poplar pine or fir and maybe some spurce

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Lynch

Member
Dec 13, 2010
192
northern maine
i can get any of these for free where i live and birch alot of the time.
have been only taking the birch for now.
but thinking of takeing some of the others too.

which would be the best of the other 4.
ya know easy to split , best heat out put, and if one dries any faster than the other?

thanks guys
 

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thanks.

so maybe ill just keep cutting the birch for now
but there is alot more pine and poplar than birch normally
 
Poplar is the worst of the bunch. IMO
Spruce burns good, pine & fir should too.
Save your birch for the cold days, or longer night fires. Even mix it.
Nothing wrong with close wood, keeps the expense down &
as someone on here said "it is all BTUs"
Learning to make sure it's good & dry is where I am, I plan on 2 yrs for everything since I had some issues with some wet 1 yr stuff. (cat stove)
I burn spruce/birch, my only choices. I like both, either or mixed, just now I know the importance of dry!
 
yeah, i think i might try for some tamarack too.
didnt realize what it was untill i googled it. lol
i guess it is around my area too, so ill try to stick with that stuff for now.

birch seasons pretty fast doesnt it?
im spiltting pretty small. i have maybe 3/4 of a cord c/s/s right now.
but hopefully have most everything c/s/s by april
 
Birch is the best of the bunch.. I find Poplar dries fast and burns very hot for a short time and tends to make my stove get to overfire so I use it in small amounts to get a fire going.. I know many here burn pine but for me it is a firestarter only.. We have lots of hardwoods in this area so people give pine away litterally and even then it's hard to get rid of..

Ray
 
I'd go with birch first, then pine, spruce, fir and poplar in that order. I would take easy poplar over difficult birch, although there would have to be a substantial difficulty difference for poplar vs birch. In addition to the BTUs in the wood, you have to consider how easy it is to get the wood. How easy it is to get includes both the location and the shape of the tree - a nice, straight tree is easier that a crooked one. A tree with few branches is better than one with many. A big tree yields more wood per cut than a small one.
 
Wood Duck said:
I'd go with birch first, then pine, spruce, fir and poplar in that order. I would take easy poplar over difficult birch, although there would have to be a substantial difficulty difference for poplar vs birch. In addition to the BTUs in the wood, you have to consider how easy it is to get the wood. How easy it is to get includes both the location and the shape of the tree - a nice, straight tree is easier that a crooked one. A tree with few branches is better than one with many. A big tree yields more wood per cut than a small one.

Fir is considered one of the best type of fire wood you can get around here
 
Lynch said:
i can get any of these for free where i live and birch alot of the time.
have been only taking the birch for now.
but thinking of takeing some of the others too.

which would be the best of the other 4.
ya know easy to split , best heat out put, and if one dries any faster than the other?

thanks guys

Poplar, pine, fir or "spurce" . . . I'll have to go with Choice E) None of the above.

Don't get me wrong . . . I have and continue to burn wood from all of these species, but even if it is free you really will want some better burning wood if you can get it. You mentioned birch . . . get it if you can get some for free.

Better wood of course would be sugar maple, oak, beech, etc. . . . but I realize that buying this wood may mean having to pay for some wood.

So to answer your question honestly . . . I don't really see a big difference in the four species mentioned -- if you can get it free and don't mind the fact that the wood will burn up faster (sometimes -- oftentimes -- free trumps quality) I would probably go with poplar . . . for one simple reason . . . no sap. All of the four species mentioned should have similar burn characteristics -- the spruce may be a tiny bit better -- but the advantage of the poplar is not having to deal with the sap.

Again though . . . free is good . . . but don't look for a lot of long burns with any of this wood.
 
Elderthewelder said:
Fir is considered one of the best type of fire wood you can get around here

You probaly are talking about douglas fir. the original poster in Maine is probably talking about balsam fir. I think Doug fir is far better than balsam fir as firewood.
 
Wood Duck said:
Elderthewelder said:
Fir is considered one of the best type of fire wood you can get around here

You probaly are talking about douglas fir. the original poster in Maine is probably talking about balsam fir. I think Doug fir is far better than balsam fir as firewood.

You got that right, there can be a lot of difference between the varieties of species , same thing goes for pine. That's why I've learned to temper my opinion when people in this forum turn their nose up at pine.
I burn Lodgepole pine all the time and feel it makes great firewood, but it is a far cry from that Eastern white pine, which so many people in this forum are accustom to. Where I live I have, or have access to, a few different hardwoods like apple and walnut, birch (to name a few), but prefer the Lodgepole for a number of different reasons that basically come down to the fact that the lodgepole is very plentiful, the easiest to process, burns really well, and as an added bonus because the trees are all standing dead beetle kill the wood is ready to burn right away, no season period required.
Most firewood Eastern BTU charts don't even list Lodgpole pine, and the few that do seem to mistakenly give it low BTU rating for some reason, but having burned it along with many other types of wood like Douglas fir, apple, walnut, spruce, etc... I have found that it burns very much like Doug fir and walnut, which can can be substantiated by this particular BTU chart.
 
Birch is ok but Douglas fir is the only softwood I deal with.....good btus, splits well, burns hot.... One of my top woods....the key is Douglas fir...noble fir or any othe true firs aren't nearly as good....I heat with wood and sell as a side gig, I only do Douglas for to my customers....cedar, pine, hemlock, spruce are great if free or super cheap but nobody wants to pay the market price, even around Seattle where we lack lots of hardwood
 
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