I’ve never heard of Maple being commercially grown around here so that might be why it’s not so readily available. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
Most of the forests around here have been logged and replanted with conifers more than once, so I suppose maple has become a bit more scarce. I've seen crews out spraying maple stumps in clearcuts so they don't regrow. Still lots of maples around though. I do remember seeing a news story maybe 5-10 years ago about a small private forester in the Skagit Valley starting to grow maples for the furniture and musical instrument market. I had 2 big ones cut down a few years ago and sold a few chunks to a guitar maker.
Red oak, red maple, cherry, ash, black birch, white oak, pignut, walnut, locust. (In that order) Red oak seems to be 80% of my stacks. I only get what falls or is standing dead. The shag barks and beech never die. The tulip poplars are abundant but a lot of work for the BTU's.
I burn the same mix. The other 10% for me is birch. Hemlock is my least favorite. It's drying time and burn quality seems inconsistent. I've had good and bad. The others are all a tie. Maple: longest burning, can take 2 summers to dry, bark is always mossy and flaky leaving a mess. Fir: dries in a summer, straight, can be finicky about how low of an air setting it'll take in my stove while still maintaining secondaries. Alder: clean bark, dries in a summer, very controllable, consistent, & clean burning in the stove, burns longer than its low BTU rating would suggest, leaves the most ash and they'll turn punky quick if not processed and covered. None of them are bad to split in general except for knotty hemlock and fir.
I'd say top three in quantity... water oak, red oak, white oak... and the fourth varies but could be... willow oak, post oak, mulberry, cherry, dogwood, red maple, hickory, hackberry, sugarberry... with the occasional... persimmon, ironwood, black locust, ash, bois d'arc (hedge), elm, sycamore. Wonder what I've missed.
Hoarders on here say it is much easier to split if you do it right. I forget what they said, maybe it is don't split it green, let it sit awhile (year?) and then split. Also, some only deal with dead standing elm, which is supposedly easier to handle. It does burn just fine.
Red oak, red & sugar maple, ash are the most common with ash declining due to EAB. The best is black locust, but very few "average burners" know of this.
Now locust is an interesting tree, especially honey locust. My neighbor has a lot of black locust on his lot, which he told me to cut all I can. Honey locust has also invaded. Honey locust has huge thorns, that can flatten truck tires, and the branches intertwine with each other, which you have to be careful with as they will sling at you as your de-limbing. No matter how careful you are, they eventually get ya, puncturing hats or gloves, even get caught into the soles of your boots. It's a downright intimidating tree! And when you cut one down they sprout 10 times from around the cut, I use Tordon to keep them from coming back. The wood is some of the best to burn. But powder post beetles love it as much as they do hickory. The pic with the powder post sawdust is hickory that was cut and stacked last year. They make quite the mess, but I figure they're helping it season faster. The pic of the honey locust is on my property, it has impressive thorns about 12 inches long.
My stacks are right now probably 60% Ash, 20 silver maple, and the rest a mix of Black Locust, Oak, and Pine. Two summers ago Ash availability went through the roof, EAB having its effect in the area. Since then ~90% of what I find is Ash - which is fine by me; I’ll miss it when it’s gone.
Letting it sit is what I've done before with cottonwood that is stubborn. I'll keep frozen in mind if I end up with more of it or Elm.
Most of the Ash trees around here are in town, yard trees. I do not have any ash trees on my property.
The majority of my stacks is a tie between locust and oak (white, red, chestnut, pin, and black). Coming in at second is a tie between ash, hard maple, and hickory.... The rest is a mix of apple, soft maple, walnut and a handful of elm. I've got around 42 full cord......
As far as i know there are no wild HL around here. Only planted as a thornless ornamental yard tree and the cord plus i have on hand was scrounged from such. Nice and dense stuff. If i saw a wild HL that looked like that, id run in the other direction! I know MAF143 loves HL.
