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[Applesister]

Personally I think Black birch can hold its own next to black locust. But have never done a comparison. I overfired my woodstove once on a straight run of locust. So now I mix it with cherry. I swear my stove was designed for black cherry.

 

[Richie]

Hi Richie
You must have gotten into some Poison Ivy bad. I hit a baby Chestnut sapling last week with RoundUp but anything in the vicinity of Poison Ivy usually goes down with it. I have never purchased the wands with the foam applicators, maybe someday.Im not too versed on the difference between locust and Black birch. But my imput here is to save your straightest trees and cull the weak and diseased and crooked ones. Regardless of species. Birch gets a canker kinda like black knot in Black cherry. Sometimes the tree can live and sometimes not. Cull disease out and do as Scotty says, use locust for dead of winter overnight burns. I have tons of black birch here and I love it. It burns with a deep violet flame but it may not last like locust and oak. I have dead standing Chestnut oak that gets the cooker for the overnighters.
You will have to see for yourself. You are standing among locust fans here so you will have to form your own opinions.

Applesister, I loaded up on black birch cause I saw the charts and it looks comparable as far as BTUs and dry weight of a cord. Lifting the black birch at 18% moisture, it is still really heavy. I am lucky enough to have a fireplace xtrordinair elite 44 with a 4.3 cubic foot fire box. With the locust that came with the house I was able to fit 6-7 splits 24"X8". Toward the front half of the insert you can fit 32 " logs so I cut a bunch of my wood into ten inch pieces and filled it along the sides. The insert was literally packed. When the weather was 30 degrees and above outside, I was getting 24 hour burns with the insert damped down all the way. House temp was 70 and when I woke up in the morning house temp was 65. It would literally take the locust 45 minutes just to catch on a nice bed of coals and then about another hour till the cat lit off. When it gets below 30 I would have to load the insert about every 15 hours. There was a little cherry around and was lucky to get 9 hours. I hope black birch is better then cherry because this locust really spoiled me.

 

[Flatbedford]

(my wife calls me woody.)

Good for you! ...and welcome too.

 

[paul bunion]

Applesister, I loaded up on black birch cause I saw the charts and it looks comparable as far as BTUs and dry weight of a cord. Lifting the black birch at 18% moisture, it is still really heavy. I am lucky enough to have a fireplace xtrordinair elite 44 with a 4.3 cubic foot fire box. With the locust that came with the house I was able to fit 6-7 splits 24"X8". Toward the front half of the insert you can fit 32 " logs so I cut a bunch of my wood into ten inch pieces and filled it along the sides. The insert was literally packed. When the weather was 30 degrees and above outside, I was getting 24 hour burns with the insert damped down all the way. House temp was 70 and when I woke up in the morning house temp was 65. It would literally take the locust 45 minutes just to catch on a nice bed of coals and then about another hour till the cat lit off. When it gets below 30 I would have to load the insert about every 15 hours. There was a little cherry around and was lucky to get 9 hours. I hope black birch is better then cherry because this locust really spoiled me.

Solid black birch is every bit as good as oak/locust for heat output. It will burn a lot longer than cherry. The only problem with birch is it rots so damn quick. Unless you cut it green it probably has some degree of rot. I got a bunch of it last spring, one guy gave me some green logs, other guy dropped off some standing dead. The standing dead was punky to a certain degree. Anyway If it gets wet and stays wet in your stacks forget about it. White birch wastes quicker and yellow is no better in that respect.

 

[schlot]

Welcome...smelcome. its great to have you here....blah blah.

One question.....did you bring the donuts?