Yeah I get about 7 hours with lodgepole in my Regency F2400 which I believe has a little bit bigger fire box then your super 27 stove. However, length of burn doesn't necessarily correlate directly to BTU since you could have a short hot fire or a long cool fire depending on the stove draft settings. I've tried observing how different varieties of splits of wood burn side by side on top of a bed of hot coals using Lodgepole, douglas fir, Maple, and walnut. And what I've found is they all seem to burn up at about the same rate. Size of the splits seems to be a bigger factor than wood species. But again, I have no way of determining if one piece is actually throwing off more heat then the other. I think the way they determine BTU of wood species is to dry a specific size of wood block (eg: 12"x 12"x 12") to a predetermined moisture content, then simply weight that block of wood to calculate the BTUs. Errors could occur by incomplete drying of the wood if they measure the MC on the surface of the block of wood and the inside MC is higher giving a higher weight reading leading to a false higher BTU calculation. Or as BogyDave suggests "I think wood varies in areas, growing seasons & conditions must have an effect on BTUs". I believe another factor is size and age of the tree, and what part of the tree they take the wood from. I'm sure that if you take a sample of wood from the base of the trunk of a very large old tree the wood would be a lot denser then a sample of wood taken from the top of a very young tree of the same species.
Yep, the needles are yellow right now and still mostly attached. Course I'm further south than you. Asked dear old mom if she remembers what they were. She said Larch. Good enough for me, they're Larch
Lotsa tamarack here. We got through our first winter, great propane scare of '13, on standing dead stuff that had been dead longer than I have been alive. Near as I can figure, it takes about 5-6 years standing dead to season. Core has little moisture content. The outer couple inches will rot but the rest stays good. If it split easy it is ready; if if dont, it aint. It does burn rather hot, seems to have a few more btus than Norway pine. Pretty well got all the dead ones off my place. I left a few with a hundred yards of the house or so, they have another 10-15 years before they really need to come down. They are the backup plan in case we run short some year. Neighbor across the read has quite a few dead and down and even more standing dead, has some birch too. I have my eye on about a dozen and a half I can get right from the road, just waiting for deer season to end then it's time to fire up the tractor.
That is a larch tree....I've seen larcher ones, though. (Pennsylvania Dutch joke, sorry, couldn't resist!!)
Yeah thats what I was thinking. I was reading your btu chart that you posted a week or so ago and noticed the differences from the chimney sweeps chart that I use. Its interesting that there is such a difference. Aspen having more btus than larch? Around here no one cuts the stuff but larch is worth a mint!
Yeah this could be the case. I guess in the end it doesn't matter to much. I tend to over think this kind of stuff but the only place I wont get laughed at is on a forum with a bunch of wood nuts like me I also believe this to be true as well. It just seems denser doesn't it? Its harder to split and under similar mc is heavier. In the crowsnest pass there is a museum where the town of frank used to stand (now a boulder field as far as the eye can see). Anyways there is a cross cut piece of wood on display from a kind of pine tree that grows very, very slowly in that part of the country. I was thinking that it must have high btus. I was going to look into it more so I took a picture but I cant find it anymore. Next time Im there I will look into it more. I know that when I pick up a split of larch that is nice and dry it feels heavier than a piece of lodgepole pine under similar dryness. I also find dry fir to have a similar weight feel as lodgepole.
Thats interesting. I have often wondered how long the ones Ive been going after have been like that. They were pretty good all the way up but one of the trees had the but of the tree starting to rot on the outer inch or so. I think the round is in the picture of it in my truck. Sometimes I run into this when I drop a tree. Those ones I usually leave as its such a pain stripping off the punky stuff. Thats great! You should post some pictures so I can see them. Nice your neighbour is going to let you have them! I agree it burns hot but not quite as hot as pine.
Larch is my highest BTU wood, followed by Douglas Fir and Lodgepole. The Larch/Tamarack does burn longer than the others, but does indeed crackle a lot. I don't have any to take down right now, so will be burning mostly pines and Douglas fir for a f ew years. Great job, btw. I never imagine it being so dry when cut. Greg
Yeah we burn the same wood. The only difference is that I have a bit of birch in there as well. I would say that larch takes up about 50%-60% of my stacks. It could be more but I'm trying to selectively cut so that my patch doesn't get depleted. Theres lots of room in my burning regime for lodgepole and fir which are both spectacular woods in their own right. I love that crackle sound, its very distinctly larch!
