Which "trash tree" is your guilty pleasure for firewood?

I'm told it does stick around. No personal experience with it myself, so.....

 

Oh ok I only wondered if you did.

 

I bring home 2 by 4s from work that would get thrown away and I use the chop saw to cut them down to about 10 inches. Then I run them thru my electric splitter and make a few buckets of kindling.

 

There ya go. Im in the same boat myself. Sometimes its the fir stickers in lumber. These long sticks are about 2 inches wide more than 3 feet long and 1/4 inch thick,then theres the 2x4's the 2x6's and then these great poplar boards 1/2 thick by 3 wide 8-10inches Long. I could go on forever about this but my kindling supply ever since I found this lumber place 2 mins from my home has skyrocketed. I was hurting for kindling since it was hard to split my starter wood moving into my house(way too wet not prepared). Up that creek without a paddle so I just continue to collect and keep inside. Just like the philosophy "keep your powder dry".

 

Silver maple for me, too. Its everywhere around here, and throws a decent heat.

 

I'd have to say White Pine, it's everywhere here, when folks cut them down and don't use them for lumber, they just let them rot most times. Nobody stops and picks any up, so folks can't give it away. I burn a couple or three cords a year up to camp in the fire pit. I have recently been using it in the stove for shoulder season. The traditional use of White Pine up this way was in the sugar shack, in slab form.

 

What I read had nothing to do with burning.

 

Safrole, the offending chemical is of which was responsible for some changes in rats and mice. So
They did ban it in the 60's. Unless we eat sassafras wood, the dangers seem low. Even basil has safrole in it at minute amounts. Now I got some hankering to make some pesto!

 

The trees I call poplar are also called quaking/trembling aspen.

 

Guilty pleasure not really the right term. There's good wood and junk wood. Good wood is what burns hot, makes coals and dries easily. Junk wood doesn't have some or all of those attributes. I have a lot of junk that still manages to make it into the firewood shed every year, just because it's what I have. I think my favorite two woods that meet the "junk" description are red pine and balsam fir. I have a stand of red pines that were planted in the 1950's or 60's that are slowly dying out due to overstory shade. Every year I cut two or three of them for the wood pile. Balsams come from a stand of 40-year-old trees that were originally planted as Christmas trees and got too big to use. They're harvested one or two a year as well.

What I consider junk wood, but regularly put in my wood shed, includes the above two plus poplar, white pine, butternut, box elder and basswood. Silver maple is good wood by my definition because it cuts and splits easily, dries quickly and has good heat value. The only species I will never burn (that I can actually get my hands on if I wanted to) would be willow. It's just not worth the effort. I wouldn't bother with ailanthus either but it's not around here.

 

I use the term guilty pleasure in the sense of what do you like to burn, not what do you have to burn.

I never have to touch a single junk tree...low BTU and burn times...but I do actually like cutting down and burning box elder and there is plenty of them. On the other hand, I don't like cutting down good trees...I'd rather wait until they fall over or get damaged and there's always a decent amount that do on my place. There is no shortage of hickory, sugar maple, black walnut, honey locust, black locust, ash, hackberry, oak, beech, etc but I'd rather keep them around.

Other junk trees I'm not crazy about using are cottonwood, not many anyway, and sweet gum, plenty but hate processing them. I actually like sassafras so I'd rather let them grow and multiply, plus I don't have many. I'm not even going to use the tree of heaven aka sumac...I'm killing them off.

 

In that case, black cherry because it harbors black knot which makes it almost impossible to have plum trees here.

 

That stuff looks like poop on a branch!

 

I have to put another on this list. "Guilty pleasure" you put it in a positive spin so I have to put down Red or any kind of Cedar here. The smell is one particular aspect that I enjoy when splitting.
Hard to turn that down.

Its also extremely easy to split, best when dried out a bit and then you can make it into kindling sized bits. If I find boards of it while scrounging, its really nice when they are cut with the grain not against it making it just a hatchet job.

I found cedar shingles when I bought my house in a box new. Imagine my excitement when I split some into 1/8-1/4 inch thick sticks. Nice to do in my garage shop and fill a fruit box.
Mainly because it grows a lot around here many bring it down because roots are shallow, become top heavy and risk for blowdown. I find a lot of homeowners just get rid of this as quickly as they wanted it down. Burns really fast with good aroma!

 

There isn't really a trash tree when you get down to it. It'll all heat your home when all is said and done. Some of y'all are just TOO snobbish about your firewood.

But in order to play the game and be a participating forum member; I'll say BOX ELDER, because I burn a lot of it.

 

Snob? Sir I have burned, set fire, split, stacked, smelled my wood and taken it intravenously but I'ved never Snobbed.

 

So now the FDA is saying root beer flavoring is cancer causing? What next, Santa Claus?

 

Flavor or burning?
There's a difference.

 

Read back a few posts. They specifically were not talking about burning.
FatBoy85 said "Safrole, the offending chemical is of which was responsible for some changes in rats and mice. So
They did ban it in the 60's. Unless we eat sassafras wood, the dangers seem low. Even basil has safrole in it at minute amounts. Now I got some hankering to make some pesto! "

 

Santa flavor. Understood!