I'm into year 3 of burning the the hardwood left behind when I had my lot cleared in 2018. It has always been my experience that oak (both red and white) tend to coal a lot more and leave a bigger bed in the morning than softer species. However, now that my wood supply is pushing 4 years dead I'm getting drastically opposite results. Along with other species mixed in, the majority of what I had was red maple and paper birch. After spending it's final 6 months or so in the basement, it will test out at 7-8% MC. This stuff is almost match light dry. It will put on a great show during its quick initial off gassing but then coals and takes a long time to finish its burn. The small amount of oak I have gets rolling almost as quick but when I get up in the morning, there is a much more manageable coal load. Generally, if I've burned red maple and paper birch overnight, I'll have to rake the coals forward in the AM and let them continue to burn down for an hour before I can reload. If oak, I can reload as soon as I wake up. I'm not sure if this the nature of my wood furnace or just the fact that I've never had 4 year old oak to burn before... I remember reading the thread here a year or so ago where the title asked, what's the big deal about oak. Most members seemed to agree with the OP that oak coaled a lot more than other species. Any thoughts on why I've stumbled across a unicorn setup that has the opposite results? I have a half season of 2018 wood left for next fall. Then I get into wood I've been processing since moving in. Unless there is a blow down or a tree in the way of a trail I'm making, there won't be any more red maple/paper birch/cherry in my stacks. I have plenty of red and white oak/black birch/beech/yellow birch ready when I am. I'm thinking the amount of wood I need per season will go down a bit when I go from mostly softer species to mostly harder. I'm between 6 and 7 cords now and would like to top out at 6 which is exactly what my shed holds without going to high...
I burn alot of red oak. I've burned some 4+ yrs CSS. I've not noticed any change with it coaling any different. I have a nice bed of coals in the morning. I do have some red maple seasoned 3yrs. it doesn't seem to "flame on" when I put a split on a bed of coals, like oak does. It does burn, just not a vigorously as oak. And, it definitely doesn't coal much. As such, I burn the red maple when I'm home, during the day.
So, in comparison, you have a typical experience and I have the opposite Mike. I much prefer the oak's coaling characteristics in my setup than red maple/paper birch.
I've burned a lot of red oak, and lately lots of chestnut oak. One score was the base of a dead, hollowed out red. This was the only time I've experienced an unpleasant smell from it, and it's the only time the coals didn't last as long as normal. MC is typically 15-22% when I burn. When I load up it's usually around 11p and sometimes we don't check the fire till 8-9a and there will be a large coal bed left. Then we can slide the draft wide open and raise living space temps a couple degree's before reload is necessary.
My typical overnight burn is around 8-9 hours. Load up around 8:30-9 and refill when my bride gets up for work at 5 or so. Sometime between 2-3am there is generally a call for heat from one of my thermostats that will keep the intake damper open for the rest of the burn. This leaves me with a nice pile of red coals in the back of the firebox that needs broken up and spread for a reload. If it's oak, that pile opens up to a perfect bed. If it's red maple or white birch, it needs raked forward for a bit more burn down as I don't like loading on too large a bed of coals as it will continue to grow that way.
I learned that I can choke down the air on an overnight burn of oak no problem, and wake up to not only good coals, but a more complete burn. If I try the same with black birch or red maple, it’ll be hot and smoldering with large pile of charred chunks the next morning. Then I have to switch to spruce or pine to burn the pile down. The only way to get around this is to get up in the middle of the night and open the air up all the way when it’s in the coaling stage. Of course when I do that, there’s very little coals to wake up to. So I stopped trying to get an overnight burn with red maple and black birch. I’ve relegated oak to long unattended burns, and birch and maple for when I’m around to adjust the air/reload as needed. In trying to get a compromise, I run mixed loads 75% of the time.
My oak experience is extremely limited, but my observation seems that operating my stove in the same manner with each, standing dead elm leaves a much bigger bed of coals. Sounds contrary to everything I hear from you guys I know, but… Maybe someday I will stumble upon another decent oak score and be able to get a better feel for it.
