What’s Your Go-To Firewood and Why?

[Zynthal]

I’m interested in hearing what firewood species people prefer and why. Do you prioritize burn time, heat output, ease of splitting, or availability?


Where I am, a few types are common, but I’m wondering if it’s worth seeking out others for better performance. Curious to hear what works best for you and your stove.


Thanks!

 

[MRD1985]

It’s a combination of all of that IMO. Also depends on ambient temperature. Higher BTU wood for colder temps.

Oak, ash, hickory, and maple are what I usually look for. Sugar maple and especially beech much harder to come by but will gladly take it if I can find it.

 

[bigealta]

Red oak as that's what is most available to me, I would love white oak but i don't have much availability. Locust is also good and available.
I hear people love beech but i never get any, i want to try some.

If you have the room to store 3 years or more worth of stacked wood, to me the simple answer then is oak.

Yes priority is good burns - hot and long, easy hand splitting, availability.

 

[stoveliker]

I prefer the dry variety.

Btu and burn time are related; the first is just the (dry) weight of the wood and the second has to do with how fast you release it.

Pine is great. It releases more BTUs per hour than oak, i.e. your home gets warmer quicker. But as it's lighter, it'll burn out faster.
Pine and spruce etc. have much less ashes than e.g. oak, or worse , maple

I like oak, beech, and locust because it's available, splits easy, and has good BTU per volume (i.e. it's heavy), which is good for my limited storage space. But I like to have some pine or other light wood available too for quick hot fires or to burn down some coals.

All split easily too

But in the end, if it's not dry, it's hate it, and everything that is dry will burn and give (free) BTUs.

 

[qwee]

Pine is fine, especially in this mass of mine,
Even pitch is in demand so those flames can really grandstand
This Pine's flame is quickly over, and so I pull the damper even closer
Only to forget about this day's heat, 'til tomorrow reignites my new desire
Where is that fine Pine, that is such a find of mine?

Lodgepole Pine - huh? When you think of firewood you think the best wood is one that is dense, long burning, and makes lots of coals - these qualities are positives, right? Not so fast. I have a masonry heater. Masonry heaters were invented by those who lived in conifer forests. Unlike wood stoves, masonry heaters want a short intense fire. Why? Because the sooner you can close the damper the better - because the open damper lets heat out up through the chimney.

So in masonry heaters fir and pine rise while woods like locust and oak fall. Oak and locust burn too long and they coal up which means it takes longer to close the damper. Where as, pine and fir burn intensely and quickly yet don't coal up much - so the damper can be closed and the heat is trapped in the mass. Even still, I would rather have the hard woods but I'm in conifer land. A masonry heater offsets pine and fir's weaknesses, a little.

 

[NickW]

Lots of variables to consider... Different woods have different purposes. Burning appliance and climate will influence the opinions.

If I were starting from scratch with no wood supply and could only get one kind of wood I would say white ash. Great all around wood. Seasons quickly for a hardwood, lights easily, will burn and produce heat even if slightly over 20%, coals decently. Beech could fit the bill with higher BTU's, but is less common and coals longer. Sugar maple too but takes 2 years of seasoning.

If I were starting out 3 years ahead I'd say oak, but it coals longer and in cold stretches when you need massive amounts of heat you'll have coal mountain issues.

Locusts, beech, ironwood, and osage orange are great for overnight fires because they coal forever. Low quality wood is good for shoulder season and burning down coals. Cherry, birch and elm are pretty good all around woods.

 

[ScottLewis]

Oak

 

[Woodsplitter67]

Nice dry oak is the way to go for me. I burn a ton of white oak, some red and in years past lots of pin oak. Some people will say it depends or a specific species is good for this kinda stuff. If I'm going to do this sort of woke I want the most BTUs as possible stored in my sheds.

You can always make a smaller fire in should season.

Iv burned a ton of cherry in my time, love the smell I burn beech very little in the way of maple.

 

[Murray01]

Jack Pine, only because I have an unlimited supply from a forest fire. I have access to Birch and Poplar if it’s standing dead or blow down. IMHO it’s not worth the extra work to harvest Birch or Poplar unless it falls on a road allowance or trail were I can get the truck/ATV to it, too much ash for a marginally higher BTU species. Four cords of Pine will yield about a 5 gallon pail of ash.

 

[Dataman]

When I burned. Tamarick or Cedar. Both hard to get, so I went with White Pine, then Bull Pine (Smelly Stuff). Now it's Heat Pump and Pellets. Got tired of Bugs and Debri. Of course Bugs provide the greatest heat per weight. Plus you get to sing the Song "Throw another Bug in the Fire....". They come in to get Warm. They get their Wish!

 

[hedge wood]

I’m interested in hearing what firewood species people prefer and why. Do you prioritize burn time, heat output, ease of splitting, or availability?


Where I am, a few types are common, but I’m wondering if it’s worth seeking out others for better performance. Curious to hear what works best for you and your stove.


Thanks!

I think for most folks it like the old saying you run what you have. It depends on what your area has a lot of and is cheap. Back when I ran my Garn wood boiler it was a batch burning type system so you wanted the highest btu wood you could get. I had a pasture full of hedge {Osage Orange}. It got a steady diet of it. Ran it year around for domestic water and burned 10-15 full cord threw it a year.

 

[bigealta]

Nice dry oak is the way to go for me. I burn a ton of white oak, some red and in years past lots of pin oak. Some people will say it depends or a specific species is good for this kinda stuff. If I'm going to do this sort of woke I want the most BTUs as possible stored in my sheds.

You can always make a smaller fire in should season.

Iv burned a ton of cherry in my time, love the smell I burn beech very little in the way of maple.

View attachment 345884View attachment 345885

100% agree for NJ
For Utah it's Gambel oak and aspen and small amount of choke cherry because that's what's in my yard.

 

[Eman85]

I'm a burn it if you got it guy, not a firewood snob I just like being warm. Sure I like oak, beech and locust that's been cut and split for 5 years but I'll burn whatever I have when it comes up in the rotation of the piles.

 

[kborndale]

My go to firewood is free firewood. I prefer free split firewood but that's tougher to come by than free firewood that I need to split. Where I live most of the free wood is oak and maple but I also get a good amount of cherry apple and ash.

 

[Tar13]

For me its Black Locust..BTUs for hours and little ash to clean out..

 

[Max W]

Got to agree with NickW on white ash. Splits so nicely and those times when I had to burn green (pre-everything stove and furnace) it was the best. I really like beech as well. I have been buying my wood cut an split for some years now and get whatever my guy is cutting. Slower drying oak is often mixed in. I value it and am years ahead enough so that it all dries together.

 

[nola mike]

So for me depends on stove, need, availability.
1. Free and easy wins no matter what
2. Oak is the go to "good" wood here, BUT: it takes a long time to season, and even then a big or random round will be wet. Also takes a long time to get rolling. So big stove, or less time you have to baby sit it works great. When I need to get a fire going quickly it heat up my space quickly it isn't the best. Also long coaling, which limits how quickly I can reload.
3. Small/undersized stoves are different. We need to run hotter and probably less efficiently to get Max heat output. Brings me to...
4. Pine? I really like it. Decent btus, dries fast, heats quickly, nobody wants it, splits easily and, idk, geometrically? Nice even shapes that let me pack my small stoves tighter.
5. Avoid like the plague: gum/elm.
6. Other hardwoods near me are similar: maple (probably similar to pine), ash, beech. Walnut great but rare. Locust same.

 

[johneh]

Sugar Maple, why, because I own 220 acres of it
a little red oak, some beech and 10 acres of cedar swamp

 

[CatfishHunter]

I've got 8 acres of white and red pine with spruce, birch, and poplar mixed in along with a rare oak, cedar, or maple. I mostly burn birch indoors because I've got a 40ft stove pipe to the top of my A-frame - there is not much creosote build up.

I burn pine in the sauna and all of our bonfire pits.

If anything else was more accessible, I would burn that too.

 

[shortys7777]

The free kind. Especially the free kind that is easy to get.

 

[Toasty-Yote]

Whatever is most accessible as long as it is denser than box elder or pine. I have a box elder trunk rotting right behind my house because I don't think it is even worth the effort or the space in my wood pile at this point. When I first got my insert, there was dead buckthorn all over the woods behind my house that I carried out by hand. Never really had to split it and it burns hot and long. That is somewhat depleted now. Then I went through a very old and dead apple orchard at my dad's house. Love the smell of the cut wood and splits but have taken most of the standing dead from there as well. Now I am cleaning out the dead ash around his yard and that will take up the next 4-5 years or so. Splits really easy and seasons fast. I don't really care for the smell of the splits. Kinda spicy/weird but I don't smell anything when it is actually burning.

 

[bholler]

My preferred is whatever is easily accessible. The only things I dont bother with in my area is poplar or elm. Poplar isnt worth the effort to me for the btus. Elm is just miserable to process

 

[ScottLewis]

I had to cut up an elm that fell across my driveway in a storm last week. 12 inch diameter tree. I had never sawed up any elm before. I cut it 15 inches long. This wood splits easily and is a beautiful red color. I guess it is a different species of elm.

I'm with you on the poplar. When I have to cut up a poplar I leave it on the forest floor. It rots well, makes good mulch.

 

[bholler]

I had to cut up an elm that fell across my driveway in a storm last week. 12 inch diameter tree. I had never sawed up any elm before. I cut it 15 inches long. This wood splits easily and is a beautiful red color. I guess it is a different species of elm.

I'm with you on the poplar. When I have to cut up a poplar I leave it on the forest floor. It rots well, makes good mulch.

Yeah has to be different elm. Ours cuts fine but its so stringy that splitting is a nightmare.

 

[qwee]

Of the main 3 (Red, White, and Siberian) Red Elm is the best. It splits easier and the trees are longer and straighter. I had a little 8-ton splitter. I moved up to a 22-ton. Wow, this 22-ton will cut anything even crotchy elm, I thought. Not so fast. A crotchy elm piece bent the steel (see pics). Now I know. And as usual I'm splitting Elm - the only plentiful hardwood. It is an okay wood once split.