Cottonwood

[Backwoods Savage]

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.

Welcome to the forum firehappy.

You'll find many, many homes heated with cottonwood out your way. For sure there are many in Wyoming that heat with 100% cottonwood as that is all they have. They do just fine.

 

[pastera]

The only kind of wood I like to burn is free wood :cheese:

Went from a fireplace to an insert last winter and blew through all of my dry wood. Scrounged over 6 cord with 4 of that being softwood (pine, spruce,...). Pine seasons fast and keeps me plenty warm. As far as having to load often, I have a tiny insert in a large house, so I don't get long burn times anyway.

Two years worth of wood for the cost of about $600 in equipment and fuel - Just paid >700 for an oil fill that lasted only 5 weeks last year :-S

 

[NextEndeavor]

Our 5 cords out back was free if you don't count my sweat equity. Recreational exercise for this guy. So far, I'm burning stuff most don't care for, pine and cottonwood while saving the higher BTU fuel for later. Some darn bug has killed a lot of pine here so it's real easy to get and nearly ready to burn if taken while standing.