In your opinion what types of wood are shoulder season wood? In your opinion at what outside temperature does it cease to be shoulder season and time to break out the good stuff?
For me it's pine or my softer hardwoods.(soft maple, yellow poplar, catalpa, basswood, box elder etc). No exact time in switching but probably when high temps are in the low 30's. I start mixing in oak, ash etc.
Shoulder season wood for us is Hemlock & Pine, Mother Nature puts it down an we burn it. If we can keep the house a certain temperature, we'll keep on burning shoulder season wood until it gets cold enough out, not sure what the outside temp gets down to before we change.
Pine, poplar, cedar, sycamore, and some maple are the shoulder season wood that I have. I also burn chunks and uglies during this time. As for when I switch over, it's usually when I run out of shoulder season wood! Or, it's when I need to keep a fire going all day instead of just in the evening and morning.
It's Pine, Spruce, Poplar, maybe Red Maple. Like zap, when we can't keep temp we want, we go to the denser stuff, which is Oak. No real good idea what the outside temp is when all this happens, but if I had to guess, I'd say maybe 20- 25 degs. Dunno.
For me it is more a question of what wood do I want to save for the really cold nights? Oak, locust, hickory, and Sugar Maple all are saved for cold nights when I want a long hot fire. Everything else is fair game for shoulder season, which lately means Red Maple, White Ash, Scots Pine, and Black Cherry are shoulder season woods.
60% of my heating season is shoulder season might be considered more from some folks northward. It's a good time to test some of your hardwood that you consider iffy when you're starting out, how much seasoned softwood to get marginal hardwood burning. It gives you a true sense of what seasoned hardwood is all about a few years into the plan. Mainstays for me in SS are beetle killed pine(no shortage on my property), Tulip poplar, soft maple, and dead Cedar to get the stove going. A split or three of oak or hickory on a bedtime load if its going into the upper 20's
The wood on the end of the stack. I burn whatever I come to as I go down the row. I mix species in the stacks (mostly black cherry, american elm, red oak, white oak); did add some new variety this year. If it is in my stacks, it is all good stuff. If I had BL or Hedge, I might try a full load to see if it is all that much better than my normal mix.
I wish I had shoulder season wood to burn. My SS is all the shorts and uglies. Lodge pole pine so plentiful. Had a oak skid show up at work. That is a dream come true. Have a small stash of oak pallets and skids. Dream of all nite burn.
Well, if that's all ya got lukem ..... We have some maple(silver), walnut, cherry, stinky elm, quaking aspen(maybe)/black cottonwood(not native but planted by some crazy tree lady), punked pecan, gas logs, and a little red gum for the cooler months. The Hedge ain't ready yet, and neither is the hickory, pin, white, or red oak.... So for the cooold times, it'll have to be BL.
I have a mix of maple, black locust and ash, so whatever is next on the rack is what I grab..I usually save the black locust for chilly winter nights
If it aint that cold out and I want a far I just don't load the stove so full with whatever I got at hand for wood. I figure I got enough to worry bout in just day to day livin let alone fussin over a piece of a dead tree.
I've burned about every kind of wood east of the Mississippi and a full load of hedge does not compare.
Currently its poplar, maple, and maybe some oak. Once our temps get consistantly low enough, all oak.
It's not so much what species here, it's more what diameter. Were curently workin on a 60 acre development project where it's clear cutting. Woods all free but per the land owners "rules" 1 inch diameter and up is taking out. The small stuff dries and I don't have to split kindling. Smaller stuff goes in this time of year, then the bigger stuff as ol man winter bares down. All chery, soft and sugar maple, yellow birch, popple, and random elm. The fires get more intense as the windshield scrapping gets more time consuming
