Wet wood.... Grrrrrrrr....

[spiffy1]

It was bad enough that I left the wood I had already cut for burning in the open where precip and temp swings in the last couple weeks made it less than perfect, but then my wife noted I should make use of several piles I had made while cleaning up dead [and a few live too close to buildings] trees over the past several years. I thought the half rotton "cottonless cottonwood" I drug up was nasty, but: YUCKKKKK...... everything from so downright rotten it falls apart so I don't have to bother trying it, to very tempting, yet I swear even that absorbs more heat drying than it gives off burning.

Waste not, want not: I'll probably burn most of it yet, but I'll have to have that stove good and hot, and maybe feed it a couple nice splits to every one of this junk. With this stuff alone, trying to keep it hot enough [and that's after a good bed of coals!] to burn clean - heck, burn at all: I spend more time feeding in small peices than I do getting anything done - I could probably put in an excersise bike - ride it for 5minutes every 15minutes and have better use of my time and energy and more heat!

OK, rant done! ;-) Figured you guys may as well laugh at my rant, rather than sharing it with my wife and disappointing her on her efforts to make good use of wood.

 

[Backwoods Savage]

Most times trying to burn up that junk is a losing proposition at best. You waste more heat than you can create, so why do it at all? Especially old rotten cottonwood!

That exercise bike isn't all that bad of an idea either!

 

[firefighterjake]

I feel your pain Spiffy . . . I had some wood kicking around from cleaning up my yard. When I started splitting it up I realized some was just plain no good as it was punky and water-logged. I tossed these aside to throw back into the woods.

However, my wife thought they were worth saving and would perhaps dry out . . . so she spent an hour or so stacking them up on pallets. Rather than argue and tell her it would be a lost cause I simply let her do so and said I would grab the wood from this stack when they were dry . . . which most likely will not occur anytime soon (although I will confess that I have been able to pick a piece or two off the top of the stack after several weeks of dry weather (of course one day of rain and the punky wood is totally water logged again.)

 

[gpcollen1]

NO - that punky/rotten/wet cottonwood will put out a fire before it gets one going. I have seen it done outside when camping - just could not get it to burn whatsoever...