I typically rake in the bark after splitting and burn it in my fire pit. But I collect the thick Douglas fir bark to burn in my wood stoves. It burns hot, clean and for a LONG time. I collected this Doug Fir bark yesterday after splitting. It’s all I’ve been burning tonight. It’s 10:45 and I’ve burned 5 small slabs of bark since 6 pm. It’s 28 degrees outside and 77 in the house. I’m not saying it’s black locust or anything. But it’s good shoulder season heat - and it won’t end up in a landfill. Anyone else burn bark during shoulder season?
Yes!!! A fellow bark burner!!! I won't go through the trouble of bringing it inside, but what falls off in the indoor wood bin, gets put in a box, then some days I have a bark fire. I have had a good flame and coals for over 4 hours on about half a copy paper box amount. Waste not, want not. Why haul it back outside?
When Douglas fir bark is dry, it produces some serious heat. It was quite something when we burnt it in our old Jetstream wood boiler.
I end up with a fair amount of bark on the floor when the wood goes down the slide. It all goes in the stove a little at a time. No sense in lugging it back out.
The only bark I burn is what is on the log. Or if some falls off when I bring it inside that will go in stove. Also burning bark always seems like there is more ash to contend with.
Most bark chunks left over from splitting get hauled back into the woods (mostly red oak and red and silver maple). However, I do keep the white birch bark chunks to use as a fire starter. One piece of fatwood and one chunk of white birch bark is pretty much all I need to get the wood stove going.
If it comes off when im making firewood here its mostly pit wood. My other processing areas its compost. I wont burn black locust bark. If it comes off when split green ill bundle it for future use. Have a couple bundles of sugar maple bark to use from two Summers ago.
If I have some wood that lets go of the bark in big sheets I'll pile it up and burn it a little at a time...either in the firepit, or if there is still some come heating season, then in the furnace...it makes heat too! (or burns better than snowballs, as I've heard said in the past...)
I never burn bark on purpose. If it’s stuck to the split, so be it. I try to remove as much as I can as I’m processing the the wood and that gets hauled to the dump or left in the field. I always thought one of the jobs of tree bark was to help protect it from fire. Seems to generate a lot of ash and take up room in the stacks
I burn everything that makes it into the basement. When I throw splits down in the well area, a lot falls off. It all eventually gets shoveled into the stove. If it falls off while splitting, it gets transferred to the burn pile. So no extra effort to bring it in for stove use.
Small yard here, so when I split its usually in or just next to my driveway, and all the bark / shards / smaller chips of wood that fall off, I rake and put in those leaf bags you get at the hardware store. I keep them in my garage and use those as my fire starters / kindling.
I've read that the bark often has slightly higher BTU content than the wood it is encasing. I've only once saved and burned some eastern white pine bark and it does burn OK, just quite a bit of ash. These days any bark that falls off outside goes into a compost pile or on one of my compacted trails. Any that makes its way in goes in the stove. That's the extent of my bark burning.
When we were on the thanksgiving camping trip a few weeks ago we made a tower of doug fir bark in the fire pit. It was hot and lasted forever. Ive burned some of it in the wood stove but also took a third truck full of fir bark to the dump from my recent scrounge. Its good to hear its burning nice and clean. When I burned some in the stove recently I didnt go outside to see if I had clean smoke but I had clean glass. It sounds like its keeping the house warm for you so btus in the stove instead of being discarded sounds like a good win.
I never have burned any bark. If there is some that falls off when splitting I throw it in a pile. When the pile gets big enough I haul it to the compost in town.
