I generally split anything over about 4-5" dia. Leaving it in rounds will take a bit longer to dry. In Louisiana, YMMV.
Yes. That size I routinely leave in rounds. It will still dry but take a bit longer. It will burn great!
Yawner - Catches fire and flames up quickly, reasonable burn time and decent coals. Sometimes you can get a piece that pops and throws sparks though.
I’m burning some at present. At least I think that’s what it is- it got separated from the label I compulsively put on my stacks. I know it looks like red maple and I know it’s plenty dry- several years in the pole barn. I’m moving it to number 1 in my firewood arsenal. This stuff is about perfect. I don’t know what the deal is with oak around here, but I’ve never had oak hold coals like this stuff. Only thing that compares is elm. And that is a hassle to split and doesn’t light as easily. This stuff splits into thin strips for kindling easily. Or leave it in big splits. The bark is smooth and doesn’t hold much of any dirt and whatever dust and mess that seems to accumulate on all my firewood. It splits smoothly with minimal nooks and crannies to catch dirt. Cleanest wood I’ve used. And the splits are fairly smooth with minimal splinters. Just came home 24 hours after last load, stove still good and warm, dug out a nice coal, split up some kindling and had a new fire going in maybe 30 seconds. And when I put some in the wood oven and then close it up before it has fully burned to coals, it makes for the tastiest salmon I’ve ever had. I’ve always been a horses for courses kind of guy with firewood: learn the wood you’ve got and choose the best for the task at hand. But you could fill my stacks with this and nothing else and I’d be just fine.
It def does have a lot of great qualities. I recently split two racks and that is about the lightest colored wood I've ever seen. I have been seeking and stocking up on it lately.
I have a bunch of red maple, suddenly(1-2yrs css) Some of it should be ready for spring SS burning. I have no real experience burning it. I'm guessing splits of it will go in the stove, they'll catch fire, and heat the place up.
I've always liked red maple for firewood, as others have said it's a great "middle-of-the-road" wood, the only real downside is you don't get a long-lasting coal bed. I will say I've been using it since Sunday exclusively (dead limbs from the big red we.took down this past weekend), and it's kept us very cozy, with just enough coals in the AM to get the morning re-start going....
I am rethinking all my burning practices and theory. Mostly due to using a cat stove. I've been reaching for the softwoods more and more for these cold snaps. Like just this morning, its was in the single digits, and the house was starting to cool down already, (after a 2am reload of oak). There was a ton of oak coals left in the stove and it was holding over 300° so i threw on 4 pieces of red maple and set the air at 50%. The house warmed up 5° in 2 hours. This cat stove will ring every BTU out of the wood and will leave you with (oak) coals 12-18 hours later, but when it's cold out, I'm finding the softwoods work out much better. I'll probably need another 4 sticks mid afternoon and I'll be digging past the oak to find the red maple, ash, and poplar. I might even hit up the pine/aspen camping wood pile or run over to the neighbor's and grab some pine from his pile. The cat stove works great on softwoods. Non-cat stoves, maybe not as much.
I don’t have a cat stove but I’m believing more and more that I can easily bake everybody out of the house even on lesser woods. I just reloaded the stove a little while ago with some 18 month old dry spruce and it’s pushing 80 in the house now.
We have a lot of red maple here. And cherry, beech, hickory, oak and locust. Not much ash anymore. My wood yard always has a healthy mix of those woods. So I have my choice of what to burn at any time. All things considered my preference is red maple, cherry and beech. These three are easy to split, fast drying and never fail to keep our home nice and warm.
