I’m an Oak & Ash guy for different reasons.

My dad swore that locust burned the longest.

Hedge-apple

Free???

But, around here we're limited in variety. Juniper predominates unless one wants to drive a ways. Can find locust or Siberian elm if someone takes one down on their property. If one wants to drive there's various firs and pines on public land, assuming it's dead and down already. I've got some lodgepole pine left from last winter, as my juniper supplier was out and my neighbor's son works for a timber company. He has access to a processor, so this was all nicely cut to 16" minus and then split and delivered for a good price. I burn it hot to keep creosote to a minimum.

White oak and hickory

Here on the river bottom we have cottonwood and ash.
(box eldar, choke cherry, Russian olive, etc..)


The only firewood I cut is for my parent's old Monarch cookstove that is out in their porch. Not a large quantity but small pieces required.

That said Ash is hand's down favorite.


Going after standing dead now, try and cut up the stuff laying on the ground before the snow builds up.


Couple days ago.
(brand new bar)

Kumquad and amazon boxes

Me too. I take what I can get and turn down wood every year. I've always had people call me to come and get limbs or whole trees blown over after storms. I tend to get a little at a time year-round and always stay a year ahead. Everything I'm burning now was cut and stacked at least one year ago.


Most is oak, but I get some maple, dogwood, hackberry and even some shrubs. Almost all is hardwood, but I'm not opposed to a little pine mixed in. There is a factory here that makes industrial carts and hand trucks out of oak. I'm able to get some of their scraps occasionally.

Mesquite, is about we have and burn. Rio7

👍 but hickrey 1st

Saturday dad, my boy, and I cut a truckload of hedge.

^^^^^*

I've got a mix of cherry, ash and hard maple in the wood rack right now. Ash splits nice but it's splintery and doesn't coal up as good as the maple and cherry.

99% almond here.

I am another one for FREE

I burn what I can find and scrounge in Commyfornia.
In Arizona I have enough dead Cedar trees to last me the rest of my life.
If I ever make it up there full time

The favorite here is southern red oak.

Great pic & awesome to bring up the next generation of wood cutters. Honest question - what is hedge?

The property we had in west Virginia back in the day had an extinct apple orchard of sorts. That was some pretty good burning wood.

I'm also a free is best guy. Predominantly we burn lodgepole and juniper. If I am going to the wet side, I carry my saw and look for madrone. A contractor friend drops off 2x material, drops from framing jobs. It's always doug fir and burns great. For splitting I like tamarack.

Sweet pic Cheesy!

I had an almond ranch in Livingston CA for 10 years. Almond burns great!

Sam - great pic! Ash is the easy button around here. Burns great even without proper seasoning

Be a while before I am through all the beetle killed ash here. Been ash trees dying here for the last decade. I have just about forgotten what anything else burns like.

Locust is like a sunburned dik. Hard to beat.....but it's hard on a chain too. Makes heat, good coals and burns long. Free is always good.

Red oak for heat. Poplar for easy splitting.

I got LOTS of live oak. All I burn in our Vermont Casting stove

Hedge=Osage Orange=Bois D’arc= what the Indians made a lot of bows out of.

Splits good.

Burns hot as hades, like melt the rack in your fireplace if you give it a straight diet of hedge. Best to mix it with some oak. Sparks pretty bad too, but nothing burns hotter.

Locust preferred red oak second ash maple 3rd paradise burns better than poplar in a pinch

Just for giggles


Edit to add: think this chart is million BTUs per chord when comparing to some other pages

Almond and eucalyptus.

You guys are lucky with what you have available… 99% of what I burn is black spruce. When I’m lucky I can get some birch, but that’s rare.

Wow roger that. We don’t have that up North.

Yellow cedar for the smell in the house. Hemlock for my overnighters.

I’ve burned Eucalyptus out in CA - it’s oily & hottt

Anything close by and easy to cut...

That means cottonwood and Chinese elm.

When I was still in W NY and the state was on their Ash Eradication kick, I burnt nothing but ash for 3 years. Buddy had a contract with the state to cut down thousands and thousands of Ash trees. Was only allowed to transport a certain distance. When I sold my place, it inured nearly 6 cord of cut, split, stacked, and nearly 8 log truck loads of Ash trees.

Locust is tops in easy to get/heat production.
It also is irritating, nasty, slippery, stinky, when green. Splintery dry. Makes sparks like crazy in the furnace.

And dangerous as hell to fell. A healthy, live tree may very well have ants sold way high up, and can break and fall.


Really like oak, especially Red. It splits nice.

Ash, Sassafrass, Walnut, Hickory, Apple, all burn well and produce heat.



Elm is fine when dry, if you can split it.

Logging friend swung a deal with a junkyard guy, windshield for a load of wood.
When the windshield was delivered, it wasn't the one agreed on. It was scratched and mostly junk.
Tommy never said a word to the guy.
Took about two weeks until the firewood was delivered.
Solid load of the biggest slippery elm he could find!
He laughed about driving by and seeing the guy hit a piece with a maul.
It bounced back!

Palm Frans burn fast and hot and heats up the house very very fast.
I use them for the quick heat when we get cold.
I've had 2 chimney fires with them cleaning out all the crappy build up from everything else I burn.

The first time my neighbor called me out and we watched the flame shooting straight up out of the masonry chimney. It shook the house pretty good.
We had a pretty good show for about 5 minutes until it stopped.
I burned all the crap out that I inherited from the owner before me.

That Bois d’arc is hard wood. My father in law made a sleeve bearing out of it in a saw mill during the depression and he said they used it for years. Just had to keep it greased.
Mesquite is great for cooking. If green it burns really hot.
We use mostly oak around here because it’s local. Lots of dead wood due to the droughts.

Just cut 2 1/2 cords of madrone the other day. No branches, slick bark, perfect dry wood.

I was just horsin’

in my massive fuel hoard is:
White oak
Hickory
Red oak
Cherry
Walnut
Hackberry
Boxelder
Maple
Ash
some locust

We have shît-tons of poplar, black tupelo, suckamore- none of that chit it worth sawing. Like fuggin styrofoam. Drive the wood buggy passed it and give to the finger. Patooey

The old man frowns upon me sawing up cherry. I just laugh at him. lol

Mr “Im gonna buy me a sawmill” and make some cherry paneling. Bulllllllllllllllllllllsheeittttttt 🤜🥱🫤🙄

Living in the PNW, we're pretty much locked into conifers. Western Larch


I think hedge (osage orange) provides the greatest heat yield.

Split as we go...


That was a Holiday sampler pack.

An old cedar and pine fence post included on a kindling special.

Nice axes 1minute!

Red oak is the favorite, but we burn anything that is wood from a fallen tree. Pecan and hickory are good. Surprisingly we have an elm that burns real hot but is hell to split. My brother has a hydraulic splitter that can handle it. Splits hard the whole way.

I try to cut fallen or nuisance trees if possible. Even sweet gum.

Free on my buddy’s farm. A bit of white oak, cherry, shagbark hickory, walnut, and a lot of ash. Elm and sycamore down by the crick. +1 on elm being an absolute bastard splitting by hand. I think the guy that invented the first log splitter must have been dealing with elm. 🙄

Cottonwood.

Another vote for madrone.

Sam I’m sure you & I got fancy axes, mauls & splitters but honestly those Fiskars are outstanding…am I rite?

Here in Western VA White oak , locust , Ash or cherry mainly.

I don’t split anything. If really big I’ll saw it into quarters.

I can get rounds in my furnace door 18-22”

Im tossing chunks in there the size of engine blocks and microwave ovens.

Stuttgart brought me some maple big as wash machines. Gonna have to apply reduction methods to that chit.
Same Stuttgart that some douche on here said I sould “help him drag his 83 lb doe” in a jet sled 145 yards. Puleeeze nigra

My meagre woodlot. Some mesquite. But mostly live oak

Great firewood, and small and a bit green it's good in the smoker. I wish we had it on our side of the hill.

Slummy If I could find hickory I’d first cook up some pork chops for the lady - she really likes them that way.

We do a lot of open fire cooking - more than most Vermonters.

We had some logging done last winter, the tree tops are mostly still where they fell. Mostly white oak and walnut with some pig nut hickory and red oak. I cut about 7 small pickup loads of firewood and hauled it home before the ticks got bad in the spring. Right now I'm burning oak, walnut and dry hedge in the fireplace. Helps with the propane bill in really cold weather.

Morewood,

There are some madrones a bit to the southeast of us about 15-20 miles. But they don’t get anybigger than about 4 or 5 inches in diameter.

Mesquite will really junk up a chimney or stove pipe. I would use it wood stove but only one log at bedtime

That stuff was hard to come by our west. Closest i got was Big Sur. I liked it’s flaky orange bark. Beautiful tree.

That log on the right almost looks good enough to be a peeler log. Straight and about the right length.

Had a friend of mine, Humboldt County, in the 90's worked for a guy getting peeler logs for veneers for fancy Italian sports cars and the like. Big bucks for the right log.

Those hollow handled Fiskars will rattle your hands.



I spend 2x as much time chopping ice and that axe is a rubber handled fiberglass Channellock.

2-3 years old and is a favorite.

We’re wood heat only, and on year three of liquid amber from a neighbor tree that was taken down. Pretty nice compared to lodgepole.

Yes on the mesquite. It will really screw up your pipes. And I really don’t care for it for smoking. For grilling coals its the bee’s knees! Like for grillin’ steaks.

It do burn hot! I buckled up one of those cheap Sears& Roebuck Franklin stoves with mesquite. But when it’s all you got, you burn it.

White oak is the wood of choice here. One thing better than free wood is getting paid good money to take it. During the course of the year I run into enough oak jobs that I can be pretty picky on what goes into my stove. I give my neighbors what I don't want and stay 3 years ahead on my personal firewood. At this point in my life tree work is pure entertainment.

WS

I've been feeding my woodstove for 42 years. My 100+ acres is a mixture of Red and Chestnut Oak, Hickory, Ash, and Cherry. Our Elm all died out probably 35 years ago, and now Ash is fading fast due to the Emerald Borers. Funny...here in the Northeast we would never consider burning softwoods like Pine, Hemlock, or Cedar, but when I travel out west to hunt, that's all they burn out there. You use what you have, I guess.

It's sorta like makin' hay.

Doug Fir as kindling, Pacific Madrone (about 31,000 MMbtu per cord) for real heat. We heat only with wood although we do have a heat pump. We use about 4 cords of madrone per year. It all comes off our property so we don't have to go far.

Look here for the BTU rates for Eastern and Western hard woods and soft woods. Also lists pounds per dry cord. https://worldforestindustries.com/forest-biofuel/firewood/firewood-btu-ratings/

Water Oak and red Oak. I've got several Sawtooth oaks that I'm not going to cut anytime soon, but they keep me in shed branches for kindling

I’m a big fan of the electric heat pump. My old man preferred White Oak. Hickory popped and burned holes in the carpet. He always liked to cut his wood in the hottest part of summer. Said he liked it to “season” for a few months before burning.

The shipping gets a little high, so we burn local.

Locust for the furnace, oak for the fireplace

Pinon and cedar

Here's a look out the gate 75 yards from my backdoor, that opens onto square miles of public land. Not a single hardwood that I know of out there, and I've covered most of that ground to the top of the first ridge. Second ridge is over the fence on private land. Over to the right, on top of that ridge, you can see a few ponderosa pines sticking up. There's one dead center of the pic that's hard to make out, just a dark spot in amongst the other trees. The rest is all juniper.



This is what it looks like close up. The buck is bedded a hundred yards or so to the west (right) of that little road in the first pic, under that second larger tree in the "foreground". Every tree there is a juniper



Nearest oaks I know of are about 15 miles over that ridge in the first pic to the SW where they get a bit more moisture than we get here.

Believe me, if there was a hardwood around here, the first settlers would have burned it up or used it for wagon boards or something long ago...............if the local Indians hadn't done so already.

We can grow the scheidt out of juniper here though!

We burn about 15 face cord a year. Lots of ash right now because its everywhere, but I love hard maple and white oak too. We also have a couple types of hickory here on the place. One thing I didn't see mentioned is Hop Hornbean. It's part of the birch family but I'd say it burns more like beech. Splits about as hard too. I cut up every dead one I can find and mix it in with the rest.

I WISH we had a good supply of hedge around here. I've burned some that I got from a farmer pulling an old hedgerow and people are right, it burns like coal.

Hickory is my 1st choice, standing dead oak and honey locust are good too. Hedge is the hottest firewood in the midwest and should be used sparingly in old flues and stoves. I cut up a blowdown Pecan for a friend several years ago amd that was the sweetest smelling wood ever.

I'm 66 and still sawing and splitting 4-5 cords a year by hand.



Somebody above posted a pic of the Fiskars 8 pound splitting maul and it's the best one I've ever used.

got to burn what's available, but there's areas of the country that have really [bleep] wood for heat purposes..

What ever wood pallets are made of.

Is that one of those elusive Modoc stump deer in the second photo?

I love that N CAL/N NV country!

Those are too valuable for building chicken Gulags and compost bins around here.

Juniper is more readily available.

Geno, I will trade you backyards.

Title of the pic has me calling him "bent rack buck" that season. I didn't see him around this past summer, but there's a good chance the bent rack was from him bumping it when it was in velvet that summer. Probably growing in straight now if he's still alive. 2018 picture.

Ozarks?

Your second pic looks like my place in Arizona with two exceptions

I have no Sage Brush .Some Scrub Oak and the Trees are thick with some branches over lapping so you can not walk threw them

That is some Beautiful property that you have and have access to for sure.

Ash and red oak are the preferred.. but we use damn near anything mixed in.
What ever gets blown over on a fence row, dies in the yard, ect.. I stay at least 2 or 3 years ahead on wood, just keep the pastures and roads clear. Damn ash bores have just about wiped out our ash trees.

yeah, other than being in Cali, not getting to hunt deer here every season, and dealing with all the BS politics, it ain't too bad.

Oak here in the south, soon to be loaded tomorrow, and various pine and birch at the north place.

Oak or hickory for me. I burn approximately 5 cords each winter.

Growing up in Northern AZ, Pinion, Cedar, Pine, Juniper, and Aspen were the usual cuts. Pinion is the favorite for the campfire. In the wood stove, pinion or some other hot / fast burning wood to set some coals, followed with some oak to keep the heat going most of the night.

Pine, Cedar and Aspen at the bottom of the rung. Cedar and Aspen burned well, but you're dodging cracks and pops all night.

Have a life long bud who still feels guilty to this day. As a kid in high school (back in the early 80's), he made his money by cutting firewood for folks. He would go out and cut down big ol' alligator junipers to go back and harvest the following fall. Not much burns better, but those alligator junipers were some old assed (over 500 years old) trees. But dayum, they burned nice, and people payed a premium.

I’ve burned plenty of spruce and fir but have loads of cottonwood here on my place so usually slum it.

Been going through a bunch today.

Up in the NF we could take dead trees practically free and cut mostly Alligator Juniper due to great burning qualities, heat output and low residue. It was simply excellent and I miss that. Now the free stuff to cut is mostly Mesquite and it is quite good - no complaints.

Almond wood!
Burns hot and clean. And, we literally grow the stuff.

I feel sorry for you guys that don't have hedge, locust or a good oak.

Hickory is good to if you have access to it.

Hedge= pure heat and the stuff is rock hard.

Doug fir around here old growth when you can find it.

Gambel Oak 1st ( a white oak)
pinon second
ponderosa 3rd
juniper smells great, just haven't cut or hauled much ever

aspen for kindling

do like to cut up an old ponderosa for the pitch parts, makes best kindling and don't need much

Mostly oak and hickory. I have become quite fond of ash as of late. Emerald ash bore beetles are killing the crap out of them around here.

White oak and hickory.

back when I burned wood, oak, hickory, and ash were what I tried to cut. I did cut and burn hedge apple when I came across it.

I burn whatever is available and easiest for me to get to. I take down trees along fencelines in the pastures. Right now am fortunate to have a load (6 or so cord) of oak and ash slab and block wood from an Amish mill. Oft times I haul a dumptruck load of mostly oak block tie ends from the Stella Jones yard in Rockland.

Post oak is my favorite, live oak is the predominant wood I use in my stove.

We have a pretty much unlimited supply of ash, cherry, oak, maple and beech on our camp property. Ash splits the easiest. You can’t beat wood heat.
Unfortunately, I don’t have a wood stove at home.

I take what I get, ash, copper beech, oak, fir, sprue, maple but foremost copper beech, sprue and ash.

Ash and maple. Cherry and hickory when we find it down and dead.

Hop Hornbeam (iron wood here in Eastern Ontario) if you can find any. Beech, ash and maple is more prevalent in my woodlot. I burn pretty much any tree that needs removal, including the soft woods.

Nick

stuff's nice for smoking chicken.

My favorite is a "blue" oak. These are dead oak trees that take on a bluish gray color on some of the bark while they have been standing for a year or two. Aged and dry and ready to burn...

White oak and hickory are preferred, maple some, locust when I can

I prefer big red oaks. If we lose one of the big ones to ice or wind and I can cut it when it’s green it splits easy and dries nicely stacked out over the spring and summer.

We have a black locust grove that’s a couple acres and I cut quite a bit of that. Best cut green, split and stacked out, easier to avoid rotten ones that way. I have about 3 ricks stacked on the porch right now that we’re feeding the stove with.

Been cutting a lot of ash lately as we lost a bunch last winter. They split easy and burn nice but produce a lot of ash, have to muck the stove out every other day.

Black walnut burns hot and long if you mix it with something else. Hard to get started by itself. I don’t cut a ton of it but did cut up a little last weekend.

Bodark I mostly stay away from. Burned the firebox out of a potbelly in high school burning scraps from building self bows. Not hard to get your stove too hot with it if you’re not careful.

Slick elm is easy to cut and handle, bark slides right off a dead tree when it’s ready to burn. Basically unsplitable without hydraulics. Dad burns it in his fireplace since he can fit big rounds. Makes a pretty fire with long orange flames.

Red elm is much better than slick elm but less common. It’s a harder wood and splittable. Me and dad are on a constant scout in old hedgerows and creek bottoms for dead standing red elms.

Here in North Florida, we're pretty much limited to Live Oaks..

Around here its Fir or Jackpine mostly, these are some Fir tree's that are going to make it into the back of my truck, about 1 1/2 cords per tree. I have to saw the pieces in half (at least) to get them into the truck.

Oak and ash. Of course locust is the best firewood, but the blight hit 20 years ago and killed all my locust trees. I will run out of locust next year. For that matter, all the ash trees are dead too.

Oak and hickory mostly here. I use wood in the shop so I don't require a whole lot.

Growing up, I remember being in the woods all summer long cutting, splitting and stacking wood. 25 rick got us through the winter plus we cut for 8 -10 other people.

Broke down and bought a 20 ton gas log splitter from harbor freight 8 years ago. It's been a great help and since it splits in both directions it's much faster. I was pleasantly surprised at how fast you could split with with it. Beats the hell out of the axe and maul any day!

When I heated with wood it was mostly Doug-fir and Alder. The only redeeming quality to the alder was ease of splitting. You could walk along and swing an axe like a golf club and split the alder as it lay on the ground. It made shiatty kindling and made a ton of ash as it burned.

Now , for backyard fires or camping, I bring home dimensional scraps and dunnage from work. Mostly Doug-fir. Zip it up with the chop saw into 12-14” pieces.

White oak, hickory, and maple when I can find it. Maple is hard to beat.

[s][/s]
My wood cache is dwindling fast, wife believes the stove should be rollin when it's 55 outside.
Living in two states basically with many weekends away from the woodburning home keeps putting me behind.

My brother in law has a friend from early 1970s army days. He is now a PHD professor at some university up in Delaware and lives in New Jersey. He told me that there were people up there burning shelled corn in wood heaters when corn was cheap. I asked him if they had trees up there and he affirmed they did but that corn had been cheap (not anymore) and it was easy to just burn that. At first I thought he was talking about corn stalks but he said it was shelled whole corn.

Cannot be cost effective even at 3 or 4 dollars a bag. Those little firewood bundles at stores would dollar out tremendously if figured by the cord.

I think on a dry basis it all has the same BTU's per pound.

+2
Long preferred World-wide as the best charcoal for making blackpowder. Plenty of heat and virtually no ash.

Only time I get to use my wood stove is deer or elk camp. The area I hunt, I like to down and Burn Tamarack

I wish it to be rollin too. Hell I don’t mind cutting the wood, just let me be warm without a fuss.
She dresses up in 3 layers of North Face and Patagonia mountaineering wear and fusses about have burn more than a few chunks of wood.
It’s like those crying jew commercials around this house. I can almost see my breath inside the house and we got 20 cords of wood cut. Wtf

You burn what you can get, pine works just fine. At the cabin.

Mesquite

Juniper smells like cat pee

Normally nothing but locust and hedge. Cleared a lane to out building late last year so have 3 stacked wagon loads of hickory to get burned up. Unique thing about locust is that it can be literally rotted, but burn it…you would be surprised how many btu it still puts out.

In western WI the woods around here consist mainly of maple, oak, ash and ironwood..

You cut and burn wood? Or are you just giving us a biodiversity update for the flora in your area?

PintsofCraft;
Good morning to you sir, if you're in the cooler weather like we seem to be out west here, I trust that your firewood is being put to good use this morning and that you're all well.

Thanks for the thread, it's interesting to see what other folks use and who is still doing that.

We're just south of 673 and while we do have larch trees, a few years back someone in the brain trust decided we weren't supposed to cut them on our firewood permits anymore. That leaves us with Doug Fir for the most part for cold days and then I've been cutting some spruce for kindling and warm days too.

The shop woodstove gets Ponderosa Pine from the property mostly, since it's got a nice short, easy to clean chimney and I just want to keep it from freezing everything solid in there.

Here's a load coming down from the mountain behind the house.



Covered storage at the shop/garage.



Merry Christmas to you and the rest of the firewood gatherers out there this morning.

Dwayne

Tree roots burn well.

some patches of it, live. esp on a hot day.

utah juniper (shaggybark) has a great smell when burning, splits easy, doesn't last long. old timers liked it for cook stoves, you could get the size just right.

too snappy for a fireplace, IMO

just rolled through a town last night where the locals were mostly burning juniper, smelled great.

(and gas was $3.09, cheapest I saw in a 340 mile drive)

anything that will burn in my outdoor furnace....
my favorite would be a well seasoned white pine....easy to cut,split and lift into the stove and last as long as any hardwood tree we have around here in the stove

They’re hell on saw chains

But go right ahead with more valuable tidbits

Old Pallets.

Red Oak and Hard Maple cause that is whats growing on my homestead.

Corn stoves are like pellet stoves with an auger and a small but intense fire box and blowers. It's a whole different animal than wood stoves. My farmer neighbor has one in his family room. Of course he plants 4-5000 acres yearly so...

Lodgepole, Doug fir, and quakie mostly

Not expert on this as I don't go around smelling for cat pee, but what are you feeding your cats??

Around here, the premium firewood is larch.

But there is none in my AO.

Second is Doug fir.

Third is probably lodge pole

With Ponderosa at fourth.

When the day is getting short, and the truck is not full yet, I have been known to toss a spruce into the load.

Doug fir yields more tonnage per cord, but lodge pole splits easier.

My woodshed is stocked up with black walnut and ash. You'd be surprised how much wood the 8 x 12 shed holds. Four stacks, 7 feet high and 7 1/2 feet long.

I think someone is all jazzed up with a serious case of the reindeer jitters!

LOL




Live from the tundra!

Going to have to start hammering the ash around my place.

pine wood at a campfire, poplar wood spring and fall , white oak ,white ash , red oak in a cold winter . but now days my electric floor heat and electric furnace its cleaner and much easier when your older.

South Western Ontario Canada here. Ash, elm and mulberry are my favorite. Mulberry really dense and burns fantastic when I can get it. As the ash and elm disappear I'm gonna have to switch.

Tamarack. I don't care what the charts say but it's the best. Hot, no ashes, usually available up here. I have endless supplies of poplar so that is what I burn if I'm not buying wood.

I hauled home about 6 cord of spruce from a demo job I was on this fall so that will be for the campfires this summer and some of my heat next winter.

My choices are spruce. white birch, and aspen, tho there are cottonwoods in places. Birch is a hardwood, so is the best if properly dried a year or three - the rest are softwoods. Spruce is more prominent tho, and more used, just keeping up with the dead.Aspen isn't really worth cutting for firewood, but sometimes some have to come down, and is used. (I have heard that once dried, aspen logs make excellent sauna buildings)

The beetles are hammering spruce into standing dead, which need removal around the two yards I have here. Home yard is mostly cleaned up, the rental property has a over a dozen big dead trees yet to come down next summer - already took several cords of the most dangerous ones down to my local rec cabin - the only place still using wood. I'm good for about 5 years there already. I'll probably give the remainder away for the cutting and cleanup, if I can even find someone to do it - at least those trees not within falling reach of the unit. Not that I don't trust any Joe with a saw.....

I haven't surveyed the 6 acre vacant lot yet, but I'm sure there's some there also. Not critical at all. Woodpeckers need to eat too.

I'm so far behind at the Interior remote cabin, there are at least a dozen spruce blow downs- big ones - rotting away on the ground within carry distance to the cabin.

Some I trimmed and peeled several years ago to slow the rot if they weren't actually laying on the ground.

The whole damned valley burned up this summer, so I may need them yet!

Gin and Tonics, probably!

Well he’s goddamm expert on everything else

Work as a school teach for 75 years
Has 80 year old students come up to him in the grocery
Invented fire and the push-button automatic transmission and repaired motor homes for another 50 years, etc etc
Uncle Bullshît.

We can subtract volunteering at an animal shelter, skinning a few bobcats or having an olfactory lobe left in that 103 year old brain.

I had the old ass hole on ignore

Somebody stacks wood like my Ma!

It didn't stay like that for long.

I see no point in stacking it. I’m hauling it in every hour with a front end loader and dumping it under a shed cover.
I don’t burn wood or keep a nice anal retentive stack to make the neighbors envious. Fouck the neighbors

Sam

I know as well as you that Russian Olive is a bitch just to be near

Birds love it.....deer too for the cover

Two local counties are trying to eradicate it......total removal

Every time I see I see a new shoot on my place.......its gone...

The other junk tree is Chinese Elm....

I got lazy.....NG is my heat source.......although brandon shot the prices sky high this year

pic.......young buck found the discarded pumpkins

Thanks for posting that logger. Most useful bit in the entire thread.

Thanks for the nothing to nothing data sheet. 🤣

You got hickory…cut it down and make smoked pulled porkbutt bbq and firewood out of it

no brainer


Right here beside the house

For you cat piss burnin’ heroes…this is SHAGBARK

Ash and hickory

Hedge=Osage Orange or Bow d Arc.

Same here. Throw maple in that mix to.

1Minute that looks cool stacked like that. Is there a reason for the pre split rounds in the stack other than saving time?

Pinon, juniper, and cedar are what we burn at the ranch - don't keep wood here at town.
We used to burn some Gambel's oak, when we had some country near Raton that had it - ours at Wagon Mound, the oak is too small.

Shagbark Hickory is Section 8 housing for the endangered Indiana Bat.

https://www.nwf.org/Educational-Resources/Wildlife-Guide/Plants-and-Fungi/Shagbark-Hickory

Shame... Shame... Shame

Would love to poke fun at that Ford and "load" of wood.

Having a 3/4 ton truck, I used to haul coal in buckets loaded in a Lesbaru Wagon.
No chute or window to the bin, all coal had to be carried in buckets.
It was easier to stop after work and fill 15 buckets in the car than let them dump 2 ton in the truck and have to climb in and out of the bed, and clean up the mess.

Sure looked stupid though.

The best options around here are ash and locust.

The dry variety

We have 42 acres of mostly white and red oak so that is what we use. No complaints. Just make sure once it is split it has 2 years to dry out.

Hemlock here

Cut, split, and stacked by someone else would be preferable if I had to heat with wood.

Standing dead ash is everywhere around here from the borer and oak is readily available if you like.

PintsofCraft: Count me in on the amazing, clean heat and long lasting Oak.
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

Burr Oak, Ash, and hackberry. I like it when I stumble upon some quail while working.

IMG_20221124_155208979_HDR by .com/photos/156405073@N02/]Tim Richard, on [bleep]

Lotta oak firewood in SW Montana?

I've got an old 710 Earthstove. I burn aspen & Engelmann spruce---because it's the easiest & more readily available here in SW Colorado. The stove is air tight so I can choke it way down. I'm up a couple times a night to pee & I'll add a couple logs to the fire.

It's easier for me to get another load of aspen/spruce to last the winter than itis to look for oak or cedar.

Proper spelling is bois d'arc which is French for "wood of the bow."

We called them spider ball trees when I was a kid. Duck call makers misspell it bodark. It gets no respect. No respect at all.

White oak and hickory here

On my 80 acres I've got about 25 acres wooded with Oak, Maple, Shagbark Hickory, Black Walnut, Elm and of course Hedge. Right now the majority of what I've been cutting has been elm due to the beetles. We burn Osage sparingly as it burns pretty hot. These days it's rare for us to be cutting down live trees unless I'm clearing or making room for my oak trees (mast producing for deer). This year I "automated" part of our process by investing in pallet forks for my Kuboata and started converting IBC Totes into firewood bins.

The ability to only handle wood twice (into bin, then into wood stove) is awesome. I built an IBC Tote dolly with castors, so it can be moved easily in the garage:



One full 275 gallon IBC Tote is almost a face cord.

Difficult to decipher what that has to do with firewood or cat pee - just looks like you are again exercising your penchant for exaggerative hyperbole and in the common crass fashion. You miss by a mile - so understandable by now. Another reminder that the wise and mature guys on here do recognize the limits of their expertise and strive to communicate as gentlemen.

I think I understand cord, but what is a face cord?

A facecord is a half cord.

Good link here. Supports my experience as well. Of the woods available in my locale, nothing beats oak. Then white ash, madrone, and maple in descending order. Always have at least a cord of firewood too just to start the fires.

Nope, a face cord is 4' x 8' x 16" so three face cords in a cord.

Here in Virginia, most everyone burns Oak and Hickory. The nastiest is Sweetgum. That junk stinks and crackles and pops constantly if you burn it.

utah juniper, sometimes called shaggy bark

Ranked in order:

1. Osage Orange

2. Black Locust

3. Hickory

4. Beech

5. White Oak

6. Red Oak

Followed in no particular order:

White Ask
Hackberry
Hard Maple

I keep some poplar on hand to make kindling out of. Soft Maple serves the same purpose

Have A Great Day and Be Safe

correct and Bois D'arc Missouri is about 15 minutes from the house... you can imagine how many hedge trees are in this country..

that is what I've always been taught.. half a cord to be if it's cut in 24-in lengths

I stand corrected.

It’s 3 actually. I prefer white oak mostly since that’s what’s most readily available to me. I cut and split about 2 cords a year and that is usually enough for us, but it’s not my primary heat source. Birch and red oak also mixed in.

Now this looks like my place in Arizona
Scrub Oak and Cedars.

I was told that Cedars have round shaped needles and Junipers have flat type needles.
We have Round in my area not flat.

I could have been informed wrong thou

And many call it a “rick”. Most “for sale” ads around here are a rick, you’d expect 16” length, but who knows what they’re actually cutting it to.

Live Oak in fireplace, Post Oak in pit for bbq, mesquite in fire pit for grilling steaks.

I need to get south for some Osage Orange & scrub oak. Might need to hook up my RV and explore this Spring - anyone know a spot to cut a bed load of OO for an out of stater?

That was my math too.

Out west I like ash and maple with oak for night wood. Doug fir is good if you can find an old growth buckskin.

On a side note I wonder what kind of wood round oak likes?

Have a hickory dead in the back yard, about a cord and a half should I cut or let it fall

Fake wood.

You guys don't know Jack Shiet.😉😉😉



"I got a 3/4 ton truck. If I throw the wood in and it's about 6 inches above the rails it's
almost a cord. I'll deliver it within 15 miles for $150."

"No, stacking doesn't make any difference, I've tried it. Believe me!"


Actually heard that, more than once.

I have a 3/ ton. Fiberglass boards to build a headache rack to keep it from hitting the cab.
When I throw the bed 3/4 of the way full, crawl over it and stack it to cab height, I get 1 1/2
rows. 3 rows cab height, stacked. 4th is a bit lower, the rest of the bed is filled with a saw and as much wood as we can get in. I've stacked that, measured, and did the volume calculations.
About 3/4 cord, a bit more usually.

But the first paragraph explains a cord from the Shiesters selling wood.
Bastards are lying when they claim it's a truck load, let alone throwing the cord reference in there!

😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂🤣🤣🤣🤣

Pole wood?

All ash. So many dead ones here, some will probably will go to waste. Getting risky to cut them down with the weak tops and all.




My helper & the two log skidders.

Great pic! That darn Emerald Ash Borer has all of us out East cutting trees we normally never would.

Pretty slick thinking there!

White oak splits the easiest. Red oak burns slower and smells the best while burning.

I made a small fortune with a S10 pickup and a wild thing chain saw and several maul handles

I like one year old. oak. ash, hickory, and maple

Yup. Spruce for everyday use. Birch and tamarack when the BTUs need jacked up.

Nestucca:


Just trying to maximize the volume in the shed. Since I split the rounds within a couple steps of the shed, it's not much extra effort to fit those pieces back into place. Not done any measurements, but my guess is that if I simply tossed pieces in, I'd have about 20% less wood in there. We sustain about a 5- or 6-year supply and split up the oldest each spring.

We don't have much humidity over here and only bring in rounds of standing dead tamarack. One can go out the next day and hear those rounds checking as they begin drying. Rounds cut in May are pretty well dry by Sept/Oct. Anything fresh off the stump though has a substantially lower heat yield.

I don't know anyone locally that actually sells good cured wood. Most bring it out of the woods and sell the load to minimize handling. We do have one local commercial dealer, and he does about a half million $$$ annually hauling to urban folks in Id, Or, and Nv.

Did some measures and our shed holds about 3.6 cords. We burn about 2.5 annually, so there is some seriously cured wood in the rear most row.

I do like the pole like confirmation of tamarack (few branches on standing dead). It's clean burning as well, with no need to dump ashes over a full winter of use. Also, simply threaten rounds with a maul, and they'll almost fall in half.

Mountain mahogany is about the best and hottest burning stuff I have seen. But we only get aspen,pine,cedar and some pinion to burn depending on location and altitude.

I got a phougk load of ash I need to cut and split the beetles wiped out

Favorite is Hickory, but since I’m a scrounger I’ll take most anything.

The kind that someone else, cuts, stacks, brings to the fireplace, and has the ashes disposed of properly! memtb

I burn mostly birch, a bit of ash. I like maple mixed in if I can find it.
In the far North here a lot of people don’t realize how long and hot Tamarack will burn and if conditions are right some winters I pull that up out of the bottoms and burn it as well. Good stuff.

Osky

During the depression years people without a woodlot in our area would go to the Alfred Bog and cut tamarack for firewood. The bog tamarack were stunted from growing on acidic peat. My uncle said it was like burning coal. The growth rings were extremely tight. One could only cut there once it froze over.

Nick

If I can get a combination of Juniper and mountain Mahogany I think that is about as good as gets around here. I have put mahogany in the stove and still have hot coals 24 hours later.

That stuff is hard and really hard on chains. If I cut any at all, it's with a chain that will be retired at the end of the day. Never seen any heat yield data, but I bet it's up there close to osage. Sadly, mahogany is pretty much just a large shrub, so it's a pain in the butt to cut and handle.

Nothing better than the smell of alligator juniper or pinon on a cold new mexico night