For the smell? I find lots of wood smoke smells appealing. Apple, Birch and cherry to name a couple. Birch really does get the job done. Not gonna post much on the burns inside but I burn a lot of doug fir here. So that stuff is often in the pit but its often such a mix, no special preferences. Maybe later in the inside burning I'll know better.
Favorite wood here is free.... But I would have to agree on most with the black locust. Have alot in certain areas but haven't had any in a while. Right now I have white and red oak seasoning for 2 years from now, and a good score of ash, maple and cherry for this year. Wood bin in basement is filled with a mix of oak, maple and pine.
Ash- I have plenty of it and it splits easily. I don't agree that you can burn it sooner. It seems to be a drier wood when cut but it needs 2 years of drying time to burn properly. I like 12" diameter trees, easier to handle and you can just split the rounds once.
Qualities - Availability, splitability, and BTU'S Oak wins hands down for me. Sent from my SM-T280 using Tapatalk
My favorite is white oak. Of course shag bark is good but I seldom have any dead ones but I'll be cutting some tops this fall. Spig nut hickory is pretty good and I'll be putting a lot of it in stacks this year. I'm not a big fan of ash and cherry to me it burns too fast and the logs turn into big chunks of coals. I burn a lot of red oak and like it but it's not as good as white oak. I burned a little poplar last year for the 1st time in my shop stove to keep the day fire going and save hardwoods for overnight but i'm in better shape this year and the only reason I would burn it again is if I want a cooler fire. I do have a large white pine that fell close to the yard, planted it as a 3 or 4 inch sprig in the early 80's and it was near 70' tall. It's limbed and bucked so I may split and burn it in the stove just to get rid of it if it's not rotten.
You're lucky because there isn't a living ash tree in at least 8 Northetn Kentucky counties around me. The only exception to that is a few blue ash, including 2 on my property, are still alive. The blue ash, for some reason, is more resistant to the EAB. We traveled by bicycle from Rabbit Hash, Kentucky to Huntington, WV in late July and the EAB kill was quite noticeable in the entire length of the 225 mile trip. What part of the Bluegrass do you call home?
Hackberry is good burning wood, a bit better than green ash but not quit as hot as white ash. But once it's cut or fallen down you need to get it off the ground quickly because it rots fast. Once split and off the ground it's good for hundreds of years.
Certainly not my favorite but i burned at least a cord of poplar last year in the early shoulder season. It was left in the log yard after the neighbor had his property select cut. Easy to get , easy to process, dried in 9 months just laying in a pile, good fast heat and burned clean. My IS burns very efficiently and slow so it lasted better than i thought it would.
I'm digging the Mulberry...man that stuff burns hot, is easy to split, and is all over the place around here. The BTU charts put it neck and neck with Black Locust, so no wonder I accidentally got the house up to 79 degrees this morning
I have to say oak, any kind, followed by birch and maple. Oak and maple because they are readily available, split well, are relatively rot-resistant, and smell nice when burned. Birch is a special wood for it's fire-starting value.
Ash has always been one of my favorites along with all sorts of oak. Elm, believe it or not is quite high on my list too as is soft maple.
I agree with Elm. More and more I'm enjoying finding these on my place. There's some pretty impressive size Elm here with most of what I come across being 10"-12" dbh. 75% or more of what I find is red (slippery) and rock elm. I actually stumbled across a fallen rock elm yesterday while I was checking out the Osage Orange. Probably 8" dbh, just randomly fell over at the base of where the hill starts raking upward sharply towards the top of the final terrace. I'm looking forward to snagging it in a few months.
What he said. In my opinion Hackberry is the most underrated firewood. You never really hear much about them, they're often overlooked, and many people consider them a nuisance. I welcome them, unless they're growing all up on something I like better. They're big, they're plentiful, they're clean, and there's no bugs killing them off.
