Your favorite wood
- Thread starter Molsonc1
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Hickory, if it's not windthrown and impossible to split. Drys well, heats like a beast, smells nice, tastes good in the smoker.
rowerwet
Minister of Fire
already cut, split and stacked, even better if it will be delivered, but I'm not picky, I'll pick it up myself if needed.
tree species? oak
tree species? oak
HisTreeNut
Minister of Fire
Free and dry is my personal preference for wood. The climate in WNC is fairly mild so anything burns well.
Shoulder season: Pine and poplar.
Winter: Maple, Cherry, & Oak.
If only one...probably Cherry.
Sent from my Mobile Interwebbery Thingy
Shoulder season: Pine and poplar.
Winter: Maple, Cherry, & Oak.
If only one...probably Cherry.
Sent from my Mobile Interwebbery Thingy
My favorite this coming year is probably going to be walnut just based on the giant pile of cut trees that just landed in my lap (utility project that's been clearing an easement on my property edge).
Not the greatest btu output, but dries super fast and generally has a very straight grain so it splits with minimal effort.
Not the greatest btu output, but dries super fast and generally has a very straight grain so it splits with minimal effort.
Sully1515
Member
Sugar maple. High BTU's, splits clean and seasons much quicker than Red Oak, hickory, etc.
jaoneill
Feeling the Heat
Our woodlot is primarily maple, beech, and hickory with a bit of almost everything else scattered throughout. We probably don't have more than a couple of dozen oak that I have left for seed stock. Beech is my favorite for processing, hickory and maple are my favorites for burning and are the bulk of what we burn. Forty or so years ago I cut around 30-40 cord of 6"-8" hornbeam off a rocky ridge that grew little else than an occasional maple. It made awsome burning wood that I didn't have to split, but took too long to make into firewood to suit my taste.
buc74
Burning Hunk
I only have experience with red oak, Paper Birch, White Pine, Ash, and soft Maples over the last 7 years. I do have several cords of White oak, Bur oak, and Hickory but won't be dry for 2 more years. So the Red oak would be favorite for now. I really do like the white pine during the shoulder season.
Choice wood in my parts are madrone (Arbutus menziesii) followed by tan oak (Notholithocarpus densiflorus).
The lumber companies don't like tan oak as it squeezes out the douglas fir and redwood. You'll see truck loads of the logs going to the biomass plant - I get jealous of their stash.
The lumber companies don't like tan oak as it squeezes out the douglas fir and redwood. You'll see truck loads of the logs going to the biomass plant - I get jealous of their stash.
Mech e
Feeling the Heat
I would go with the oak. We burn plenty of it in NorCal, but my very favorite is almond. Seasons quickly, burns hot and long, leaving a great coal bed to get a new fire going in the morning.
Jan Pijpelink
Minister of Fire
This year I've been burning a lot of black birch, red oak and beech. They are all really hard to beat. It also helps that they've been split and stacked for 4 years and they are perfect.
turn_n_burn
Burning Hunk
My absolute favorite is mountain mahogany. Occasionally I can find a deadfall one or one hit by lightning (common in the Owyhees) and chuck it in the truck. It smells wonderful, it's used as a smoker BBQ wood in small circles around here. Small scrubby tree, but the wood has a 12 percent standard MC specific gravity of 1.11, with the Great osage orange being a measly 0.86, second only to Desert Ironwood in density (which smells awful on fire). It sinks in water. Don't plan on ever splitting it with anything less than a shaped charge, or ever finding a straight piece. Bring 8 saw chains with you.
There is an old thread on arboristsite.com about another guy in my neck of the woods who ran a load with a tiny bit of lodgepole in single digit weather, and his blaze king catalytic kept the house in the low seventies and high sixties for 48 hours straight. It's the best wood you can get, all points considered, in the entire country. You can't outright harvest it, it's gotta be dead and on the ground or the BLM will not be pleased. They do understand the necessary self sufficiency of people in a region as high and arid as the owyhees are, so they don't mind if you don't overdo it. Elk and Deer feed off of them, so I always leave live or dead standing ones alone. They make great snags for nests.
And it makes GORGEOUS turning blanks,if you're into that.
There is an old thread on arboristsite.com about another guy in my neck of the woods who ran a load with a tiny bit of lodgepole in single digit weather, and his blaze king catalytic kept the house in the low seventies and high sixties for 48 hours straight. It's the best wood you can get, all points considered, in the entire country. You can't outright harvest it, it's gotta be dead and on the ground or the BLM will not be pleased. They do understand the necessary self sufficiency of people in a region as high and arid as the owyhees are, so they don't mind if you don't overdo it. Elk and Deer feed off of them, so I always leave live or dead standing ones alone. They make great snags for nests.
And it makes GORGEOUS turning blanks,if you're into that.
BKVP
Minister of Fire
Eucalyptus!! Back in my much younger days the old guy I hunted with burned it. The oil in the wood was fragrant burned very hot and was oh so plentiful in Southern California.
Of course anyone that has tried to split Eucalyptus knows you need Popeye arms and a 100 ton splitter.
Regrettably no Euc up here for me to burn! So I'll take black locust.
Of course anyone that has tried to split Eucalyptus knows you need Popeye arms and a 100 ton splitter.
Regrettably no Euc up here for me to burn! So I'll take black locust.
turn_n_burn
Burning Hunk
I would love to have some Euc. If you ever hop on I 84 and come down to the Ontario/Payette area, there is black locust EVERYWHERE around here, and NOBODY in this valley has ever even considered burning it. Bring a trailer. Most people are just happy to have it gone from their ditch bank so the bark doesn't poison their horses. It's easier to find here than anywhere back east.I'd have 30 cords of the stuff if I wasn't so lazy.
SpaceBus
Minister of Fire
I like birch (paper, white, and Grey), it grows fast and only lives for 60 years or so. It's a hard wood, maybe not as dense as oak, so great for overnight burns. I don't feel bad if I cut one down since it didn't take a century for it to grow. Any hardwoods on my property that get cut down are being saved for projects. Most of my property is covered in Balsam fir and spruce, but I have a few nice hard woods sprinkled in and a decent amount of birch. I don't plan on cutting many healthy trees down, but all of them will be saved for lumber. Dead trees are for burning, healthy trees for building.
