I know Doug Fir isn’t black locust. But last night I let the fire go out at 7pm. This is a pic from 8 am this morning. That’s 13 hours by my count. I just threw some splits on - and whoosh! This is why Douglas Fir is primo wood around here. The other pic is just a load of Doug Fir that I scrounged over the summer.
Similar to our white birch for BTUs and coaling. I have no trouble getting things going quickly after 8 or 9 hours from birch coals in the morning or after work.
You must have a good tight stove. I burn mostly Doug fir and in the Hearthstone Mansfield, about 7-8 hours is what we get. The soapstone stays warm for like 12 hours. I hardly ever cram the stove full and choke it down. Our little house gets too hot even when it is below zero outside. Around here I put Doug fir at #2 right behind western larch. Fir is more plentiful so I end up about 60% fir to larch.
I tell all the new people moving in here the same thing. Don’t forget the deciduous coniferous trees. They are completely dangerous to your home and health.
Cash Larue I share your affection for Doug Fir. It is an excellent all-around firewood! Good BTU content (especially old growth), quick season time, easy to start, low ash and usually relatively free of limbs and crooks so it stacks nicely. My first choice for a single type of firewood. Add some occasional Madrone for a hardwood and you need nothing else! I don't usually need to burn overnight but if I load full with Doug, late in the evening and burn slow, we also have plenty of coals in the morning!
I agree, buddy. I burn mostly Douglas Fir. It’s very plentiful around here. I love it, for all the reasons you mentioned. It’s a breeze to split too - even by hand. Buzz Benton posted the first pics of Madrone that I’ve ever seen. We certainly don’t have Madrone here. That stuff is crazy looking. Wish I could get my hands on some
I always get good coals from Doug Fir. Like metalcuttr said - the old growth stuff is very dense and burns for a long time. The lightweight, dimensional Doug Fir lumber you buy at Home Depot is young Doug Fir. That’s why it’s so light. The old growth is heavy. It’s the only type of wood that I’ve ever had to noodle to lift into my truck. One year dry time is typically plenty, for my area. But we have so much sunshine and very low humidity. Everything dries fast here.
I know what you mean by old growth. Ive seen older framing lumber from demo work and i always marvel at how much tighter the growth rings are compared to todays lumber.
Yep. I like to drive into the mountains hunting for a 500 year old plus doug fir. Something I really missed and didn't know it at the time, was the smell of doug fir. When I went down south 27 years ago I really missed it. Too me it is the cream of the crop. The pure bride in white standing before the alter. The most blessed of all trees. Old growth lumber is far better stuff too. Spot on analysis there too Cash.
Most folks don't know there are two varieties of Douglas Fir. This may account for some differences in density and other characteristics, although I agree the timber coming through the mills these days is mostly garbage compared with slowly grown dense old growth. The interior variety of Douglas-fir does not attain the growth rates, dimensions, or age of the coastal variety. Link for Quote from USFS below : Two varieties of the species are recognized: P. menziesii (Mirb.) Franco var. menziesii, called coast Douglas-fir, and P. menziesii var. glauca (Beissn.) Franco, called Rocky Mountain or blue Douglas-fir. Pseudotsuga menziesii has two widely recognized varieties: menziesii, the green variety indigenous to the area west of the summit of the Cascade Range in Washington and Oregon and of the Sierra Nevada in California; and glauca, the blue Douglas-fir native to the interior mountains of the Pacific Northwest and the Rocky Mountains in the United States, and to Mexico. Above is the Doerner Fir. 13 1/2' thick, 327 feet tall. I use to hunt on an old trail that ran right past what was later found to be the world record Douglas Fir. In fact, my Dad killed a 5 point bull within a half mile of this extremely remote place. The ground was so steep we did not realize that the base of the tree some 100' below us was 11+ feet thick. They say it is 327 feet tall. Think of a football field in length - plus an end zone.
Holy smokes!!! That thing is huge!! We must have blue Doug Fir here. They get big here, but not 11 feet wide!
So we would have the P. menziesii (Mirb.) Franco var. menziesii, called coast Douglas-fir, variety here. In the old growth stands, there are some pretty big ones.
