Those guys on one of those Alaska shows get stuff off the river banks for their winter wood. I would think it is okay.
Work with chlorine everyday but never thought about this? Lake wood doesn't sound like a problem at all. Burning driftwood makes dangerous smoke
I think it would be okay as well. I wonder the seasoning time once out of the water? I burned driftwood once while on vacation at Cape Cod, MA years back. You were allowed to have beach fires at night. Rather cool to see a line of them down from the cottage my ex and i rented. Im not a beach person and cant stay on the blanket that long. I spent an afternoon hoarding scraps of driftwood (there was not a lot around) for a fire that night. I stopped on a nearby wooded road for more the prior day. You gonna start hoarding driftwood mrfancyplants? Live near a big lake?
I just set up thanksgiving plans on Lake Erie with extended family. Where my avatar is from. I’m wondering if I should bring my saw. Too long a drive to cart wood home, but they do have a wood stove.
I have to pick my battles very wisely, and lugging a trunk of wood home 7 hours in the wife’s mini van is not going to be one of them... not that I didn’t think about it. I’d actually be more interested in collecting some yamadori (bonsai from the wild). I never seem to find likely candidates on their property. And getting permission to dig a live trees on others property can be even trickier than collecting logs.
I’ve been meaning to check out Presque Isle. I feel like the surf might be better there, although w the lakes it is all about timing... and wetsuits. Don’t forget your wetsuit.
*sigh* Alright. Maybe I need to stop doing it so much but I burned wood from the beach. Lots of times. Cut it,Split it and burned it. Here’s the thing, our fireplace is a steel thing that is almost 15 feet high self contained with the stack on it. Most smoke goes up and away from us. Should be frowned upon yes but so far it’s been ok. Maybe we are unwise doing so but since it is a short stay, not often taken in account because we don’t often stay more than a weekend. For more than 25 years, been doing it. Maybe we’ll just put a hold on that and do it less often.
It would be interesting to find just how much salt is left in logs and trees that have floated down fresh water rivers and onto brackish and more saltier shores in storms and then spend months flushed with rain water. Of course, if one ascribes to the theory wood does not absorb water then there can't be any salts in driftwood can there.
I agree. It would be nice to know. Most of the time the wood sits for long amounts of time, dries out and then gets put in the fire. Rain has it’s fair share put on it but it’s not wallowing in it. Although if it does get soaked. The fire is often so hot that putting some wet logs has a dampening effect to it but then after burning a bit, it comes right back to serious heat. I know for the most part the logs that get cut on the beach are likely from the rivers, the Columbia is likely a big spitter of logs during rain seasons and carries all that out. Then they tumble and stop tumble stop ad finitum until someone gets it. It’s been a long while since we had a big cut up party so if the wood got wet, likely salt is more in the sand by Fatboy than in it.
Supposedly a lot of the concerns about dioxins that are formed when you burn salty wood is based on old habits of sawmills along the coast of (example) British Columbia where they had no market for the waste from making lumber so they would burn it in huge burn piles. And had some dioxin problems. I would imagine that wood was rather laden with salt(s) compared to a log that sits for maybe months or years on the beach, plus there's the scale of operation. Course it never fails, you let one or two people do something carefully and responsibly there's always three or four that will scorch the earth and not give a rat's arse.
