In the spirit of the NCAA basketball tourney, what are your “Great Eight” wood types to hoard? If a tree magically fell in your yard, what are your top eight choices, ranked? (A giant bracket of 64 wood types seemed onerous. Even a “Sweet 16” felt like too much.) Rules: 1. Rank your Top 8, with #1 being your overall favorite 2. Indicate your region (provides context) 3. Only include wood that is reasonably available in your area. 4. Consider whatever you care about: BTUs, seasoning time, difficulty to process, smokiness and ash residue, and intangibles (smell, how cool it looks stacked, etc.) Here’s mine: Region: Pacific NW 1 Madrone 2 Black locust 3 Oak 4 Cherry 5 Maple (anything but big leaf maple) 6 Plum 7 Birch (white) 8 Douglas fir —local pride! Thank you! (And I hope this is as interesting for you as it is for me.)
1) Beech 2) White Oak 3) Red Oak 4) Hickory 5) new to me, Black Locust 6) White Ash 7) Black Cherry 8) Swamp or Red Maple Massachusetts
1. Whie oak 2. Red oak 3. Ash (This used to be #1 but the bugs have eaten most.) 4. Elm 5. Soft maple. There are more but this is a list of our major trees. Others are just occasional, like cherry, sassafras, ironwood. pine etc.
1. Ash(almost none left in my area) 2. Black Cherry 3. White Oak 4. Red Oak 5. Mulberry 6. Honey locust(only the thornless kind) 7. Black Locust 8. Silver maple(there's a lot of it in my area!). I have a lot of it in my stacks because it's so common. Unfortunately, since I tend to scrounge for most of my wood, I have to take what I can get, which is usually silver maple or some type of conifer. It all burns... Midwest
PNW for me also but with fewer options. In no particular order, I get Douglas fir, big leaf maple, red alder, western hemlock and occasionally paper birch. Birch and maple burn best but really need 2 years of drying for best results. The others are good with one year. Fir is good but needs more air to cruise, so it can be choked out if I get greedy trying to extend the burn. Alder leaves a lot of ash. Otherwise it's clean, easy to split, and very plentiful. Hemlock doesn't do anything great but it burns.
White oak Chestnut oak Red oak Black locust Sugar maple Elm Red maple Black cherry I’m in central Connecticut where there’s a huge variety of native trees, so it was really hard to not only narrow it down to 8 but rank them, especially the top 4. Too many honorable mentions to list as well.
NCAA White Oak Black Oak Southern Red Oak Chestnut Oak Hickory Willow Oak Northern Red Oak Black Cherry NIT Ash Red Maple Elm Sassafras Sourwood Dogwood Am Holly Tulip Poplar Missing 2022 post season invites are Sugar Maple, Mulberry and Black Locust because they are rare acquisitions.
I’d put red oak first because that’s what I get most of. I’d put white ash first but there’s not as much of that around. Red maple would be next because it splits so easy. Then white oak and black locust because they have lots of heat but I don’t come across a lot of it. Finally white pine and cedar for shoulder season and campfires. I know that’s only 7 but I can’t think of other types I’d put on the list that are readily available.
I can’t even come up with eight different types of trees around here without counting planted yard trees in town. Outside of town, in the “Wild” we have Cottonwood Ash Hackberry Elm (mostly in shelter belts and around homesteads and ranches. There’s some Escapees) Cedar ( actually junipers and considered Weeds) Willows of some sort along the river Pines … ponderosa mostly I think. and they are old plantings. Plus in the forest which was originally all hand planted. That’s all I can really think of. Pretty much anything else is something planted at one time or another. I’ve recently found some black locust but it is not native to the Sandhills of Nebraska. Not much is, including me… I was transplanted about 30 years ago.
Some free dogwood rounds popped up on CL today…it’s helpful to see how you’ve ranked it. I haven’t ever come across the stuff. (My little yard is loaded to the gills now so I passed.)
My first trip to Nebraska was almost exactly 30 years ago—I was dating a girl from Fremont and we went to see her family. Man, what you’ll do when you’re young and dumb and in love! Let’s just say it was worth the trip.
Central NC Ranking based primarily on BTUs. Big Dance (all number 1 seeds in my book) White Oak Post Oak Chestnut Oak Hickory Red Oak Green Ash Americnan Beech Water Oak NIT (Not Invited Tournament but will burn when easily available) Black Cherry Bradford Pear Red Maple Hackberry Sweetgum Yellow Poplar American Holly River Birch
Central PA here 1. Standing dead black locust 2. Black Cherry 3. White Oak 4. Hickory 5. Hackberry 6. Ash 7. Red oak 8. Box elder If BL is green it gets knocked down in rankings. Box Elder is the cinderalla of SS NIT Pine Maple Mulberry Sassafrass Beech and Birch would be on first list, but rarely get to process those .
Southern Connecticut here. 1. Black locust. (i have a severe case of locust mania ). I LOVE hunting the stuff down as 75% of my wood is scrounged. Great "shelf life" when down too. 2. Ash. Becoming scarcer by the day, but whats not to love about it? 3. Beech. High btus, and dries three times faster than oak 4. Sugar maple. Same comment as #4. 5. Hickory. Any variety. Scarce scrounge. Enjoy it despite multi year drying time. 6. Black birch. Scarce scrounge (common enough in the state) for me and same comments as #4. 7. Black cherry. Dont get a lot of it, but still enjoy scrounging it. 8. Sassafras. Shoulder season wood, but love to sniff the splits! Scarce scrounge too.
I actually did a video on this topic recently and have a few firewood species videos coming out very soon. Rules: 1. Rank your Top 8, with #1 being your overall favorite #1 Red Oak #2 Black Birch #3 Shagbark Hickory #4 Rock Maple/Sugar Maple #5 White Oak #6 White Ash #7 Yellow Birch #8 Black Cherry 2. Indicate your region (provides context) Central Massachusetts 3. Only include wood that is reasonably available in your area. check 4. Consider whatever you care about: BTUs, seasoning time, difficulty to process, smokiness and ash residue, and intangibles (smell, how cool it looks stacked, etc.) I am going mainly on what's locally available and am putting less emphasis on seasoning time, as I have dozens of full cords on hand and plenty of room to store wood (21 acres) #1 Red Oak--Most readily available to me, super easy to split and stack neatly, grows straight typically with minimal branches, no thorns, lasts a long time in stove, good BTU content, brings back good childhood memories #2 Black Birch--Also extremely common around me, pretty easy splitting, minimal bark (especially if young/smaller), great BTU's, lasts long time in stove, doesn't grow super huge (easier to deal with) #3 Shagbark Hickory--Less common than #1 and #2, but about the best BTU's readily available to me, great coaling and overnight properties, can be stringy, bark tough on chains #4 Rock Maple/Sugar Maple--Great BTU's, pretty easy to process, good heat and coaling #5 White Oak--Less common than the above choices (otherwise I'd rank it higher), very good BTU's, great burn times, can be tougher to split (stringier) than Red Oak #6 White Ash--Seasons quick, splits good, good BTU's, not as available as I'd like #7 Yellow Birch--Not as common to me as Black Birch, but still pretty available, less BTU's than Black Birch, but still quite good, easy to process, minimal bark, and good solid performer in stove #8 Black Cherry--Can grow twisted and split twisted, rots fairly quickly, ok BTU's, ok in stove, bark can make a mess The woods I would have loved to include but don't have readily available: Black Locust Osage Orange/Hedge Mulberry Beech Ironwood Honey Locust
