Sugar maple, it ain't oak.

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kestrel

Member
Nov 17, 2009
89
Southcentral PA
Have formed a personal, purely anecdotal, non-scientific, opinion about sugar maple. Conclusion: it ain't oak.

Have noticed the house is colder in the morning after loading up with maple the night before than a month ago when loading with oak and hickory. It doesn't seem to maintain heat for me as the others did. This is even with the warmer temperatures this time of year.

On a good note, it lights up fast and gets hot fast which warms the house back up quickly.

Don't get me wrong, I like the stuff. It's better than many woods I've burned. But I'll choose oak and hickory for cold nights.
 
About the same density as Red/Black Oak,bit less than White/Bur Oak & lesser still than Hickory,Black Locust,Honey Locust & Osage Orange/Hedge.
 
Are you sure its Sugar?
 
Sounds like it could be Silver...I have a ton of it. Several tons, actually. Mix it in with your harder woods...I love it for quick heat.
 
SolarAndWood said:
Are you sure its Sugar?

Probably that newfangled Nutrasweet Maple, great flames less heat.. Go Figure.. :)

Ray
 
kestrel said:
Have formed a personal, purely anecdotal, non-scientific, opinion about sugar maple. Conclusion: it ain't oak.

Have noticed the house is colder in the morning after loading up with maple the night before than a month ago when loading with oak and hickory. It doesn't seem to maintain heat for me as the others did. This is even with the warmer temperatures this time of year.

On a good note, it lights up fast and gets hot fast which warms the house back up quickly.

Don't get me wrong, I like the stuff. It's better than many woods I've burned. But I'll choose oak and hickory for cold nights.


Never burned oak but for this reason I would choose sugar maple over oak, the time it takes to season.

Zap
 
Yeah, I'm sure its sugar maple. Tree was an old monster that had come to the end of its life. Parts of the trunk were hollowed out and I was worried it would fall on the kids, so I took it down. Didn't have the two-tone leaves and multiple trunks like silver maple. Non-serrated leaf, platy bark typical of a sugar maple.
I also have red maple and Norway maple on the property and can tell the difference.
 
Cate said:
Sounds like it could be Silver....

Very possible; I burned a decent amount of Sugar Maple this season and was extremely impressed by it. But to each his own...
 
How big of a diameter was the tree? From what you describe it very well could be Silver maple......
 
PA. Woodsman said:
Cate said:
Sounds like it could be Silver....

Very possible; I burned a decent amount of Sugar Maple this season and was extremely impressed by it. But to each his own...
This^^^ 25% of my wood this winter was sugar maple and I was pretty happy with it.
 
Sugar maple is really great for firewood....and so is oak. I personally would always choose oak first even though some don't like it. Oak is one of the very best but only if you give it the time required for it to lose the moisture from the wood. Also, I would not split the oak into small splits! If I want small splits that burn faster it would be something other than oak.

The reason oak is such a good wood is not that it burns hotter than other wood. Yes, it is high in btu, but where most folks do not seem to understand is that the oak gives up those btu over a longer span of time. This is why it makes such a great overnight wood.

We don't have a lot of oak on our place but fortunately we have some. I have at least one pin oak that should come down yet this spring and if I'm able, I'll take another bigger one down too. Then we'll patiently wait for several years (3 at the least) before we burn it. I've even considered buying some oak that someone has near us so we'd have some sooner to burn. Yes, it is good stuff.
 
May be its " Made in China" sugar maple?
 
Backwoods Savage said:
Sugar maple is really great for firewood....and so is oak. I personally would always choose oak first even though some don't like it. Oak is one of the very best but only if you give it the time required for it to lose the moisture from the wood. Also, I would not split the oak into small splits! If I want small splits that burn faster it would be something other than oak.

The reason oak is such a good wood is not that it burns hotter than other wood. Yes, it is high in btu, but where most folks do not seem to understand is that the oak gives up those btu over a longer span of time. This is why it makes such a great overnight wood.

We don't have a lot of oak on our place but fortunately we have some. I have at least one pin oak that should come down yet this spring and if I'm able, I'll take another bigger one down too. Then we'll patiently wait for several years (3 at the least) before we burn it. I've even considered buying some oak that someone has near us so we'd have some sooner to burn. Yes, it is good stuff.

I literally have tons of oak here Dennis and I'll vouch for it being a great heat source! I find it burns long and hot and leaves serious coals in the AM that makes it easy to get a fire going.. I also think that oak burns a bit on the dirty side which makes the cat really get going and like you said you need to let it season for 3 years but I have had good luck with 2 yr. old oak.. This area is loaded with oak and I have to ask for other wood.. I just talked to my wood guy and he has Ash so I am getting some as it seasons fast but I like oak best once seasoned! I have been outside rearrange my wood in the shelter in preperation of 3 cords being delivered here.. I will be moving the wood for next winter into the shelter soon.. I have an advantage with this shelter in that I roll all the sides up in early spring so the wood gets great air movement and only has a roof over it and no sides.. The wood seasons pretty good with that setup and rain isn't a factor unless very windy but it will dry out being so open..

Ray
 
I am just wrapping up getting about 6 cords of sugar maple cut-split-stacked, I hope it burns well it certainly can be tough to split.
 
yeah I think you have silver maple. I burned about a cord of two year seasoned oak this year and it was great. I had ten month seasoned sugar maple and I think i liked it better. Great coals, super hot burns, easy ignition. I'm really looking to find a bunch of sugar maple this year so i'm ready to burn it next year. We'll see how that goes.
 
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