Wood and burn times

[wg_bent]

Last year (my first year I burned wood as an actual stove owner) I didn't pay too much attention to the wood going in...it was more like...it's wood and I managed to keep the pile ahead of the burning..but just barely. This year I'm a lot more aware of the wood I'm burning. One thing that strikes me is that the BTU's/lb contained in a chunk of wood is only loosly tied to it's consumption rate when burning.

For example: I can stick a peice of pine in the stove and a similar size peice of oak, and the pine is not consumed twice as fast as the oak as one might think based on the weight. Another example is that I can load the stove with oak or cherry or elm, yet in the morning, I have a similar amount of coals regardless of the wood. Implication is that the wood is consumed at a similar rate, one just puts off more heat than the other.


I'll add that there is certainly a difference in the character of how different woods burn. For example: Oak or elm seem to have really great coal stages that last a long time, whereas pine goes to coal and vanishes in a few minutes, and oak seems to go to coal and the coals stay hot and last a long time.

I think noticing these differences is also related to the glass...I can sit and watch a log burn, vs when I was growing up we had a Reginald 101 (a Jotul 602 knock off) that you couldn't see into, so either the log was still there or it wasn't.

Well, just something to kick around...

 

[Roospike]

#1 For example: I can stick a peice of pine in the stove and a similar size peice of oak, and the pine is not consumed twice as fast as the oak as one might think based on the weight. Another example is that I can load the stove with oak or cherry or elm, yet in the morning, I have a similar amount of coals regardless of the wood. Implication is that the wood is consumed at a similar rate, one just puts off more heat than the other.


I'll add that there is certainly a difference in the character of how different woods burn. For example: Oak or elm seem to have really great coal stages that last a long time, whereas pine goes to coal and vanishes in a few minutes, and oak seems to go to coal and the coals stay hot and last a long time.
..

Do these two examples not contradict each other ?

If pine goes to coal and then "vanishes in a few minutes" and "oak seems to go to coal and the coals stay hot and last a long time. " then how do you get the example #1 ?

 

[Sandor]

#1 For example: I can stick a peice of pine in the stove and a similar size peice of oak, and the pine is not consumed twice as fast as the oak as one might think based on the weight. Another example is that I can load the stove with oak or cherry or elm, yet in the morning, I have a similar amount of coals regardless of the wood. Implication is that the wood is consumed at a similar rate, one just puts off more heat than the other.


I'll add that there is certainly a difference in the character of how different woods burn. For example: Oak or elm seem to have really great coal stages that last a long time, whereas pine goes to coal and vanishes in a few minutes, and oak seems to go to coal and the coals stay hot and last a long time.
..

Do these two examples not contradict each other ?

If pine goes to coal and then "vanishes in a few minutes" and "oak seems to go to coal and the coals stay hot and last a long time. " then how do you get the example #1 ?

I was thinking the same thing.

 

[wg_bent]

no...Realize pine does burn quicker overall, but not in proportion to the BTU content per lb.

If a pine log takes 3 hours to burn to ashes it doesn't take 6 for oak. My point is that the total burn rate does not seem to have a linear and direct correlation to btu content.

 

[Roospike]

no...Realize pine does burn quicker overall, but not in proportion to the BTU content per lb.

If a pine log takes 3 hours to burn to ashes it doesn't take 6 for oak. My point is that the total burn rate does not seem to have a linear and direct correlation to btu content.

So for example if your getting 3 hours of BTU heat from pine and 6 hours of say the same BTU heat with Oak then you are getting 3 more hours or double the BTUs of the same size wood.

Maybe I'm just not following ya.

 

[Henz]

my question to you is, why are you burning pine? is that the only thing that you can really get or something..Here in the NE (New York) nobody burns pine in fear of chimney fires etc..

 

[Elderthewelder]

my question to you is, why are you burning pine? is that the only thing that you can really get or something..Here in the NE (New York) nobody burns pine in fear of chimney fires etc..

Is the fear because of the sap or because it is a soft wood and will burn quick and hot? In some parts of the country good hard wood is hard to come by, we burn alot of Fir, Cedar, Pine, Alder in my neck of the wood, at times you may be lucky enough to score some maple, I just got a whole bunch of it that I am in the process of splitting up for next year, but for the avg scrounger here it does not come around much, I am not sure what type of maple I scored, I know it is maple as I can tell from the leaves, but I don't think it is the same as what is on the East Coast