Does anyone have experience burning Basswood?

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syd3006

Member
Jan 20, 2008
77
Northwestern Ontario
I am wondering if anyone has used Basswood for heating, I cut and split a bunch of it last fall not knowing for sure what it was. A friend identified it as Basswood and said it wasn't a type of wood many people used for fuel. It is cut, split and has been seasoning since last fall so I will burn it this winter but I am curious to know if anyone else has used it and how it burned.
 
I burned one once. It will burn well when dried but don't expect it to hold a fire long.
 
If its on your property, I would cut it all down and burn it, every last tree. A lot of the farms around here end up with a lot of it because only the good wood gets harvested, in lean times over harvested. Then, you end up with woods full of it. If its on someone else's property, it probably isn't worth the time.
 
When I was a teenager my grandfather had some of his property logged off and they only took what they wanted and left the tops and some other trees that they cut to get into what they wanted, well they stacked up the leftovers for us! A buddy and I got a great idea to take a few logs over to a saw mill and we of coarse picked the nicest ones we could. What we thought was maple turned out to be basswood. It was very light when we dried it and we did make a few things from the lumber but I would imagiane that it wouldn't be much better than pine-BTU wise but it is stacked and dried so burn it.
 
If one blows down I'll burn it otherwise I pass them over. They don't have a lot of Btu value but they split easily. It's good stuff to keep around if you need some small splits to start your fire. Kinda like Ash but not as high in Btus.

Also, it tends to check very deep to the point it will practically split itself.
 
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