16" or 18" splits?

[firefighterjake]

Somewhere here is a dirty joke about wood, wood never being large enough and whether two inches makes a difference or not . . . but I'm not going to be the one going down that path.

On the serious side, never been one to pack every cubic inch of the firebox full . . . always found it nice to have a little bit of wiggle room since most of my splits are not perfectly square or rectangle and add in a bit of uneven ash at the base and it's nice to be able to have a couple inches of room to move things around a bit . . . but that said . . . I try to cut my wood 2-3 inches shorter than the max length. It works out for me.

 

[Realstone]

I'm going to avoid the temptation to delve into innuendo (as mentioned in the previous post) but longer wood make for more stable stacks.
Didn't go down that path either

 

[rideau]

18 inch length yields 12 1/2 % more BTU's...worth it for colder climates/colder days as long as you can load the wood easily.

 

[Seanm]

My stove recommends 18 inch lengths. Last year was my first year burning with this stove and many of my rounds I bucked up at around 16 inches and some of the ones that I received were 14s. They were harvested before I had my stove but I often wondered staring into my firebox if the empty space could be better served with longer splits. This year most are measured at 18 so we will see how I like it.

 

[HDRock]

Stove takes 18, I cut to 17, If one ends up a hair to long , I just chew the end off, I need more fiber anyway

 

[pyroholic]

If the stove is designed to take 18", there is no reason to not get it at that length. You can do a quick calculation to see how many more btu's you'll get from that extra 2". It is not a lot but sometimes every little bit helps. And if you happen to be buying the silly face cord, then you'll get a better bargain with the 18" wood.

Maybe there's a wood supplier that will sell a face cord of 48" long splits for $50. There has to be a way for us Michigander's to exploit the rare and elusive face cord.

 

[Ashful]

My goal when loading: full every cubic inch of the firebox. So, I cut to 20", for loading east-west. If I cut to 16", my stove would be less than 80% full when "full". That's the difference between 8 hours and 10 hours burn time, in my stove.

 

[HDRock]

Maybe there's a wood supplier that will sell a face cord of 48" long splits for $50. There has to be a way for us Michigander's to exploit the rare and elusive face cord.

 

[BillLion]

+1 front to back, less burns as your not reaching to the back of the stove, you can see how tight or lose your stack is and you can pack more wood in (as said) nothing will roll forward.

That's interesting; makes sense. I think I'll try it that way this year.

 

[Lumber-Jack]

Somewhere here is a dirty joke about wood, wood never being large enough and whether two inches makes a difference or not . . . but I'm not going to be the one going down that path.
.

Ya, Jake I already went there, but I was pretty subtle, so I think most people missed it, except for Scotty and HDRock.