What would you not take for free
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Jay106n
Minister of Fire
Nothing, it all has its place. I burn pine, cedar, poplar, birch, maple, cherry, hickory, oaks, etc. Between my fire pit, fireplace, and stove, I'll find a way to burn it.
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claydogg84
Minister of Fire
Cottonwood. When that stuff is dry, a strong breeze will blow it off the stacks.
firefighterjake
Minister of Fire
Haven't met a tree yet that I wouldn't burn (although I generally don't burn a whole lot of pine in the dead of winter or fill up the stove with a load of primo oak early in the fall -- for everything there is a season . . . burn, burn, burn -- or is it turn, turn, turn? 
Check . . . I was in Nevada once hiking in the desert and saw some petrified wood . . . I probably wouldn't try burning that in the stove.
Check . . . I was in Nevada once hiking in the desert and saw some petrified wood . . . I probably wouldn't try burning that in the stove.
I've taken everything people offer me even the occasional rotten wood. I find if they know you aren't picky you stand a good chance of getting another call for potentially better wood.
StihlKicking
Feeling the Heat
MaintenanceMan
Minister of Fire
Well I'm not too picky. But I'm also not cold and ahead on my stacks by two or three years.....
I have to go with claydogg84, cottonwood. It's a nightmare to split. I have a neighbor down the road that had a massive one fall by the river. I bucked a lot of it up, what is left is 30 inches in diameter and 38 feet long, I don't even want to touch it.
Hasufel
Feeling the Heat
You just need to let it season for another few hundred million years. Once it turns to coal it'll burn great.
I recently turned down some oak because I still have plenty and the new stuff would take too long to dry out. I might be moving in another 2-3 years so I'm focusing on what I can burn in the short term.
Firefighter938
Feeling the Heat
I won't mess with willow.
Cotton wood, box elder, sycamore, or pine all have to be super easy access.
Part of it is that I have access to much better wood, especially ash, so I tend to focus on it. Only so many hours in a day and days in a week.
Cotton wood, box elder, sycamore, or pine all have to be super easy access.
Part of it is that I have access to much better wood, especially ash, so I tend to focus on it. Only so many hours in a day and days in a week.
St. Coemgen
Feeling the Heat
Personally, I buy most of my firewood pre cut and split. So any, and all, woods so deliverable are just different grades of BTUs, and fine with me if the price is right.
FaithfulWoodsman
Minister of Fire
Willow and pine(mostly cause of the sticky pitch). Never burned any Cottonwood, but if it's anything like poplar id take it. Love my poplar this year for start ups. The only Am. elm I take is dead and totally dry, which splits easy or if one falls within a baseball hit of my shed. Love red elm though. Never had any gum, but don't like what I hear.
HisTreeNut
Minister of Fire
Wood is about $200.00ish per cord cut and split. If the wood is free, it's going in my stacks.
We generally have milder weather than other parts of the country, so the less desirable "soft wood" is still great to burn.
Free is good no matter the kind of wood.
We generally have milder weather than other parts of the country, so the less desirable "soft wood" is still great to burn.
Free is good no matter the kind of wood.
Third vote for Cottonwood.
Around here, I see it every now and then on CL. bucked and ready to go and guys still cant get rid of it.
Around here, I see it every now and then on CL. bucked and ready to go and guys still cant get rid of it.
heavy hammer
Minister of Fire
As others have stated cotton wood, willow, the few that are not really worth burning. To help someone out I will cut and remove it, stuff like that just gets burned in the outdoor wood pit. As blazing said you never know when a bad score might turn into a future good score. Never hurts to be flexible.
i try and stay away from cottonwood, but I have a big standing dead one in my back yard. It is always for free around here, but at this point, if i'm going to overload my truck, i will look for something more worth while. I have a few big knotty russian olive pieces that I still need to split, but I keep putting if off because there is easier stuff to deal with.
last week I was bulging the tires with some locust, but i'm ok with that
last week I was bulging the tires with some locust, but i'm ok with that
ADK_XJ
Feeling the Heat
I'll take damn near anything that is for the taking — that said, I do not go too, too far out of my way to collect pine (have enough on my own acreage) or the other softwoods.
Now, this will sound like blasphemy, but I'm also now a little gun shy about black locust. *cringe* Waiting for the hate mail...
But, seriously, while I enjoy the fact that I now have 5-6 cord of BL seasoned two years it was an SOB sourcing all that stuff. Long story short, a family friend dropped a ton of trees to clear for a competition horse ring — the invitation was to come and cut what I wanted at my leisure. Unfortunately, it became a matter of "so, when are you going to finish clearing the 12 foot tall pile of locust off my property?"
In the end, after doing 6 or 7 trailer loads I had managed to completely destroy both the rear leaf springs and brakes on my old Jeep Cherokee — which is an inline 6-cylinder and also nearly 20 years old, so just really not up to the task of hauling these loads 20-30 miles each way over hill and vale. I'm also confident this was the nail in the coffin for my poor old Stihl 041AV.
So, it ended up costing me around $1500 all told (brakes + leaf springs + new Stihl Farm Boss) to get that wood to my property or $300/cord which may or may not be going price and you could see why. I then had to rent a splitter and bribe a friend (different one than the first) to get the stuff split because let me tell you that Captain America would have had a time getting a maul through a number of those stringy, sopping wet and particularly smelly 40" diameter rounds of locust.
The last thing is, this stuff does NOT want to dry. I ended up re-stacking all of it into single rows because I was pulling 18 month splits that were still registering 30% moisture on the inside of a split face. I am burning it now and it DOES throw off heat but I have to discard every few pieces that I was lazy and split too large because I can just feel that they're still heavy with retained water.
I'm being somewhat facetious — it's good stuff that most folks would jump for.
But probably my biggest takeaway is that I strained a relationship with a family friend due to poor communication and unrealistic expectations — in the end, I had to politely turn down taking the rest of the stack because I just couldn't process it all within their time frame and sort of needed my Jeep intact to get to work and such. It was interesting that they never offered their super-duty with a gooseneck trailer as a transport vehicle considering their anxiety to clear the spot...oh well.
If there's any morale to this (looong) story that I could impart to other forum members it's that you stress to people with any volume of wood for removal that you're not a professional tree removal crew and, in my case, mostly function as a one man band. If you DO happen to own a lumber transport truck and grapple arm or a gaggle of strapping young male children to do your bidding, well, more power to you and take it ALL.
Thanks for listening.
Now, this will sound like blasphemy, but I'm also now a little gun shy about black locust. *cringe* Waiting for the hate mail...
But, seriously, while I enjoy the fact that I now have 5-6 cord of BL seasoned two years it was an SOB sourcing all that stuff. Long story short, a family friend dropped a ton of trees to clear for a competition horse ring — the invitation was to come and cut what I wanted at my leisure. Unfortunately, it became a matter of "so, when are you going to finish clearing the 12 foot tall pile of locust off my property?"
In the end, after doing 6 or 7 trailer loads I had managed to completely destroy both the rear leaf springs and brakes on my old Jeep Cherokee — which is an inline 6-cylinder and also nearly 20 years old, so just really not up to the task of hauling these loads 20-30 miles each way over hill and vale. I'm also confident this was the nail in the coffin for my poor old Stihl 041AV.
So, it ended up costing me around $1500 all told (brakes + leaf springs + new Stihl Farm Boss) to get that wood to my property or $300/cord which may or may not be going price and you could see why. I then had to rent a splitter and bribe a friend (different one than the first) to get the stuff split because let me tell you that Captain America would have had a time getting a maul through a number of those stringy, sopping wet and particularly smelly 40" diameter rounds of locust.
The last thing is, this stuff does NOT want to dry. I ended up re-stacking all of it into single rows because I was pulling 18 month splits that were still registering 30% moisture on the inside of a split face. I am burning it now and it DOES throw off heat but I have to discard every few pieces that I was lazy and split too large because I can just feel that they're still heavy with retained water.
I'm being somewhat facetious — it's good stuff that most folks would jump for.
But probably my biggest takeaway is that I strained a relationship with a family friend due to poor communication and unrealistic expectations — in the end, I had to politely turn down taking the rest of the stack because I just couldn't process it all within their time frame and sort of needed my Jeep intact to get to work and such. It was interesting that they never offered their super-duty with a gooseneck trailer as a transport vehicle considering their anxiety to clear the spot...oh well.
If there's any morale to this (looong) story that I could impart to other forum members it's that you stress to people with any volume of wood for removal that you're not a professional tree removal crew and, in my case, mostly function as a one man band. If you DO happen to own a lumber transport truck and grapple arm or a gaggle of strapping young male children to do your bidding, well, more power to you and take it ALL.
Thanks for listening.
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Paulywalnut
Minister of Fire
Weeping willow is not wood. It's a huge gnarled weed. Useless.
captjack
Member
Tree species not too particular- but something too big to handle, overly punky or difficult to split by hand I will avoid.
I'll take pretty much anything for free. I'm not too picky with my wood as I rather enjoy cutting and splitting. That being said, I would't go to the end of the earth for poplar, willow, or something else just because it's free. But, if it's easy to get to I'll take it.
Agreed. I picked up some cottonwood late last winter and am burning it now. Burns very fast and doesn't provide a lot of heat. On the bright side, it's extremely easy to split.
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