Worth my time CSS'ing? Seems like I've burned a few pieces and if I remember it burned up fast. My father in law swears that it's good wood to burn. If it's not I'm not even going to waste my time with it.
Sugar maple...
- Thread starter Kool_hand_Looke
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firefighterjake
Minister of Fire
PapaDave
Minister of Fire
I've got plenty of it. Too much of it maybe. I hate cleaning the tops when I drop them. Conservation came out and ringed a bunch of them for felling for undergrowth to come up.
I find it burns very hot and fast if the splits are slim... hard to control. I split it thick, leave it in rounds, and/or chunk it to tame it a bit. It may depend on your stove.
Yeah I thought so. Normally I get oak, and black locust. And use sass as filler between the small spaces.
Soundchasm
Minister of Fire
It's one of my favorites. There is very little I've found to start a fire faster than a bunch of 1" branches. Wonderful blue flame. It's silver maple that's the marginal wood. Sugar is full-on pretty cool stuff.
I have only had Sugar Maple on a few occassions and it was great-more than lived up to it's reputation. Wish I had more....
red oak
Minister of Fire
burns pretty good, although you will not confuse it with oak or locust. An advantage is that it can season in a year I believe. I would get it if it was easily available.
Maple is tough, I believe there is 142 varieties and 2 of them good long fire wood. Sugar is 1 of the 2.
weatherguy
Minister of Fire
I burn about 40% Maple, mostly red, occasionally sugar. The remainder is 40% birch and the rest mostly beech. Oak is not readily available (I am about 30 miles north of where Oak is readily available). I run a wood boiler so I want fast hot fires and maple is my preferred wood after the boiler is up to temp. I hand split about 3 or 4 cords a year and maple splits pretty easy. Definite good wood.
Jon1270
Minister of Fire
Norway, perhaps? Not as dense as Sugar but significantly more so than silver or red.
Jon1270
Minister of Fire
I looked up some numbers, and have to correct the above. I've read here over and over that Norway was a higher-BTU wood somewhat similar to Sugar maple, but the USDA begs to differ. The specific gravity of the dry wood, which tracks closely with BTU value, puts Norway above Silver but below Red. All of them are well below Sugar.
Typical specific gravities based on dry weight and green volume:
Sugar: 0.56
Red: 0.49
Norway: 0.47
Silver: 0.44
For comparison, on the same scale Northern Red Oak is 0.56 (same as Sugar Maple), White Oak is 0.60, Shagbark Hickory is 0.64 and Black Locust is 0.66.
These numbers refer only to the wood, not bark.
Standingdead
Burning Hunk
So this info confirms what I found to be true. Any wood is good wood. The difference between " bad" red maple and " good" hard maple is 10% or so. Throwing in a few more pieces every day during winter ain't gonna kill me.
yooperdave
Minister of Fire
C'mon Looke-are ya some kinda wood snob?!!
Get as much of it as you can! I agree, cleaning up the tops is a pain, but that goes along with where you'll be cutting em. I bet it's someone's yard, and you have to make sure it looks good once you're done??
"Gotta make hay when the sunshines"
Get as much of it as you can! I agree, cleaning up the tops is a pain, but that goes along with where you'll be cutting em. I bet it's someone's yard, and you have to make sure it looks good once you're done??"Gotta make hay when the sunshines"
Backwoods Savage
Minister of Fire
Sugar maple is hard maple. It is great firewood.
No way would I allow them to do that on our land. If you want undergrowth, simply cut the trees down.
That sounds more like soft maple rather than hard maple.
If you like oak and BL, you'll also like hard maple.
No way would I allow them to do that on our land. If you want undergrowth, simply cut the trees down.
That sounds more like soft maple rather than hard maple.
If you like oak and BL, you'll also like hard maple.
It's on CRP registered ground. I can't just cut down every oak I see. But the stipend at the end of the year is quite nice.
kennyp2339
Minister of Fire
Please bare with me on this one, During the worst, coldest winter ever, the winter of 2013-2014, The one with those nasty polar vortex's an many named winter storms, the winter that tv made me scared to go outside due to climate change - end sarcasm. The majority of all the wood I burned this winter was sugar maple 5+ cords, in my opinion it was a great wood to burn, slightly less burn times but all in all it did great and it will always have a spot in my wood pile. It only took a year to season, If anything I would have split my pieces slightly larger but hindsight sometimes is not 20/20..lol
You might have Black maple. Acer nigrum maybe... it replaces sugar maple as you travel west.
Chimneysweep puts Sugar maple and Black locust in the same BTU output range.
AND it smells a hell of alot better when its burning.
Chimneysweep puts Sugar maple and Black locust in the same BTU output range.
AND it smells a hell of alot better when its burning.
All the tree farms and plantations out west WISHED they could grow sugar maples!!
Canada didnt stick the tree on its flag for nothing...
Cant understand why they would be tagged for cutting.
Canada didnt stick the tree on its flag for nothing...
Cant understand why they would be tagged for cutting.
Woody Stover
Minister of Fire
1) Were not Canada.
2) Because there's so many of them, that according to IDNR has observed the need for them to be dispatched. They do a frequency count in plant population...and decided the other trees around them like osage orange (which I can still cut them) Kentucky coffee trees, BL, and oaks are needing room to breathe.
That's fine by me. Ill prob get 3 chords of sugar maple and 7 or 8 of dead oaks and black locusts.
Soundchasm
Minister of Fire
If you keep the smaller stuff (I try to use the whole buffalo ;-), give a couple 2" limbs some time to season. Then pick them up and knock them together con mucho gusto. It should produce a most satisfying CRACK! It's hard to decide between instrument or weapon... With some different lengths to make different notes, you could be in Carlos Santana's band and then be his bodyguard! 
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