What’s Your Go-To Firewood and Why?

[qwee]

Speaking of Elm - the tree service just put up an ad. I went and he loaded up my small truck and trailer. Nice, not-much-work firewood. Probably a cord or a little less.

 

[Dataman]

When I burned Wood I used Pine. All we have really in E WA State. Red Fir was 2nd but hard to get and Tamarick Pine was best. White Pine only wood I have on property and nasty Bull Pine. Needs to dry out for year and even then nasty smell. Switched to pellets in 2018 and last year switched to Heat Pump (Extreme Cold Weather). Got tired of Bugs. Cedar was also nice to burn.

 

[ScottLewis]

Dataman I lived near Newport for a year. Way out in the woods overlooking Diamond Lake. Our only heat and cooking was a wood stove and as you said, Tamarack was the best wood available. I told the guys about the white oak we burned back in Georgia, they found my stories hard to believe.

 

[Giaman]

Pretty much all my stuff is red and white oak, and hickory. All freshly cut, green, and in good condition (and usually from my property). The BTUs are so high, and high quality green wood is a joy to cut. It’s worth the lengthy seasoning.

I have no time for old, dry, half rotten ash trees. It’s lower quality wood and makes cutting miserable for me, and also increases chainsaw maintenance 10-fold.

 

[ScottLewis]

I only had 3 ash trees, down here in Dixie. After the emerald ash borer killed them, I cut them up and burned them in the Jotul. What's wrong with ash? Easy to split, about 21 million BTU/cord as I recall. Ash didn't harm my saw.

 

[Giaman]

I only had 3 ash trees, down here in Dixie. After the emerald ash borer killed them, I cut them up and burned them in the Jotul. What's wrong with ash? Easy to split, about 21 million BTU/cord as I recall. Ash didn't harm my saw.

Nothing wrong with ash itself, it’s great firewood of course. But it’s all dead here, for years now, and as the dead ash gets older year by year, the quality gets worse as it rots and gets dirtier. Good quality dead ash is becoming harder to find so I don’t think I’ll bother with it anymore

 

[ScottLewis]

Now that you mention it, the last ash I was going to get, when I sawed it down, the outer 3 inches were rotten. I left it on the forest floor.

 

[fire_man]

Ash and Oak are dream wood because they split so nice and straight. I never met a crooked ash tree around here, oak less so. The ash practically stacks itself its so perfectly square. Beech seasons quick, burns great but wow we have lots of wind twisted Beech that split hard, and stacking can be difficult.

Sadly our Beech forests are going the way of the ash. We have Beech Bark and Beech Leaf disease. The birds used to come in huge flocks every Fall for the Beech nuts. The flocks darkened the skies and made a beautiful tremendously loud squawking noises every year until just a few years ago but not so much any more. Kind of sad.