Alright So I reloaded for the night and tried a round. It wasn’t big but I tossed a bit of Horse Chestnut in the stove with some black locust and by god, worst thing I felt I could smell. Oh it’s a poop smell when I would test it out at the pit but in an enclosed room....wow! I don’t really get my jodhpurs up often about wood-smoke smells, I happen to really enjoy it. But this....this stuff takes the cake. I have about a face cord of this stuff and I’m wondering what to really do about it. The smoke upon start up was almost straight embarrassing out of the pipe. I mean DAMM! I could say that being it wasn’t split and on coals not starting fast enough was an issue but as far as smell is concerned, that’s not easy to tame. I really don’t wanna have my neighbors smell this stuff . Seems like good shoulder season wood. But reluctant at this point... maybe masking it one split with bunch of everything else... downright awful alone.
Save it for cold windy days Neighbors will be inside & the odor won’t linger + the stove will draft good & burn the wood fast
Most of this wood is split and I just happened to have the round inside for a couple days. I’ll keep it for those days then. Thanks bogydave.
When we split the shagbark hickory I hauled for Wisconsin, I noticed a strong odor of dairy air also. Or should that be derriere? Definitely a manure smell to it. It came from the fox river area......
I could describe this as sweet but ugly. When I realized I was burning it and smelling it outside in my pit, trust me I had thoughts. Everything else is a pleasant smell but this wood. Even some red oak I cut this year smelled pleasant compared to this. And that stunk...
So, was it the HC or the locust that smelled so bad? We only tried a few splits of locust one time and wife said she does not want any more of that sticking stuff.
Horse, I don’t smell anything from Locust actually. Only when its split! After the fire was finally going well, I went outside to the east side of the house. The smell was there just blowing down the side of the house. I couldn’t help but think if burning this as a last resort, then that’s more likely what I will do. The reason why I know this smell is I have burned in my pit. Let me try and give it a visual smell... ever walk down to the recycling and pass by the glass where USED bottles of beer are dropped in? That kind of stink....
Haven’t burned any chestnut so can’t comment on that - but I always thought that the stink from black locust burning was mostly that thick ugly bark it has. So those barkless BL scores were better than new wood.
Oh I really wish I had some of the really stinking wood to burn on some a bit warmer days like in the 40F range on week ends. Neghbour likes to burn all kinds of stinking smelly crap from the house in his burn barrel. Seems like the wind blows from their place to ours every time. But in the fall and winter the wind seems to blow from our place to theirs. Seems down right fair to me to share stinking stuff being burnt. Al
Once the bark does come off, it does save you this trouble of any mess but I have to go back out and smell when Im burning black locust. I did have bark come off when I had a load of that black Locust delivered to my house but when I burned the bark (that came off so easily!!) in the pit after cutting logs up, I just noticed how blazing white hot that fire got, no smell! Some of this stuff I was able to just pick and pull from as the moisture meter registered it as below 20% so I tend to throw in one split with a couple of Doug firs. But the smell of the horse Chestnut is...offensive. Smell better too.
The only smelly wood I have come across around here is Russian olive, but once it dries real good then no more smell. Never seen Horse chestnut.
That's an odd smell for shagbark. However, different soils influence the plants, so you never know. I've burned horse chestnut, but I don't recall the smell if any?
We didn't notice it until we split it. It has since tapered out and you can walk pat the piles without noticed it. Hey wait a minute....piles? manure smell? coincidence?......maybe not.......
