It was sarcasm GRIZ. I haven't been on much sinced you signed up, just like to have a bit of fun. Burn on !!
As I've said before if you dry your kindling to start a fire and make the kindling burn hot then why don't you dry your wood....
I'm still amazed by this attitude. So many ways to respond to this. It dawned on me very quickly that the wood I had wasn't burning well our first year here, so I began wondering why. When I saw water/sap sizzling out the ends of my splits, the little light above my head went on. A lot of older stoves had no viewing window, so maybe the water wasn't noticed. In April of the year after we got here, I met a local guy who does firewood and immediately asked him to start delivering wood. It took him until August (might have been late July) to start. That's normal around here. Before he was done bringing the c/s/d stuff, I had already found another guy to bring a log load so I could do my own processing w/o having to rely on someone else who had an archaic attitude about the whole thing. That was also the year I built the pole barn, so I didn't get nearly enough wood put up, but I had it to work on. 1.5 years later, I added another 20 cord log load and had already begun cutting stuff out of our property too. Why am I doing all this when I could just go flip a switch? Must be crazy.
I must be in the minority then. Have been cutting/burning wood for 34 years now & even in my teens knew that to have it burn properly you needed DRY wood.Not just cut 3-6 months either. Even though 30% of the dead I cut year round (small stuff with diameters from 1" to 4-5") is dry enough to burn good immediately - anything bigger like larger branches,lower trunks etc has to be bucked/split/stacked in a good sunny/windy location for 12 to 24 months,depending on wood species/condition. Some woods dry faster and/or have less moisture in them to begin with.With experience & patience that & other info is discovered that helps make burning wood a joy instead of a frustrating hassle that some people unfortunately give up on too early.
Here is what most new wood burners and several old timers really need: http://firewoodhoardersclub.com/forums/index.php?threads/primer-on-wood-burning.724/ Like Thistle, I grew up (a long, long time ago) with wood burning. We not only heated our home but my mother cooked on a wood cook stove. In addition, the only water heater we had was the reservoir on the cook stove. We also kept another large pot on the stove for warm water. But, we burned dry wood. Quite unlike our neighbors who typically went out after the corn got picked and started bucking up the wood for the winter. In my grandfather's day, farmers would typically clean out fence rows or dead trees but usually only small stuff. They'd stack it up into big piles then during the winter, farmers would get together and buzz up the wood piles. A crew of maybe 6 could cut a lot of wood in a day's time. When they finished one, they'd just move to the next neighbor and go to work. But, those who didn't know, didn't care or were ignorant, cut trees and put the wood in the cellar right away. Many never split the wood until it was already in the cellar. I recall one neighbor who had 2 young boys and after the nightly chores, they went to the basement and split enough wood for the night and the next day. But, I can remember more than one home burning down and many who had bad chimney fires. I'm into my 70's and have never experienced a chimney fire in our home but have experienced several in other's homes. As others have stated, there is a lot of bad information around. But one thing I have noticed is that 99% of the people who give the bad information do not burn wood! Yet they think they are knowledgeable. All they know is that people talk and someone throws out some information and they take it as gospel. But even the 1%; they think they know and are quick to tell. No, don't burn dry wood. You'll burn your house down. Same with pine. No need to have them wood piles all over the place; cut it and burn it. "We've always did it this way," is another of my favorites. Why not try a proven way? I do hope some folks have read this thread and have picked up some good information from it.
The link Dennis provided above, A Primer on Woodburning, should be considered gospel. I am currently working on getting it converted and placed in our Resources area. Thanks again for posting that Dennis, and for letting me read an advanced copy way back when!
It's funny there is talk about "people are so stupid" yet even on this forum I have had to correct a few folks on topics in my areas of my expertise and was told more or less I didn't know what I was talking about. I guess don't throw rocks when you live in a glass house! Most people I bring wood to burn it the same year. Truthfully with our woods and normal dryish humidity if it's sat out for 5-6 months in normal sized splits it's usually ok to burn. No it won't be popcorn fart dry, but for most stoves it burns ok. The issue I have is I have to compete against vendors that call their wood seasoned when it's not. The trees got cut last year and sat in log form "seasoning" Many people don't know the difference so it's a selling point. Same with cords of wood... I've had many folks I could have called a pickup truck load 5 cords and they wouldn't have argued. Only been a few that actually were really up to speed on everything. I'm too honest to do deceive anyone. I'd rather loose customers buying "seasoned" wood from someone else than make a bad name for myself.
Good job Nate I have sold a lot of fire wood to and I am the same way. I always tell the truth about what I know about the wood and leave the rest up to them. I was cutting a patch out last winter and had all different kinds of wood dead locus geen oak popular and maple. I hardly made it home with any load and someone was trying to buy it. My stash has to be loaded before I sell. I had 1 man tell me he would take all the green popular and maple I could bring him. Far from my favorite kinds of wood I loaded him down most of the winter. Like most people don't think about wood until late august early sept. I had people callining me late january and febuary wanting a load of dry seasoned wood, This was after several snows and cold winter rains. Huh the only wood I knew like that was in mine or somebodys shed. Im sorry but I can't believe that an adult can not plan ahead better than that. Look at how much less wood thes people would have needed with just a small plan.
I have heard people say they like green wood as it burns longer. But in these new Non-Cat EPA stoves dry wood actually burns longer as you can get the stove into its secondary burn mode quicker and then since the wood is really dry you can set the primary air to a lower setting and still maintain the secondary action when the wood is extra dry. You have to learn to read what kind of load of wood your putting in the stove and watch how it takes off and know when to lower down the input primary air control and how fast to do it. If your wood is not good and dry you will burn up alot of your main wood load just getting temps up in the stove to get your secondary smoke burning action a going. Using kindling that burns hot and fast raises the heat in the stove much quicker and saves the bigger stuff for the longer all night burn you need. So use dryer wood, get the heat up faster and get the stove shut back down sooner to an extra lower level input air setting and you have figured it out.
I knew for years that I needed drier wood, I just always had "something else to do." When I finally found the forums, I got "fired up" and made getting ahead a priority (in no small part due to the pontificating of BWS.) I've got a couple of neighbors I'm helping to get soft Maple, dead wood etc. for this winter. Hopefully they will get fired up like I did and get some stacks built up, because I got my own bidness to take care of. If you live in an Oak/Hickory forest like we do here, you better get a couple years ahead or you' be in the position of having to look for less plentiful woods. "Ya can't teach 'em if they don't wanna learn."
I have heard a statistic that says green wood, once split, racked and kept from rain fall will lose 70% of its moisture in 4-6 months. But I shoot for a year at the absolute minimum, and longer of course when you can get it.
