apple this year and it went from 36% to 26% this year and burned a piece but it was hissing. Heavy heavy stuff to handle in big chunks and bit of a bear to split but I think we tackled most of ours the day we rented a splitter so no bad memories splitting it. I know Oak is BTU king but man I have some big (24" and larger) chuncks I cut up this past spring that have been seasoning on pallets and while there is some cracking its still like hitting a piece of granite with those suckers, even trying to take splits off the edge and targeting the direction of the cracks in the wood. Guess those suckers will have to wait for a "rent a splitter day":) And I have some 3 year old oak that I bought as a mixed species score of split wood that are about 22" in lenght and were seasoned in a pile as opposed to a stack of wood, in the shade also, that still hisses so I'm hoping in a few years I will fall in love with the oak but right now I'm not sure I'd jump on a CL ad for a down oak to cut up.
Thems my thoughts- how about yours?
 
My favorite wood is Madrone. It seems to have pretty good BTU and it splits easily and dries relatively quickly. It's also mostly covered with a paper like bark that comes off easily.
 
The woods typically available to me are hemlock, alder, maple (bigleaf), and douglas fir. That list is roughly in order of how available they are to me. Maple is my favorite. It makes for a long hot burn, splits easily, and is very clean to handle. No mess, no pitch, no splinters.
Fir would be my second choice as it provides long hot fires. I'd be happy if I had a steady supply of fir, the older the better. It can have more knots and take more effort to split, and it can be pitchy. Burn quality is top notch. I think most people around here would choose douglas fir as their first pick. My dad's a firewood junky and will go to great lengths to get old growth fir. It's good stuff.
Although alder doesn't put out the most heat or burn the longest, I still like it. It splits easily, it's clean, and it's easy to find. One nice thing about alder, is that IT DRIES FAST. I just bought my house a few months ago so I'm not ahead on my wood supply. A lot of what I'm burning this year has been bummed from my dad's supply. My dad cut a bunch of dead alder in September that had been cut down the previous day. I've been burning it and it's good stuff.
Hemlock is my least favorite. It's still ok. The best thing about hemlock is that it's readily available. It grows all over the place where I have access to cut. Difficulty splitting depends on the tree. Sometimes they grow with a twisted grain which is a total PITA to split! It seems to turn punky a little quicker than the others. Hemlock has helped me a bunch already this year though. I've cut a bunch of it and some of the stuff I cut just a couple months ago, which had been down for a couple years, is already good to burn. The temps here were in the 20's last night and I was burning hemlock that I cut in early October. It takes off and burns just fine.

I have managed to score a bunch of really nice maple for next year. Some of the maple I've cut recently has been down and off the ground for about 2 years so I've been letting some dry near my insert and mixing it in with my other wood as it's ready. I'll be out tomorrow getting more. I was pretty happy to nab a bunch of maple rounds that a road crew left on the side of the highway this fall.
 
Ditto on the cottonwood. Let it dry long enough and it'll burn, but I don't even bother.
 
Toss-up between sugar maple, black locust, shagbark hickory and various oaks.

Stove burns best IMHO with a mix of species, including any of the above.

For shoulders: red pine.
 
Black Locust. Dries Fast, splits easily, burns long, burns hot, cool sparks when in the stove. Just about the perfect fuel.
 
Another vote for Locust, Honey or Black.
 
For shoulder season, I like white birch and ash. Cherry is nice, but pretty messy to deal with (lots of splinters when split), although the smell is awesome. For main-season burning I really like oak and hickory. White oak is my favorite to burn, but red oak is easier to work with. It splits much better, is a little bit lighter (every ounce counts by the end of the processing day), dries a bit sooner, and best of all I have acres of the stuff out my back door.
Lots of people seem to like Locust, but I've never cut or burned it so I have no opinion on it.
 
Honey locust would be my favorite, got a fair amount of it this year, but if I can only burn 1 wood it would be silver maple. Dries super fast, easy to split and lots of it to be had in this area. Oak has not done anything for me yet, even stuff down 2-3 years.
 
When processing, anything that splits easily.

When burning, anything that is dry.

Preferrably hardwoods.

pen
 
I like oak for the BTU's it produces, cherry for the smell, and ash for the convenience of splitting and drying time. Oak, maple, and cherry seem to be the most predominant species around me. I have often wanted to try other kinds, like birch or hickory, but I just can't seem to find any of these in the areas where I cut.
 
The one that keeps me warm.
Above 10 degrees or so no wind, elm, green ash, cherry, silver maple
Below 10 degrees or windy oak, white ash, black locust
But as others have said the stove works best with a mix
 
1. Black Birch
2. White Oak
3. Red Oak
4. Ash

The only stuff I can find around here!
 
I love all the wood . . . equal opportunity burner here . . . haven't met a wood species I didn't like or would not burn.

There's lots of favorites: apple and cherry for their smell, cedar for the smell and usefulness as kindling, maple for the all-around good wood, yellow birch for its smell and burning time, white birch for how easy it is to get lit . . . next year I'll experience the joy of burning black locust and oak so I am quite excited.

However, if I had to pick just one wood that is my favorite it would be white ash . . . splits like a dream, seasons well and burns fantastic.

Fortunately though I don't have to pick just one wood . . . since variety is the spice of life.
 
I like the way hickory and pecan smell but prefer white oak for the heat.
 
Reading all the previous posts the two main characteristics that people are looking for in their fire wood are fast drying, and easy to split. Those two reasons are why I pick lodgepole pine as my wood of choice.
Because of it’s long straight grain trunk and lack of major branches it is very easy to split. As for quick drying, lodgepole pine has every other type of wood beat hands down, not because it’s so quick drying, but because it’s already dry when I cut the trees down.
Thanks to the prolific pine beetle and our arid climate there is an abundance of standing dead lodgepole pines in my area (and most of BC), and as long as I seek out a grove that has been dead for many years, discernable by it’s sparse and withered needles, I can be pretty certain the moisture content of the wood will already be below 20% and ready for burning in the stove as soon as it’s cut. No extra drying (seasoning) time required.

As far as the other characteristics that people look for like fragrance, pine obviously has a great smell, in fact that “fresh pine scent†is a sales feature to many scented products on the market.

And as BTUs go, lodgepole pine is on the top of the softwoods list, and beats out many of the so called hardwoods like cherry, birch, elm and silver maple.

In my book lodgepole pine is the perfect all-round firewood.

BTU reference
 
Carbon_Liberator said:
Reading all the previous posts the two main characteristics that people are looking for in their fire wood are fast drying, and easy to split. Those two reasons are why I pick lodgepole pine as my wood of choice.
Because of it’s long straight grain trunk and lack of major branches it is very easy to split. As for quick drying, lodgepole pine has every other type of wood beat hands down, not because it’s so quick drying, but because it’s already dry when I cut the trees down.
Thanks to the prolific pine beetle and our arid climate there is an abundance of standing dead lodgepole pines in my area (and most of BC), and as long as I seek out a grove that has been dead for many years, discernable by it’s sparse and withered needles, I can be pretty certain the moisture content of the wood will already be below 20% and ready for burning in the stove as soon as it’s cut. No extra drying (seasoning) time required.

As far as the other characteristics that people look for like fragrance, pine obviously has a great smell, in fact that “fresh pine scent†is a sales feature to many scented products on the market.

And as BTUs go, lodgepole pine is on the top of the softwoods list, and beats out many of the so called hardwoods like cherry, birch, elm and silver maple.

In my book lodgepole pine is the perfect all-round firewood.

BTU reference
Click to expand...
Some charts dont list lodgepole that high, chimney sweep has it at 15.1.
 
Black birch. Denser than oak, dries twice as fast, and is the burningest stuff I've ever used. Starts up and gets going so much easier than oak or locust, too.

Of course, I wouldn't pass on any shagbark, either. That stuff warms you deep inside you just looking at it in the stacks.
 
For me, black locust & hickory because my yard is already full of them. If someone offers me free maple or oak that may change.
 
I like silver maple for a quick, hot start and establishing a coal bed. Then top it with ash and three years seasoned red oak. It's all I have right now. Add cherry in there for next year, and a bunch of white oak the year after that.
 
Battenkiller said:
Black birch. Denser than oak, dries twice as fast, and is the burningest stuff I've ever used. Starts up and gets going so much easier than oak or locust, too.

Of course, I wouldn't pass on any shagbark, either. That stuff warms you deep inside you just looking at it in the stacks.
Click to expand...

Black birch is a great firewood. But, like cherry, it tends to splinter a lot when splitting it, and it doesn't seem to coal quite as well as oak. At least that's my experience with it. But it sure smells awesome when it's cut or split!
 
I am surprised no one has mentioned Osage Orange. Of the few species I've burned so far, it's probably my favorite. It burns long and hot and I enjoy watching the blue flames and showers of sparks inside the stove. In terms of splitting, Honey Locust is my favorite because it's very easy. The Osage really isn't too tough though.
 
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