I seek out shoulder season wood, but I don't have to look too hard. I've got poplar for this year, catalpa for next. I like low btu wood because I can modulate the amount of heat I want, depending on the mix. Poplar to start to heat up the stove, if that isn't enough, throw a split of better wood on top. If poplar provides enough heat, great, and I won't have overshot by burning oak. A split of two of oak doesn't burn very well all by itself.
Yep, my thoughts exactly. My favorite dead-of-winter wood is Black Locust... would I burn it from start to finish of the heating season? Yes, but would I want to if I had some of the SS species mentioned above? No. “To each his own burn needs"
Instead of using my chips and chunks in the firepit, I built a small pallet shed and use those for 3 weeks of heat. The chips and chunks are trimmings from over cut lengths of firewood. The old Resolute will grudgingly take a 17" length of firewood, but woe is me if it's 17+1/2". On the other hand the Newmac furnace takes 24" wood with ease. There's too many times the woodstove takes the heating job and the Newmac has to wait it's turn. Most of the chunks are the wedges trimmed from the bottom of limbs and large branches so I can square the wood up. Most of my woods were pastures 65 years ago, trees grew wild with limbs all around and those wedges need to be trimmed off. Good airflow in the pallet shed and these chips and chunks dry quick enough to burn the following season. One tote of them on a cool night is a match made in heaven. Toss in a cold rainy night or sleet/ice storm and 2 totes might be needed. But all the wood is moving through the processing area anyway, so it's just a matter of sorting it out as it's processed. (I don't have a processing machine, but do it the old fashioned way - saws, mauls, axe, wedges, and finally a woodsplitter.) Those chips and chunks burn like coal - the airflow around the small pieces almost produces an inferno, easy does it adding more. Nothing gets thrown away except the worst of the punk wood. The Newmac will gladly accept some dried punk over red hot coals on the grates and reduce it to garden ready wood ash and give up some heat in return. Life is good. Sent from my SM-A102U using Tapatalk
Since I got my IBC totes I have all my wood separated by species. I also have cages soley for shorts/chunks/cookies/uglies. I hope to not have to touch any primo wood until probably January
I completely agree!! I burn mostly soft woods. My big Jotul F500 will turn low BTU wood into blow you out of the house heat. If it’s a particularly cold day or night, I’ll throw a split of ash or honey locust in with the soft woods - and look out!
I agree mostly. The exception is that is have likeD using pine for kindling and SS. That said, with putting in a basement pellet stove in a couple yrs ago I use pellets during SS and once it gets colder than that, it’s just time to run the wood insert as normal.
I don't go looking for cottonwood, aspen, willow or any poplar. But I do have it in my stacks and I'll burn it.
Shoulder wood? Ya that's about all I burn. I don't mess with cottonwood or poplar much, my shoulder wood is pine. It's a quick hot fire, and if needed I throw Douglas fir, larch or elm on top of it and it heats my home.
A reply in a different post.. but applicable here as well. I don't concern myself much with SS wood. We burn primarily ash, so it's not a big issue with small fires anyway.. "Chazsbetterhalf has asked me time and again why I don't do SS wood. I figure my time is better spent on COLD season wood. That said.. we do have some pine and poplar that I do need to work on.. regardless of burn time. I've come to the conclusion that we will end up running the furnace at certain times of the year, but we took on 200 G of fuel oil this summer.. which is the first delivery in 3 years.. I can live with that. " My intent for the wood stove wasn't to completely not use the furnace, but to be able to not use it. Everything serves it's purpose, but I don't want to deal with the cost of fuel oil over the winter, and we need a heat source should the furnace break down.. again
The best quiet of winter is not hearing the hot air furnace running on oil. I do like hearing the blower cycling while the combination furnace is running on wood. But when the stove takes the heat through the night and I don't hear the oil man or the electric company making money off me, I am one happy fireman. Sent from my SM-A102U using Tapatalk
After all this armpit flood heat we're not accustomed to, I'm looking forward to those morning/evening shoulder burns. As said, the spruce/fir blowdowns on trails that need clearing here and on conservation trails I do ( I'm the road commisioner), make plenty of softwood for those quick fires.
Back when I wasn't on the "3 Year Plan" (I'm at 7 years now.....lol) I'd seek out SS wood.....stuff like spruce, soft maple, poplar, ash, etc.....but now that I'm so far ahead, I just keep the premium stuff and get rid of the rest. Stuff like locust, oak, hickory, hard maple, and some cherry are what primarily makes up my entire stash. But I'll dawdle around the locust in the early part of burning season, saving that and hickory for the deep part of winter.
In a lot of ways I'm envious of you Scotty, you get paid to make and take away firewood. Nothing better than that. I've watched you work, and you earn all you get.
We have 2 areas for wood. Indoor Wood and Bonfire Wood. We just run smaller pieces for SS. The bonfire stack is Box Elder and Cottonwood
I like to have dry pine on hand for a number of reasons: Kindling, we start a lot of fires at the weekend place: When we arrive, getting back from activities ect. Mixing in with the occasional big split or wettish split. Short fires in the fall and spring. You know the ones; you load up the stove with hardwood and the next thing you know, it's 85 inside and all the windows are open.
I wish I had enough 'premium' wood (primarily oak) to process that I could turn my nose up at the red maple and pine that I have so much of, but this is not the case. So I use as much 'less desirable' firewood as often as I can. Red maple isn't so bad and i've had just that to go thru the Winter and survived. Even pine at least gets hot even though shoveling it in will keep ya busy. So yeah, I have and use lots of shoulder season wood. I could buy red oak. But at $250 a cord oil is cheaper or has been here for a while. So I burn my 'free' wood including the free 'crap' wood and don't complain. I've got what I've got and so far have been able to make it work.