An introduction and firewood question

[ESVA Fireview]

I am new to this forum and have gained alot of knowledge from the posts on here. I live in God's country on the Eastern Shore of Virginia which is a hunter's and fisherman's paradise. Born and raised here and would never consider living anywhere else. We bought a 1991 201 Fireview and re-did the guts in it and it is best thing we have done for our old drafty house. We have been burning for about two years and we have access to firewood on our family land. We have oak, cherrry, hackberry,locust and maple to use. My question is we also have alot of American Holly and have read that it is excellent firewood with BTU's as high as hickory. Does anybody have any advise, experience with this wood? Thanks in advance for the help.

 

[adrpga498]

Too pretty a tree to burn in my opinion. But thats up to you. I do believe the btu's are pretty high. OOOOPS by the way. Welcome to the forum.

 

[tcassavaugh]

welcome....burn the other unless its in the way. i have some that are just a pain in the arse and i'm taking them down. wish thery were a little bigger. only about 8 inches at the bottom. they are pretty to look at and around here, about the only thing that isn't brown during the winter.....except the few pines.

cass

 

[bogydave]

Welcome

If it "needs" cut, burn it.
But such a pretty tree to purposely go cut for fire wood.? ?
I'd look for other wood. Your locust is a high BTU wood

 

[Backwoods Savage]

Welcome to the forum ESVA.

We have a couple other members here that own the same stove as you and love them.

I have no experience with holly but the other woods are more familiar. On most of that wood it should be good to burn after being split and stacked for a year or more. Oak, I would give it 3 years in the stack before burning.

 

[ScotO]

Welcome to the forums! I agree with bogydave, if the stuff is in the way, go ahead and burn it....if not, let it go. On a similar note, at a job we were at last summer we cut down some HUGE lilac shrubs, the bases of all four of them were over 12" diameter. I was gonna just cut it all and take it to the compost site, instead I cut everything that was bigger than 2" diameter and saved it for firewood. I ended up with around a half cord or so of that lilac, and MAN that stuff is dense, burns good, hot and long. Leaves a good coal bed too. If you have any access to black locust (which you should have plenty of that down there), that would be my wood of choice (well, actually it IS my wood of choice!)

 

[Backwoods Savage]

Scott, that is good to know about the lilac. Something I had never considered.

 

[ScotO]

Scott, that is good to know about the lilac. Something I had never considered.

I know that I will DEFINATELY save it on any jobs we do in the future. Crazy, I know. I was the same way, never really considered it to be a good firewood as I never read anything about it, but as I was cutting it, I saw how dense the grain was on those shrubs (I counted around 80-90 rings in a 12" diameter round), I figured I'd save it. Not to mention it has a sweet smell when burning it, very aromatic IMO.

 

[Backwoods Savage]

Maybe we should pass this information on to PapaDave. I remember quite a bit of wild lilac in his area. Also lots in the UP of MI.

 

[red oak]

Welcome to the forum! Never burned holly but I wanted to say welcome to a fellow Virginian. I live on the other side of the state in the Shenandoah Valley. You are lucky to live where you are. We try to take the kids to the Eastern Shore (Chincoteague) at least once a year. I would love to be able to be there long-term!

 

[albert1029]

welcome...post a few pictures when you get a chance...have never been in your neck of the woods...

 

[Dune]

Holly is a highly desirable wood for jewelry boxes and custom gun stocks, due to it's excellent dimensional stability. Suggest you at least try to market it before burning.