If your wood is too long do you...

[mol1jb]

I have come upon some longer pieces of wood like 26in or 40in cut by a tree crew. I have a nc30 that takes 18 or so inch pieces. So if you had this delima do you cut the 26in in half and burn some smaller pieces or cut it to 18in and have some waste?

 

[fossil]

The little shorties aren't waste...they're perfectly good fuel.

 

[bigbarf48]

26 Id probably cut in half. Like fossil says, those little cookies/cutoffs/whatever you wanna call them are still burnable

 

[Wood Duck]

How long a split can you load front/back, or north/south as we say here on the wood stove forums? For my stove anything longer than 16 inches I can cut in half and end up with pieces that load north/south. So to answer the question, I'd cut it in half so it could be loaded north/south.

 

[mol1jb]

Ya thats a good point. The nc30 can take 18-20in pieces either way. More curious on everyones preferances and rational.

 

[ZZ Tom]

16 is perfect for my stove. 26 would get cut in half, 40 would be cut in thirds. No waste here. Shorties burn just as well as full size.

 

[weatherguy]

I had quite a bit of oak from a tree crew that was cut 20-22", I cut down to 16" for my stove and made cookies of the rest, the cookies season quicker and they're nice to burn in shoulder season, I ended up breaking them in half and loading them standing on end, worked well.

 

[Bigg_Redd]

My old man likes to play firewood Tetris so he gets everything too long or too short.

 

[Paulywalnut]

Too many small 8 inch pieces is a problem stacking for sure. I cut most everything to 16 or 17 and deal with the small stuff usually stacking in a big heap.

 

[Jon1270]

Most recently I cut a bunch of overlong black locust rounds down to the best length for my stove. The odd-sized offcuts are used in the daytime when I'm around to reload more frequently, and the nice, even lengths are mostly used overnight.

 

[splitoak]

No such thing as "waste"..

 

[blazincajun]

May have to save and store shorties in some kind of wire cage for them to dry because of the stacking issue.

 

[Fred Wright]

Hey Moe. I cut this board twice and it's still too short.

Well, cut it again.

Seriously, I cut to stove length and use the odd ends and shorts to hold the top cover down. They'll burn, too.

 

[BrotherBart]

Ya thats a good point. The nc30 can take 18-20in pieces either way. More curious on everyones preferances and rational.

I prefer 16" in the 30-NC. E/W it allows space between the bricks and the ends of the splits for the gases cooked out of the ends to burn. N/S it keeps the the front ends of the splits farther back so the burn doesn't just go straight up and over the baffle wasting wood and overheating the top plate while the firebox still isn't up to temp.

And hat puppy loaded with 16" is holding a heck of a lot of fuel.

 

[Sully]

I have loaded stove full of small cuts. Burns hot and big. Faster than full size logs but wood is wood.