The Cottonwood I have is very dry so it burns pretty much the same as the pine I have will. I just cut the air down on the stove like you would for any other wood and have no problems. The main reason I like the cottonwood is it will leave a half way decent coal bed where as the pine will not. Plus it is all free and I like free BTU's.
The cottonwood I have has been split and stacked for at least 3 years or maybe more. I get no smell from it. They say the Russian Olive stinks too and I burn that sometimes also but after 3 years of drying out I get not smell from it. I even used some cottonwood in my smoker with some apple and hickory and the taste was great.
I guess it just gets rained on and kinda starts rotting. Most of the wood I get free its not always processed by me start to finish. Its often just tossed in a pile(burn pit) and ready to burn if dry or I'll stack it in an exposed place. Get it dry as possible. Its not always clean. Someone elses wood they wanted to give away. Im more than happy to take it and burn that up.
Yup Pine is good firewood. Not all pine are created equal but they will all heat your home and darn fast!. Lot of people talking about sap but I dont find I get a lot off my lodgepole pine. I seem to find a bit more on doug fir than lodgepole but not enough to get it all over things.
The truck load I picked up the other day had it oozing out of pockets and this was dead fir that is close to 20% mc already. Even after split and stacked there are a few little rivers of sap. Wasnt a big deal processing it though. I didnt even get any on my gloves or saw.
Sometimes its already got it dried or soaked up. Just get the fat wood if possible. Great firestarter there!
It's a fact that the fir replanted in recent decades has been modified to grow as fast as possible. It's my personal opinion that this fast growing stuff makes a lower quality firewood. It has wide growth rings and is light weight. Rotations are as low as 30 years now on state and private timber lands. It could just be that trees in most of those places aren't allowed to reach an age where their growth slows down and creates a more dense wood.
Getting the wood off the shores will definitely make it stick more. But even burning green, when I was sawing lumber we used to have a slab pile burning all day and we did not mind the smoke smell. But perhaps that was because as we were sawing, that sap stunk so bad anything else smelled good. But, we even got used to that over time. Pine too if left to dry a year or two should not have much sap to flare up, or at least the pine we have around here. We have hemlock and spruce then scotch pine, red pine and white pine are the main pines.
For sure the stove makes a huge difference in how wood burns. I don't remember what stove you have Mag Craft
Interesting. Yeah it definitely seems that older trees are denser. Colder climates (in my opinion) tend to make denser wood as well since the growing of the tree tends to be slower. Not sure the turn around north of the boarder on harvesting fir. Certainly an interesting topic!
I noticed this a bit earlier Sean when I looked at the rings at trees that were cut down then other speciments that looked to be from much colder climates. The oak I had collected up about 2-3 months ago was evidence of this. Oak grows huge here but the oak was only about 20 some years old but had the trunk girth of a 100 year old easily. I believe warm climate and lots of water contribute to growth. The temperate area here with temps not going past teens often if at all. The specimen i had was a skid that I cut up. I counted rings in an inch. It was older in one inch of space than the oak I picked up. Growth rings showed in oak that it grew about a 1/2 inch a year here. Cold inhibits growth by a lot but its likely to change the construct of the tree by a much tighter grain. Not sure if this is related to structural integrity but I should research this first. The point i wanna get across is if you find a tight grained tree ring likely its from someplace that has long cold winters. This winter was Long for us. Colder than usual but nothing compared to folks near the border mid US. It was cool to compare. If you find a redwood sequoia look at the rings of new growth. Its ridiculous. I can put my thumb on one year and it grows more than that. Its WIDE. You'd think its grass based on how fast it grows.
