I have a bunch of Poplar splits, so I have been burning Poplar. My typical M-F routine is up at 4am, turn the coffee on, go downstairs and fill the stove. This morning I filled it with Poplar splits, opened up the air, walked away, drank some coffee and went to work. I got home around 3 and went to the basement to check the stove. I opened it up, stirred the ash a bit and to my surprise there were some nice chunky coals, so I tossed on more Poplar and walked away. I have said it before, but it gives adequate heat, especially at this time of year. What’s not to like about it? It makes nice uniform splits, lights up quickly, makes heat, has coals after 10hrs of not being choked. It got me to wondering how it got a bad rep as firewood. People that buy wood from me say NO Poplar, or Pine. Obviously their opinions are based on real experience. It is a valued timber just like pine. Could it have originated as a timber industry smear campaign to preserve a resource, or just folks trying to burn green poplar and pine? I was able to sell some poplar to a fire pit customer last Saturday. I’ll be disappointed when I’m out of Poplar to get a quick fire going.
I don't have any poplar now, but in the past I have found that when nothing else will get a fire going good, poplar will get it going. I wish I had some.
Dries fast. I mix a couple splits in bundles with denser woods when I have them in quantity. Current bundles are a mix of sugar maple and TP. Ive heard FHC echo your sentiments on its heating value. jo191145 heated one year with mostly TP. Burners are accustomed to the high BTU woods and their reputation. Word got around about TP and it got a bad rap just like pine and how it causes chimney fires. Just a guess on my part.
I like tulip poplar and never have turned my nose up to it. Nice SS wood. Mixing it with cherry late SS seems to be a winner. Dont have any in my stacks at the moment.
I have poplar racked up to start the winter out, and hopefully some left to finish the spring out with then too. I have no idea why people bellyache about pine n poplar so much...it works great for me! I suspect that it may not last as long in an old school "fire in a steel box" type of stove...seems ok in all the modern stuff I've tried though.
IDK. Both work fine in my "old back box". Sassafras is in the same boat, imo. Well.... my one experience with sas was worse. Maybe it wasn't dry.
No disdain towards poplar here. I’d love to have some right about now. Once hoarded about 6 cords of it for my parents. They blew through it pretty quickly. Didn’t like that part of it. Scored some poplar
I've burned quite a bit of poplar (aspen/white poplar I believe is what we have here) and it's okay for what it is. It gives up the goods really easy, so a quick char and throttle back on the air quickly keeps it from blowing all the heat up the chimney. My little stove would burn blue flames from the secondaries, looking like it was burning propane! I think years back I surmised that poplar in colder areas is perhaps "more dense" to a degree, and has a little more jam. Who knows? I also find that green poplar split and dried is much better than anything standing dead or fallen.
Same experience here. I have some that I cut in May 2024 that I’ll finally be burning this winter. 2 summers of drying is good.
I like tulip poplar. It’s the first shoulder wood I actually sought out on purpose 5+ years ago. I like mixing it with other longer burning species unless I’m having a fast, short-lived fire on purpose, then it’s great by itself. For actual populus genus trees I have nothing bad to say about bigtooth aspen, quaking aspen, or cottonwood.
I like it. Good shoulder season wood I wouldn't turn down. Especially since can get some long straight logs to cut.
I’ve got several cords of poplar/aspen for shoulder season wood. Our wood rack is full of it at the moment for evening fires. Mostly from cleaning up storm damage as they tend to break easily, and grow like weeds here. I’d rather have better values trees growing on the property, so they are always on the hit list when I’m cutting. I’ve got a lifetime supply.
There is a world of difference between tulip poplar and aspen type poplar. I have never had a problem with sassafras. Of course not as much heat from it vs oaks and maples but still some good wood. I also have used many sassafras for fence post.
Get and burn a fair amount of cut off end blocks of tulip poplar from the pallet mill. They do dry quickly and put out good heat, I mainly mix with oak blocks.
I survived on tulip poplar and softer stuff one year, way back when I was starting out and pretty much burning whatever I could get my hands on. It burns great but just doesn't coal up snd last. Perfect, imo, for the shoulder seasons when it's just a "chiller killer" fire that you're after. Same with spruce. My issue now is that I'm so stocked up with premium stuff I don't keep much of the softer stuff around, other than for the maple syrup evaporator or for kindling wood.
Yes, you should check the pallet mills out. there are a lot of them around here, they typically sell cutoffs for $10-25 a pickup load depending on what you get. I get an average of maybe 10 loads a year of mostly board ends ($10) and some blocks to supplement my regular firewood supply, and for Christmas gifts for family. Stacked in ranks and top covered, boards dry in 6 months or less, I let blocks dry for at least a year unless they are smaller and or quick drying species like cherry, red maple or poplar.
I've gotten nice loads (I'm talking a 12' dump trailer completely overflowing) from a fairly local pallet plant before for 15 bucks.....for the whole load! They were smaller pieces though, that had to be dealt with using a scoop shovel. Was kind of a pain to season but still usable and burned nice. Cherry, maple, poplar, and oak mixed.
Like other less dense woods, it's less worth my effort based on density. 'Light' wood takes the same amount of effort to make as 'heavy' wood does, so I tend to forgo the poplar. I have processed and burned it when I couldn't give it away, previously. I don't have many of them in my woods. I think Aspens are growing where the poplar would be. Even Poplar > Aspen for me.
