Willow

A friend called me today, knowing I'm a wood whore, and asked if I wanted to come clean up his yard from the ice storm. I took home roughly 1 cord of willow. I have not burned willow - any experience with it?

It's pretty soft,similar to Aspen,it should be good to burn on weekends or when your around,it'll burn pretty quick.

split it now unless you are looking for the torture involved with splitting it after its dried out some.

Willow burns up fast, imo it puts out a lot of heat for its short time in the stove. We mostly used ours in the morning for a quick warm up...good shoulder season wood too. I'd advise you keep the willow separate and not mix it up with your other wood.

Willow is a class of wood called GOPHER WOOD




Put the wood in and go for more.

yep, lightweight, fast burning wood, if you don't want it you can drop it off at my place

And full of sap. It needs a long seasoning time.

I burned a lot of willow during my first year. Dries fast and burns fast. Just my experience. Lots of what I had was both cut and split small, though.

BTU-wise it is better than white pine, but not as good as red cedar.

Free is good.

I heard it smells like pee when burned. True/False?

I dont no ive never pee'd in my woodstove LOL :lol: Its at the bottom for btu output i think around 14,000.

Burns fast and hot. Seasons very quickly. Split what you got, stack it up and use it at the end of this season.

Its pretty stinky when you split it, smells like burnign wood when I get a whiff of the smoke...nothing weird there.

I burnt a little this weekend burns real fast but got some btu out of it!(and yes when splitting it smells BAD)

Thanks for the input here. Free is free... well sort of - I put the time into processing it but I enjoy the labor. This is for next year

I got a cord of free, dried willow on Craiglist this fall. I really liked it. It's light but still nice.

I just finished splitting it (work at home, lunch break), split real easy for the most part. It does have a "wet" look to it. I didn't put the moisture meter on it, doesnt really matter as its sitting until next winter anyhow. I didnt notice any smell.

As mentioned . . . good for hot, fast fires . . . a "soft" hardwood. Make sure your cut rounds are off the ground . . . if the rounds stay in water for a few weeks they can start sprouting new growth.