just got several loads of firewood for free i just had to cut and split

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happycamper

Member
Mar 14, 2013
82
I got several loads of firewood all free all i had to cut and split
 

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Good deal! That is black walnut. Pretty good firewood.
 
2. isnt free firewood 'good firewood' regardless of type?? :)

Most of the time, but there are several species that are better off left to rot. Couple to leave around here would be silver maple and sycamore.
 
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Free is always good!

Neighbor had two trees cut down last year. The tree guy said that he would cut it to 14" - 16" for me. I just had to haul it to my yard and split it. He cut down some pines in my yard while he was here, too.
 
Most of the time, but there are several species that are better off left to rot. Couple to leave around here would be silver maple and sycamore.


Why would you leave silver maple? It isnt the highest btu wood but it still burns and gives off heat. Very good for shoulder season or a warmer day. No worse then pine and some people heat with just pine. Never burned sycamore but if its free the its free, seems silly to throw it away.
 
Why would you leave silver maple? It isnt the highest btu wood but it still burns and gives off heat. Very good for shoulder season or a warmer day. No worse then pine and some people heat with just pine. Never burned sycamore but if its free the its free, seems silly to throw it away.

I'll burn pine. Pine burns fine. I come across yellow pine every now and then. I'd not go out of my way for it.

Sycamore, green, is mostly water. When it does dry out, there is not much mass to burn left.

Silver maple burns very quickly and makes so very much ash. Fluffy, dusty ash. When we did burn it we'd have to dig out the stove daily.
It seasons quickly, and I've burned quite a bit, but I avoid it now.

Maybe I'm a wood snob. ;-)
 
About a year ago I'd probably agree to never take silver maple or sycamore again. But this year I burned a good amount of each and liked a couple things about each one. Sycamore is so stringy that it starts up good. I think BTU wise it's comparable to silver maple. The plus side of silver maple is it's pretty well seasoned in about a year. I don't think I'd go out of my way for either unless I had to.
 
I'd have to think twice about processing live cut silver maple. That stuff is as heavy as anything, but dries as light as a feather. It certainly has its place, but I wouldn't want to work on it unless it was already curing.
 
Free wood is great. I have a friend with 100 acres of hard wood. He hired someone to harvest it, they are taking 2900 trees and leaving all the "tops". Perfect fire wood for me. Mostly red and white oak
 
I'm a Silver Maple hater too. Way to much ash left for it to be worth it to me. Only would burn it if absolutely nothing else left. Sycamore dried out burns quick but doesn't leave the ash so much.