I have been burning a bit of shagbark lately and I have noticed it creates a lot of ash but it coals well making for an easy restart.
And I have an uncommon (for me) problem that I could use some help with! Due to such cold, I've switched from my normal 95% softwood to burning 95% hardwood, and have a stove that is filling with nice hot coals, but leaving little room to burn splits above. Is that normal for you hardwood pro's? I'm by no means a hardwood pro but, that is a typical problem that I have as well. With my stove I try to rake the coals forward and continue to load.
Buzz Benton try throwing some really dry non coaling wood on top to burn down the coals.. Pine Popular willow all work great for this
I’ve been burning a ton of Ash and Elm lately, since it’s been so cold. I just mix in some soft woods with it every other time that I load the box. Seems to keep the coals in check. I certainly recognize the Doug Fir and Ash in your pic. Never heard of Madrone though. Crazy looking stuff!
Nice view cash! Just what direction is that bluff from your porch? I want to plan just where to have my morning coffee at sunrise, you understand!
Madrone is our best local firewood, and reportedly has more BTU's than even Osage Orange, at 30.9 million BTU's per cord. 6500 pounds per cord, wet. In southern Oregon there are places it dominates the entire hillside, but more often grows amid the conifers, and yeah, it's a crazy looking stuff, with the wood being bright pink drying to a tawny applewood color. Strike two pieces together they clink kinda like wine bottles when very dry. Makes a LOT of coals though.
Ha! I totally understand! And you are more than welcome to come have coffee here! That bluff is directly West of me. I hike up the backside of it once in a while. Nice little day hike.
Not for me. I load once the coals are reduced. But if I am burning almost wide open I can end up with a problem with a massive bed of coals. But my EPA rated stove is huge at 3.5cuft so I can always stuff some wood in.
10 here at 8:25. Should be close to the low. Just loaded the E100 Wood Gun with a mix of Hardwood. I’m beat and already down for the night. Time for some net surfing and then an eight hour eyes shut lay down. You hoarders have a good evening.
Try & rake your coals around & fir a couple of softwood splits in there, the coals will burn down. I get this occasionally with Osage but Silver Maple, Lindenwood & Ponderosa work great to burn them down.
Buzz Benton yeah, I burn mostly hardwood, but I gather all the pine I can too. When I burn all hardwood, with no softwood to burn the coals down or a stretch of not so cold weather to simply let the stove simmer away and just radiate enough heat without having to start a fire, I will get a boatload of coals. So much that I can only put 1 row of wood splits, and only smaller ones in the stove. I try to have pine or less coaling wood around to burn the coals down, but I'm always finding myself in a situation of a stove full of coals and barely room to reload. 26° out, 77° in . Ash, sugar maple, and elm in the stove. It's snowing out. Supposed to get 4-6" tonight, I'll see if I can get up early enough to snowblow. It's supposed to stop by 6am. I am typically up at 7 with my short commute. We'll see if the lake effect does what they say it will. Anything north of 4" will be the highest amount of snow we've received anywhere around here this winter.
It's +25°F ambient temperature Breeze 5-10 mph Was hot in the house. Still very warm . Did not add any wood before bed. Feels very odd it being this warm ! High today at the homestead was 32° .
15/73 hard maple Snowing quite hard. This will be the 3rd Friday in a row of no Beerrun due to weather. Fortunately I topped off the hoard last Sunday.
32 here this morning everything coated with a layer of Ice warm in the shop new dog happy and wife toasty warm and comfy all that matters
11 with light snow started. Just put some Pine and Spruce in the Wood Gun. They are still saying 6+ inches. I’m hoping we only get a few.