Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Wood for heat questions

I haven't got much experience with many folks that heat with wood , just what has been ingrained from a couple of older gentlemen over my life regarding the wood stove that heats our hunting camp. Figure there is a lot of experiance feeding wood stoves here at the fire and thought this may be a fun distraction to argue about in between political threads

These are what I've been told and would like others that have more experience to share their opinions here.

All regarding deciduous hardwood trees .

1. Standing dead trees : ( not punky / rotting )Good food for the stove if you run out of wood and need something now. Not a lot of heat , but will burn clean but quick.

2. Big chunks of firewood : When splitting , if you can pick up a piece by the end with one hand you split it too many times. Logic behind that is the same log left at 10" round will burn slower than if it was split into quarters because of the amount of surface area exposed to the fire .

3. Cut the trees down while the leaves are on: block, split, stack and season a couple of years. Once properly seasoned , that tree with the sap in it holds more heat than if it was cut in the fall , winter , or spring when the sap is gone.

So , misinformation ? Old wives hunting camp buddies tales ?? or a fair assessment ??

burn seasoned oak.

the end!

Split wood burns better than round and it allows more wood mass to fit into a given firebox.

#2 - we went to splitting our wood rather small due to the fact that in our shack - a full piece gets the place so hot - it's snowing outside and you have the door open, sitting around in shorts to cool down. Too hot to sleep. Splitting it small and going with fewer pieces at a time - keeps it bearable.

AND, smaller splits season faster......I just re-split a bunch of red/white oak from Ike, but this wood is for cooking in BubbaT.

3. Cut the trees down while the leaves are on: block, split, stack and season a couple of years. Once properly seasoned , that tree with the sap in it holds more heat than if it was cut in the fall , winter , or spring when the sap is gone. ----- After two years of seasoning one can tell the difference in a chunk stove between hardwood cut in the fall --VS- spring? I'll have to chew on that one for awhile--- Web

moisture content is nearly everything.

the lower the MC, the more the available heat.

got an efficient stove? all the better.

then we have the driest wood and most efficient stove in the world. I swear it is 10 degrees outside and a sauna would be like a jump in the lake. Only the roof is really insulated and you can feel the wind come thru in numerous places of the camp's walls. Still cook you out of your skin.

I got 4 cords of standing dead jack pine cut up in 24" lengths. A lot of it is 10-12" in diameter. At 12", I split it in 3. At 10" I split it in 2. Under 8, I don't split. Burns good, and I rarely need kindling to get a fire going. Winter for us starts in mid October, and ends sometime around the first to middle of May. That 4 cords will heat my place for the winter. Stuff I got this year was as sound as a telephone pole, and had little or no bark -- even better.

Gus -- you are so right on MC. Seasoned wood for two years should be ideal for burning. Weather it's cut in the fall or spring . Wood burning in a fireplace or stove with moisture steaming out the ends is not a hot fire. Web

Two very important factors are the size of the space you are trying to heat and the size of the stove. Smaller pieces usually burn faster (put out the heat a little faster) than bigger pieces. Bigger pieces tend to last longer in the stove.

Fans make a huge difference in moving the heat to where it's needed and you want it.

Standing, dead wood is often a good wood for heat if it didn't *just* die. It will season on the "hoof" and be pretty dry and ready to burn.


The worst heating season was a winter a little south of Fairbanks of all places. I had just moved into the house in Nov. The ONLY heat source was a wood stove. I had to burn a lot of green spruce that year because there was no seasoned nor standing dead wood. It took about three cords to get one cord's worth of heat as a lot of the BTUs went toward drying the wood enough just to burn. It's hell on the stack as well.

I heat my home with wood.I like to cut and split in Winter,as wood splits easy then.I prefer Red Oak,but have a lot of Hard Maple and Ash that I use.I only split it to a size that just fits in the stove.I go to a local sawmill and get Slabwood pine free for kindeling.Wood I cut this Winter will be used in two years.I stack it in a well ventilated wood shed.i would say the more sap in the wood the longer it has to dry and it makes more creosote.I have been using wood as my only source of heat for about 25 years.

I agree, seasoned oak is the best, right behind madron. But it would be a lot more expensive the gas, oil or electricity to import oak to where I live. It don't grow here.

First, never have burned deciduous hardwoods--cause there ain't any out here in the west to speak of--all conifers and quakie



Dead stuff burns fine, punky stuff will burn if the fire is hot enough.




As noted by other posters, split wood is generally better--one can control the fire with air intake and exhaust flue. A nice big round can be good for banking a fire at the end of the evening though.




We cut mostly dead stuff, but do cut some live trees and let them dry over the winter--honestly, I've never noticed a difference when it comes to the conifers and quakies.

Casey

When I lived in hardwood country we would look for a dead standing oak, dead about a year. It would split like a dream and burned well.

Here I burn whatever I can get. Even burned a couple of white pines this year. If you have ever burned white pine you will know the reason for the smiley.

Locust burns the hottest and longest that i've seen around here. It's easy to split with good straight grain.

Out west the only thing i ever saw used in a stove was Alder and Doug. fir.

Us upstate New Yorkers have a fine selection of excellent hardwoods. Oak, Hard Maple, Beech, Yellow Birch, all rank right up there with good BTU's. Soft Maple, White Birch, Cherry, Ash are a little less good. Fortunately we don't need to burn softwoods except maybe for kindling and a quick fire. If you cut it with the leaves on, it will dry out fast, but still should be seasoned preferably under cover. If you can get a years worth ahead, you will always have good seasoned wood to burn. Winter cut wood has less moisture. If it is cut, split and stacked by April-May, you should be able to burn it by October. Oak being the exception. It needs longer to cure, but you get more heat from it. Used it for a long time, but the 40 lb bags in the pellet stove are what I use now.

I have burned honey locust and black locust both. Neither burned well, heated well or were worth the effort to cut and split. It split almost as hard at the spruce I am fighting now.

Not doubting you at all. I am thinking it may be more about where the tree grows than what kind of tree. Interesting.

Scott
Lots of Oregon white oak growing near where you live and well up into BC. And it is a tree, usually well over 50'.

But the madrone is right on... Almost no ash and plenty of heat... Adiabatic is the right word for why dry wood burns hotter, and charcoal hotter yet.
art

Negatory, pignut hickory is the most dense/ contains the most BTU's, followed by shagbark.