Limb wood has a bad reputation here and actually a lot of wood cutters just burn it off at the cutting site and don't sell it. My question is this? Pound for pound and all things being even is there any difference? I ask this question because I actually like the feel of handling limb wood and my wife thinks it looks better in the wood stove. Im not talking twigs but 3 inch diameter stuff and im sure I can get a few good hook ups in sizeable amounts at roughly a 20% discount. Is it worth it with heat output and other considerations/drawbacks? Cheers Tasmaniac
Nothing wrong with limb wood. Pound vs pound? Not sure there is any difference in the heartwood/sapwood ratio, none that I can tell. Rounds tend to have longer burn times vs splits of equal size. I have more wood than I can burn, so I don't mess with limbs smaller than ~2.5 inches. But a 3-6 inch round packs some heat. The smallest stuff does take more labor/BTU.
Yeah nothing wrong with limbs at all. Usually they're dry if the tree has been dead standing awhile. I have been setting limbs apart to burn this coming winter from the oaks that I have been cutting.
The limb wood from any tree I've seen always seems to have more densely packed, closer together annular rings than the rings in the trunk. So that would mean more BTU per volume (IMHO). The only downside is disposing of the diameters smaller than your acceptable threshold (2" or 3" or whatever you say is too small for the bother). If all you get are 3" sticks but have to deal with all the tops/twigs, not worth it to me.
In town I save/burn everything down to 3/4" for kindling etc.Mainly cause of the disposal problem.Anything I dont want is clipped into short (6"-12") pieces & tossed in the trash cart.At parent's acreage everything under 1" is piled neatly for wildlife cover etc.Since there's no shortage of places to dump it. You do spend more time for what you end up with,so that's a personal decision you all have to make.
A consideration for us would be how they get from the tree to the stove. In our previous case, we had a 3 hour round trip to cutting zones, so we focused on logs. That said, some of the trees available we as small as 5"......... If had been close to my home I would have burned more of them.
State wood cutting permit requires me to take everything 5" & up. I try to take 3" & up & split everything at least in 1/2. IMO, It's good to have small splits to fill in voids for full 24 hour burns. Smalls also make good wood for the "1 off fires" . I lincoln log some smalls to get a hot fire going when we just need to take the chill off on rainy cool days, Smalls also good for a overlap brace to tie 2 rows together to prevent wobble & help stabilize multiple touching rows. Spit the difference to the touching rows & tie the rows together , put one in every 3 - 4'.
Me three, Horkn! Tasmaniac, I leave 'em as long as I can, cart 'em home atop whatever rounds or splits I've been able to get/scrounge, and buck those limbs at the house- they go from the bucking area straight to the "limbs" pile... Very easy for me to do it that way.
Certainly nothing wrong with saving the limb wood and I doubt there is any difference in the way it burns. As for the amount of work, I do not feel you gain but instead lose in the time factor. No, you don't have to split it but it takes a lot longer to get a load of small stuff than it does to get the bigger logs. If my wife is helping, then we save smaller stuff but if I work alone, no so much of it gets saved. As of late I tend to leave anything that is less than about 3-4". As for splitting, I don't split if less than 6". In the first picture you can see the smaller stuff that won't get split to the right. In the second picture, this is what was left to stack after stacking all the splits. Here you can see the far row which is all small stuff that won't get split.
If you leave the branches long like ericVW does,( I do to if that's ask that I am bringing in that trailer load) then throw them in the saw horse, they get processed as quickly, of not quicker than larger splitter material. Now of you cut them individually, then yes, they take more work, despite not needing to be split.
Limbs don't add up like logs-if you are trying to maximize your production, they slow you done, especially if you have a splitter. Having said that, I cut a lot of limbs in my brother's woods. He trims tops quite heavily before he skids, and I will go and buzz up limbs and hau them out with my RTV. You don't make a lot of wood, but it's easy work and it cleans up the woods.
Hi guys First post I have really enjoyed my day cruising through your posts after finding a link on a chainsaw repair site so signed up I am so pleased to find that there is a place for me and my many assorted piles of wood soorry rambling I burn heaps of limbwood as its usually stacked by council workers after winds or storms they remove the brush and leave rest on the side of the road so its free and its first in best dressed and if you are lucky to have a trailer on behind the bigger the limbs you take home.Dont plan on going home to get the trailer because its gone when you get back. Mostly eucalypts and in the 3 to 5 inch range dries well and burns great. But Having nowhere apart from the wheelie bin for waste any prunings. Around home I go down to 3/4' for kindling otherwise its a 20 mile round trip to landfill and 30 bucks to dump a caged 6x4 of brush. Out on a mates farm its different I take the goodstuff and build him bonfires with the rest for his kids
I find that the diameter wood that I'll keep is in direct correlation to how hot it is when I'm cutting. In the fall/winter, I'll keep wood down to 2". But if I'm cutting in the summer and it's miserably hot, I'll stop somewhere around 4", and regret it later.
If I'm cutting in my own yard or have to do the cleanup I will keep stuff down to about 2 to 3". If I'm cutting in the woods I usually cut standing dead and most all the small limbs are off of them. Limbs make good filler wood to pack in the open spaces.
