Hello All! New here and new to the wood burning game. Moved into our house 2 1/2 years ago and it has a Lopi insert. Decided this winter to start supplementing the heat a little, mostly over the weekends so far. We have 3 acres (not wooded but many trees) and I had built up a small wood pile of stuff that had come down. Keeping it for outdoor fires (oak and maple). I'm also a woodworker so I already had a MM to test the pieces. So I know everything is dry, we are all good there. Then this fall we had a massive maple come down, 38" - 40" across. That is when I really got the wood chopping/splitting bug. Went out and got myself a 40 ton splitter. Now that's all I think about is finding more wood to split. Planning on building a large wood "shed" this spring. So I need more wood. My problem is I don't know my wood types at all. I look on FB and see free wood (I'm not paying for wood...I tell my wife I'm not cheap...I'm frugal!) but I have no idea what species it is. Any suggestions on how to go about it? Just split it, dry it, and go with it? Be selective and only get it when you know what it is? Just burn it as long as it isn't SPF? Looking for advise. Mark
Welcome to the club. You are probably going to get different opinions on what wood to hunt for, but IMO free wood is the starting point. It is a bonus if I can get free ash, oak, hickory, or maple. I even take box elder, but I pass up a lot of it. I would try to make a goal of having wood split & stacked two years in advance of use. At the beginning of the heating season I end up having wood in three separate stages of drying....ready to burn ( two years dried), one year dried, and in-progress cutting & stacking.
Welcome to FHC! Seeing that you are in Southern Minnesota, you'll have a lot of the same trees we have here in Wisconsin. To learn what kind of trees are which, that takes time. Look at the leaves, the bark and you'll start getting the identification right. Take a look at the BTU charts and you'll collect based on that, as well as his long easy tree type takes to dry. Right now you'll want to get ahead, find as much quicker drying wood as possible. Pines, box elder, soft maples like silver, and red will dry in a summer, vs sugar maple that usually takes 2 summers. Oaks need 2-3 years to dry after being split and stacked and stored properly, honey locust really needs 3 years to dry, but back locust takes 1. If you can find dead standing barkless elm, that will be ready to burn right away, except the bottom 8-10 feet or so. You have a MM, so that's huge. Use it.
Once you have the bug, you have it for life! Free wood is hard to pass up so I suppose it is a matter of figuring out if it is worth your time. Once you get to know the tree types in your area you can get a better idea if they are worth your time. There are some woods with really low BTU, not much for coals, lots of ash, etc that can make them not worth the effort (in my opinion). If you burn softwoods make sure they are well dried and let them burn hot, they are fine to burn like this. If you burn them wet or smoldering they tend to buildup creosote on you quickly. Hardwoods will as well when wet but less than softwoods. If you are curious on BTU of different trees I have made some tables here: Firewood BTU Ratings (Beta) – Bois à Feu du Nord If you select "Show All Entries" and click on BTU/Cord it will sort them for you. Welcome to FHC!
These books are great for learning. Appearances of bark can vary by locality. Some years ago I wanted to learn about trees and ended up attending an Identification class put on by local offices. I ended up going to two more because I enjoyed them.
Welcome to FHC! The only NC trees I avoid are Sweetgum, Blackgum and Sycamore. Everything else I will take. I’m burning Poplar atm and wondering why it’s frowned upon. It lights up instantly and puts out decent heat. The only downside is that it burns quickly. Great for starting a fire when you get home from work or first thing in the morning. I was born in Minneapolis but only remember the Norway Maples in the front yard and Am Elms along the street. Everything outside the cities seemed to be endless prairie, unless you crossed the river into Wisconsin. Good luck with your wood searching adventures. PS We no longer have a merch store and never will again
MHL68 Welcome to the site. Where abouts are you in MN? I am just a bit north of La Crosse. We love pics, especially your wood stove, chain saws, wood stacks and any other equipment you use. Pet pics are also appreciated.
Welcome to the nuthouse You said you have a mm...but using it for woodworking may be slightly different than for firewood...just to be sure, did you resplit the wood, then test it on the freshly exposed faces, in the middle? Also, as a new firewood hoarder, I'd take just about any species, they all have a place and purpose in your inventory...the only ones that don't are possibly species of low BTU value, and hard to split. (stringy generally) Some people are wood snobs and only want oak (for example) and while oak is great firewood, it also holds coals well, but if it gets really cold and you start pushing your stove for more heat, that high coaling oak turns into a PITA! That's when you need some lower BTU wood to throw in and make some heat while the oak coals burn down...pine works well because it doesn't coal up much, so it will not add to the problem. Truth be told, if it's really cold out and you are home to feed the stove more often, you can get a lil more heat from pine than oak, assuming they are both of the same moisture range. Softwoods actually have a bit more BTUs per dry lb than hardwoods do...but being less dense than hardwood, it takes up more space, so less BTUs can be loaded in the stove at one time, hence why I said if you are home to reload the stove more often. Species identification will come with time...if you come across one that is a major pain to split, you'll probably learn what it is and remember it next time, at that point it's up to you if it's worth the trouble or not. Some here don't like elm, due to a tendency for poor splitting characteristics, but I think it's great firewood, and done correctly, not usually that bad to split. But any given species can vary tree to tree...trees that are grown out in the open tend to be more gnarly splitting, dense woods trees tend to be straight and split nice. Limb wood is denser wood than trunk wood, and crotches, while a pain to split up into firewood sized pieces sometimes, can be the highest BTU parts of a given tree. I suppose that is enough rambling for now...so again, welcome aboard.
Poplar. Yeah it doesn't burn for a long time, but I have few complaints about it. It's heavy when fresh cut. There's a guy with a bunch of poplar and a few trunks of ash that he has for free locally here all in a nice stack of trunks. I'm tempted to contact him and hoard that.
Welcome mhl! Everyone here is smiling at your post cause we all know the the feeling of being bitten and having to cut wood. Tree ID can take a bit of time. I did a quick google search and found this, it should help since it's Minnesota... Tree Identification | The UFOR Nursery & Lab Leaves, bark, growth habit/form, and particularly buds can be used to ID. Folks here have already given you good info and will continue to. You can post pics of trees/wood on here for people help ID. Since you're starting out, anything burns better than a snowball, if it's dry enough to safely burn. Not knowing how much wood you have access to, you may have to take what you can get, till you have enough stock built up to be picky.
Welcome Mark! Some of on here use a smartphone app called PictureThis. It does very well with leaf pics and just so so on bark ones. Not sure if you still can, but after downloading when you open it, press the cancel at the top right. Allows me to use basic functions w/o paying.
Welcome to the club. Lots of great folks here sharing knowledge and humor. Some on here......are enablers, we...err...they like to help you your $$... I like the app The Wood Wolverine posted. Works pretty good. Yes are necessary...lol... This is a great family here.
As you can see, good group here, and already given advice and ideas. I use an app called LENS on my android phone, it is pretty good at identifying stuff but I honestly have not tried it on tree ID. My 2 cents is there are 3 rules of heating with firewood: 1. Burn dry wood 2. Burn dry wood 3. Follow rules 1 and 2 Welcome to FHC
Welcome to the nuthouse of hoarders! Solid advice so far. Contact local tree services and let them know you are looking for wood. Most are looking for people to take the wood. Some will be a pain to work with and some won’t. Some cut wood into random lengths that are hard to work with and some have log length. I prefer log length. I picked up an older bobcat and built some forks for it. It’s real handy and has changed how we do things. We can take a couple of trailers and fill them with logs on our own schedule and not have to worry about some idiot trying to load us or if whey are available. I have showed up for wood and had it turn into a BIG mess real quick. One tree guy tore the side of my bed off! Needless to say, I don’t go there anymore. Get what you can to get going, then worry about quality. We were burning willow, basswood, and boxelder for a few years because it was all we could find. Now we have access to more wood than you can shake a stick at. It takes practice. I have a pile available right now that is easily 100 cord of logs! Hard to move that much.
Welcome to the forum! When I first was getting my hoard started, I would process the good, bad and ugly. Now since Im even or ahead in the game, Im more selective. But still won't pass up lower BTU wood. Keep hoarding and burn dry wood.
Welcome to the FHC Nice to have you join us. Plenty of great folks willing to help. Yes it sounds like you've got the wood bug. Something many of us here can relate to for sure. Since you're starting out and have a somewhat limited source for wood, I'd take what I can find for free as i'm frugal (not cheap) like you. Our very own Backwoods Savage said it best that the best firewood is dry firewood. Something I tell my customers all the time. We prefer the word dry to seasoned. A moisture meter is a great tool, but be sure to check the INTERNAL moisture content. Split a piece in half and jab. Underseasoned wood will almost always read under 20%MC when checked on the outside. Under 20% moisture content is considered seasoned in most areas. At FHC we endorse the three year plan. Basically a three year supply of wood on hand so the wood you burn will be dried 36 months. Certain species take multiple years to dry so if mixed in the stack they will be ready to burn after three years. There's a good reference chart in the FHC resources section on wood species and drying times. Lots of FHCers sort wood by BTU rating. Lower BTU wood gets burned in the cool weather (shoulder season) and the highest when its the coldest. Once you accumulate a decent amount you can get fussier about what wood you take. Experience will be a good teacher. Of course we're always here to help and answer questions. A wealth of knowledge here. Good luck on your journey and be sure to post lots of pics and threads.
