Woodshed is getting a little low. Time to re stock.



This big black walnut fell over in the meadow last June. No rot in the tree, it was growing right next to Bear Creek and the creek had undermined the roots.
Really big black walnut for around here, 26 inch diameter.




First cut is the trickiest, you can get the saw jammed up.



The Fiskars maul doesn't play games.





This drum gave me a hard time, I had to bust it with the 9 pound hammer and the steel wedge.
Once I had it in two pieces, the Fiskars finished the job. These are massive heavy drums, haven't lost a bit of water, probably 125 pounds each, some heavier than that. You have to split them anyway, why break your back loading up the truck? I busted them in to six, or eight pieces.



The trunk is in my truck. It puts a smile on my face to put a load of firewood into the Jap truck.

Couldn't that walnut be used for something else?

Kinda what I was thinking. Hell of a tree to use for firewood

Some make furniture from black walnut.
I burn it. Pretty good firewood.


This tree grew on the edge of a field, on the other side of the field is a house built in 1902, about the time this tree began growing.
No telling if fence staples etc. were driven into such a tree, so close to a house. In other words, somebody in 1940 could have driven a bunch of nails into this tree when it was 10 inches in diameter. Today those nails would be 8 inches deep into the wood and difficult to detect with a metal detector.
Sawmills do not want trees grown near houses, they want trees out in the middle of the forest.
Besides, I don't have a big truck to haul it to the sawmill, nor a lift machine to put it in a truck.

And no mill is going to come out for one log. No money in that. BCM

I burn them quite often

Nuisance level on the place here. Ain’t worth a sheeit unless they are straight which is tough because some old goober 100 years planted one in a yard for the nuts. And theyre all limby and crooked and have clothesline hooks/nails in them.

If you have a black walnut within 70 feet of your vegetable garden, the sap from the tree will kill all the vegetables, except for pole beans.
In Autumn, the nuts will land on your truck and make dents.

I have whacked a half dozen near my house for just these reasons. These trees were 17 inch diameter, not worth much at the sawmill.

Can you bbq with it? Sorry if that is a Dumass question!

Dried black walnut and coal burn about the same. We sold some 6 years ago and we are still cutting out the scraps for camp fires. You have to have a hot fire to start them or they just won't go.

kwg

This is what the mills are looking for.

Black walnut is way down the BTU list.

Osage orange, 32.9 BTUs per cord
Shagbark hickory, 27.7 BTUs per cord
Eastern hornbeam, 27.1 BTUs per cord
Black birch, 26.8 BTUs per cord
Black locust, 26.8 BTUs per cord
Blue beech, 26.8 BTUs per cord
Ironwood, 26.8 BTUs per cord
Bitternut hickory, 26.5 BTUs per cord
Honey locust, 26.5 BTUs per cord
Apple, 25.8 BTUs per cord
Mulberry, 25.7 BTUs per cord
Beech, 24 BTUs per cord
Northern red oak, 24 BTUs per cord
Sugar maple, 24 BTUs per cord
White oak, 24 BTUs per cord
White ash, 23.6 BTUs per cord
Yellow birch, 21.8 BTUs per cord
Red elm, 21.6 BTUs per cord
Hackberry, 20.8 BTUs per cord
Kentucky coffee tree, 20.8 BTUs per cord
Gray birch, 20.3 BTUs per cord
Paper birch, 20.3 BTUs per cord
White birch, 20.2 BTUs per cord
Black walnut, 20 BTUs per cord
Cherry, 20 BTUs per cord
Green ash, 19.9 BTUs per cord
Black cherry, 19.5 BTUs per cord
American elm, 19.5 BTUs per cord
White elm, 19.5 BTUs per cord
Sycamore, 19.1 BTUs per cord
Black ash, 18.7 BTUs per cord
Red maple, 18.1 BTUs per cord

Round oak, hauled some like that out of my buddy’s bush a couple weeks ago.

Brought this home for a coffee table today. It’s been drying 3 years.

Nice!

Yes, black walnut is 20 million BTU per cord, maybe 21 million depending on whose chart you use.
And red oak is about 24 million. White oak on most charts is about 26 million. Slight variances of course will occur on these charts.

So black walnut is not nearly as good as oak. And I burn a lot of oak.
On the other hand, this tree is just one mile from my house. Good point number one.
This tree can be driven right up to in my truck, Good Point number two. If I have access to a white oak, and it is 100 feet down a steep hillside, Forget It! Too much trouble.

Black walnut is easy to split and it looks funky and smells funky, I like to burn it. If I had easy access right now to some oak I would get it instead.
But I don't.

As for locust at 27 million, it is God's Gift to the wood stove guy. However, a blight 21 years ago killed all the locust up here and I have just about burned it all up.

So, up here in the NC mountains, those are my choices, oak, black walnut, and occasionally cherry. Love to burn cherry but it has about the same BTU as black walnut.
Not gonna burn poplar or white pine, got hundreds of those trees on my property, but low BTU.

I will use no wood with less BTU than black walnut but, all in all it is pretty good firewood. I can burn black walnut all day, and at 10 pm load the stove up with locust for the "all night burn."

I have too many fuel options to burn Black walnut. I share your love for Black cherry. I purposely mix it in with other fuel for its aromatic quality. So when outside I get a whiff of it near the house or cabin. In addition, I use it as a stove thermostat in a cook stove. If the room or building temperature gets too hot, I feed in Black Cherry (and/or Birch) to maintain a fire with a low BTU fuel, thus cooling down the heated area.

Why split on the ground instead of on another round?

Gotta be a lot of wasted energy on rebound.

The BTU chart is interesting, I didn’t know such existed though I don’t know why it wouldn’t.

I have a fire in the stove beside me as we speak and it’s loaded with black locust. We have a grove on the farm that’s probably 2 acres of telephone pole size trees. They rarely get bigger than that and are odd to cut. They may have one live limb 20’ up that’s big as your wrist, the rest of the tree will be shedding all the bark and dead. Saw it down and it’ll have a live strip about 2” wide on one side going to that limb. The rest of the tree may be dry and hard as a ball bat or turned to styrofoam and worthless. Only way to find out is to cut it up, sometimes half will be rotted and half will be good, or all one way or the other. I like cutting them because there’s very little limbing just cut to length and load it up.

I burn some pecan, it’s decent wood but goes to sawdust in a year if left with the bark on. Some kind of bug or larvae is either in them or gets in them. It’s generally not too bad to split, I’ll take the trunks to split and dad takes the smaller stuff for his fireplace.

We burn some walnut, lots of them between coffee can and washtub diameter growing on the creek. I like burning it but ours are generally twisted and springy, hard work with the maul.

Dad, Grandad, and one uncle who all have fireplaces and don’t split their wood prefer red elm. The bark slides right off so you don’t have that in the yard or on the patio. And they make a pretty fire with big dancing flames but still burn for a good while. What we call a slick elm is second place for them, same kind of bark and fire but not as hot or long lasting. A red elm that dies, sheds its bark, and leans up against another tree will last an eternity without rotting. The old weathered mossy looking ones are dad’s favorite, they’re hard as a stone and a beautiful red color.

My uncle and I burn stoves and we share the big red oaks that come down. Either erosion on the creek bank, wind, or ice usually gets one or two a year. Some of them are big enough to make a year’s worth of wood for us with our short winters. They stink like piss in pickle juice when green but split so easily. The smaller limbs the fireplace guys cut to their length and take. With all of us burning no good hardwood goes to waste out on the place.

Here’s an oak I’ve been working on. Got it pretty well cut up now and have been splitting and stacking it for next winter.
My helper. Not quite enough lead in his ass yet.
I thought these curlies were pretty cool looking though they suck to split.

We burn conifers or we don't heat with wood. Red fir and western larch are generally preferred but I'm satisfied with lodgepole pine. It was eighteen below this morning and it's 73 in the house so I reckon it's working ok. GD

Hmmmmmm, does not sound like the conditions of the Black locust in my neck of the woods. I cut them for fence posts and they last a very long time. Great firewood, too.

Burning gun stocks is a sin.

Gun stocks come out of the stumps.

Of course, I prefer to burn oak rather than black walnut. Last summer I answered a Craigslist ad for free firewood. Never know what you will find on craigslist, half the ads are BS.
I had to drive 23 miles. But the guy had a big white oak on the ground. You could drive right up to it. I could bust up the 24 inch drums with two whacks of the Fiskars. Fresh cut and zero rot. What a score!

I got a truck load from that tree, and the next day went out there with my brother and we both got truck loads.


Here is my brother whacking that white oak with the Fiskars.
I sawed, he split.

We got three truckloads of pristine white oak. What a deal!
A month after that, I answered another craigslist ad, the guy claimed he had a bunch of oak and other wood. I drove 26 miles and this guy had nothing! He had cleared 3 acres, a year earlier, for his new house to be built upon, and he had the bulldozer pile up all those trees. All the construction guys had been cutting firewood from that 40 foot long pile for a year. All the good wood was gone, nothing left but stumps with dirty roots, and this guy knew it!

This guy was looking for a sucker to cut and haul trash wood, and he knew he needed to hire a pro to come over and load all that wood garbage up and haul it to the dump.

So it goes with craigslist, one ad is just great, and the next ad, you drive an hour and 20 minutes round trip and get nothing. And, at 50 cents a mile to operate a vehicle, I paid $26 to look at that bullsh*t artist's pile of junk wood. 26 bucks and a wasted hour and a half.

So, yes I would rather have oak but when I have some premium black walnut, just 1 mile from my house, I am going to get it while the getting is good.

And, I am going to split that truck load today and put it in the wood shed, and go back tomorrow and get another truck load.

How big do your locusts get? Ours rarely get more than 12” at the base but may be 50’ tall. Maybe we have some kind of disease in the grove causing them to go pithy.

We have a couple ancient honey locusts out on the ranch that are probably 30” diameter. Huge 4 and 6 inch thorns growing out of the trunk. I have no idea if they’re good firewood or not, they’re fairly uncommon and I’ve never cut one.

I would go to a real festival called Firewood Festival. Sounds like a good way to meet naive white girls. Boomers, post your daughters and granddaughters photos please.

Species Weight (lbs./
Cord) Green Weight (lbs./
Cord) Dry Heat per Cord
(Million BTUs) % of
Green Ash Ease of
Splitting Smoke Sparks Coals Fragrance Overall
Quality
Alder
2540 17.5
Easy
Moderate Good Slight
Apple 4850 3888 27.0 135 Medium Low Few Good Excellent Excellent
Ash, Green 4184 2880 20.0 100 Easy Low Few Good Slight Excellent
Ash, White 3952 3472 24.2 121 Medium Low Few Good Slight Excellent
Aspen, Quaking 2160 18.2 Easy Few Good Slight
Basswood (Linden) 4404 1984 13.8 69 Easy Medium Few Poor Good Fair
Beech 3760 27.5 Difficult Few Excellent Good
Birch 4312 2992 20.8 104 Medium Medium Few Good Slight Fair
Boxelder 3589 2632 18.3 92 Difficult Medium Few Poor Slight Fair
Buckeye, Horsechestnut 4210 1984 13.8 69 Medium Low Few Poor Slight Fair
Catalpa 4560 2360 16.4 82 Difficult Medium Few Good Bad Fair
Cherry 3696 2928 20.4 102 Easy Low Few Excellent Excellent Good
Chestnut 18.0 Good Good
Coffeetree, Kentucky 3872 3112 21.6 108 Medium Low Few Good Good Good
Cottonwood 4640 2272 15.8 79 Easy Medium Few Good Slight Fair
Dogwood 4230 High Difficult Few Fair
Douglas-fir 3319 2970 20.7 103 Easy High Few Fair Slight Good
Elm, American 4456 2872 20.0 100 Difficult Medium Few Excellent Good Fair
Elm, Siberian 3800 3020 20.9 105 Difficult Medium Few Good Fair Fair
Fir, White 3585 2104 14.6 73 Easy Medium Few Poor Slight Fair
Hackberry 3984 3048 21.2 106 Easy Low Few Good Slight Good
Hemlock 2700 19.3 Easy Many Poor Good
Honeylocust 4640 3832 26.7 133 Easy Low Few Excellent Slight Excellent
Juniper, Rocky Mountain 3535 3150 21.8 109 Medium Medium Many Poor Excellent Fair
Larch (Tamarack) 3330 21.8 Easy-med Many fair Slight Fair
Locust, Black 4616 4016 27.9 140 Difficult Low Few Excellent Slight Excellent
Maple, Other 4685 3680 25.5 128 Easy Low Few Excellent Good Excellent
Maple, Silver 3904 2752 19.0 95 Medium Low Few Excellent Good Fair
Mulberry 4712 3712 25.8 129 Easy Medium Many Excellent Good Excellent
Oak, Bur 4960 3768 26.2 131 Easy Low Few Excellent Good Excellent
Oak, Gambel 30.7
Oak, Red 4888 3528 24.6 123 Medium Low Few Excellent Good Excellent
Oak, White 5573 4200 29.1 146 Medium Low Few Excellent Good Excellent
Osage-orange 5120 4728 32.9 165 Easy Low Many Excellent Excellent Excellent
Pine, Lodgepole
2610 21.1
Easy
Many Fair Good Fair
Pine, Ponderosa 3600 2336 16.2 81 Easy Medium Many Fair Good Fair
Pine, White 2250
15.9

Easy Moderate poor Good
Pinyon 3000 27.1 Easy Many
Poplar 2080 Low Easy Many Fair Bitter
Redcedar, Eastern 2060 13.0 Easy Low Many Poor Slight Fair
Redcedar, Western 2950 2632 18.2 91 Medium Medium Many Poor Excellent Fair
Spruce 2800 2240 15.5 78 Easy Medium Many Poor Slight Fair
Spruce, Engelmann 2070 15.0 78 Easy Few Poor Slight
Sycamore 5096 2808 19.5 98 Difficult Medium Few Good Slight Good
Walnut, Black 4584 3192 22.2 111 Easy Low Few Good Good Excellent
Willow 4320 2540 17.6 88 Easy Low Few Poor Slight Poor


************************************************************************************************

Sorry for this chopped up chart. It is from Utah University.

https://forestry.usu.edu/forest-products/wood-heating

It is hard to read but it shows black walnut at 22 million btu and red oak at 24 million. It does show white oak at 29 million. The different charts will give you slightly different numbers.
I do have three or four dozen oaks on my 48 acres, but oaks make acorns for deer and birds to eat so I don't want to whack any of my oaks.

We don't have hardwood like you guy's. This is Douglas Fir, and its about the best we have, as greydog says, lodgepole is great firewood too, and some of my customers only want Pine. Its been pretty good for snow so I can still get out but not for long as 6 more inches of snow is going to shut me down.

Well, the according to the Utah chart Douglas fir is 20.7 million BTU. That is outstanding for a pine tree.
By the way I spent the summer working for an outfitter near Manson Creek BC. We wanted to get out into the wilderness, and we succeeded when we got to north central British Columbia.

The tree's are standing down in there, the dead one's..... and they need to be felled and pulled up the hill.

The Black locust size in a grove are about what you stated at the base. The trees that are "open grown" can get twice that size at the base. We have the Honey locust here, too and they are nasty to work up because of the thorns, but they have a high BTU rating for firewood.

Unless it’s feather crotch

I cut and split a full pickup load of ancient black walnut today in anticipation of the norther that’s supposed to arrive about midnight. I should have taken some pictures as it was beautiful wood, nearly purple and very wavy. It has been standing dead since forever, three trunks from 14” to 20” in diameter off the same stump. Stump is burly and knotty as can be, probably 24”x 42” oval shape it would make a wild coffee table. I’m having a cold beer by the warm stove to rest my splitting muscles right now.

I’ve got 3 shagbark hickories down from when they our fiber optic in December.

A 24” and 2-18” trees.

No hurry, I still have about 3 cords in my furnace shed.

I’ll cut them up before the ticks start crawling. Should make a nice amount of some primo BTU. And set some aside for bbq pit coaling.

Hickory is primo for BTU. Hard to split with a maul but great if you have a gasoline powered splitter.

However, three years ago I got a truck load of cut and split hickory delivered. Looked like great fire wood. After two years I began to burn it. The wood was covered with fine, powdered sawdust, like flour. I found that it had hickory bark beetles. The wood looked pristine when it was delivered two years earlier.
I have never had beetles like this in firewood and I have been burning for a long time.

From now on I will take a pass on hickory.

Only the pretty ones.

I split up that wood, in the OP, and stacked it in the woodshed.
Today, I went out to get another truck load. 26 degrees, and 18 mph wind, very light snow.


The black walnut tree keeps getting smaller.




I got another load. Took an hour and a half to cut it and split it and load it up.
Used the little Husqvarna, it was singing today. The Husqvarna puts out high rpm it has a unique sound.



Good day to have a big Norwegian wood stove.

What no snow?

We have mostly piñon at our place, with some scrub oak, ponderosa and Douglas fir.

The Utah firewood chart ranks the piñon at 27.1 million BTU which is pretty good. It’s very fragrant with sticky sap. I’ve found it burns the best with very little creosote buildup if I let it dry for two years (if cut down while green) or one year (if dead when cut down).

Pinon at 27 million. A pine tree? Good God that is some great firewood. Never heard of it we don't have it here in the South.

Mebbe so, but they sure burn longer than the pure knot-free stuff. I am learning to like the knotty wood!

You want to get your stove rocking and rolling load that puppy up with a few pine knots about big around as your forearm. They’ll have the firebox glowing red and the stack looking like a coal fired locomotive. Until they soot the chimney up or the chimney fire starts.

I hear ya. Had a Jonsereds 70E I bought back in about 1980 or so. Son of a gun ran like a hotrodded Saab...or Saab fighter plane. I'm sure it got well over 13,000 RPM's. Scalded cat, that thing.

Never failed me but, alas, common sense (parts availability) got the best of me and I sold it last year...

Piñon is a popular firewood here in New Mexico. In the last few years I’ve seen it advertised for $400/cord during peak heating season, but more typically in the $300 range otherwise.

It is high in pitch, and you need to keep things hot to prevent smoldering and creosote buildup. And use well seasoned (dry) wood. Once you get the hang of it you can load the stove up and have a hot bed of coals at dawn.

And the smoke is pungent (in a nice way).

Its still February...
This tree here, I have been working on for 4 days now. I have gotten almost 5 cords out of, I cut it in 10-12ft lengths and drag it out with my truck using a yarding block or two, attached to a tree and cable to get the logs out to where I can work on them. This one is 60ft long, 24" at the top and 48" near the butt.
Last year I got 6 cords out of one tree. When I was a kid of 17, the crawler skidded a Fir tree in to the landing and I got 12 cords out of it.

Here is the next victim's, not as large but alot easier to deal with as they are not to large in diameter, about 100ft in length. These tree's are all bug kill Fir.
[img]https://i.imgur.com/BDkkXay.jpg?1[/img]

[img]https://i.imgur.com/BDkkXay.jpg

Remove everything after the “jpg” tag

This about half of a load my[very good] neighbor brought me late last spring.
All red & white oak 12" to 20" dia that had been wind-rowed for a year or more.
He's done this in back to back years now, both times a surprise left for me sitting by my splitter.

It has allowed me to back off of my dwindling supply of black locust.

Thanks ironbender...couldn't figure it out..lol

Welcome. 👍