I'm new here. I bought a cabin witch is heated with wood. I have 20 Acres 90% spruce and 10% paper birch. I also have several soft maple at home. I assume my best choice is paper birch then soft maple lastly spruce. Due to hardness. I am reluctant to use the spruce because of the pitch and creasolt build up am I correct? The 20 acres are totally treed so harvesting spruce would be far easier. Any thoughts on this?
I'm still new to all this but my understanding would be burn what ya got. If it's spruce, then let it dry a year after being split and stacked and burn that. Keep an eye on your chimney and temps, and it'l all be fine. You Northern folks don't typically have the harder woods so burn what you do have. And by the way, Welcome! Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Hello and welcome jeffneds jtstromsburg has it right- cut, split, stack-let it sit at least a year (even dead standing when cut or downed dead). The Spruce/pine family of trees burn fine, as long as you CSS them like any other wood. Do you have a sunny/windy area that you can single row stack this cabin wood? Maybe show us a pic...
I've burned spruce, good wood & decent BTUs . Cut Split & Stack, (CSS) & season at least year, I found 2 years is much better. I get "little to No creosote " with the 2 year stuff. Birch takes 2 years to season too. (& it's got to be cut live & split within a few months, water tight bark) The maple, 1 year seasoning time. Get some CSS & get it seasoning. The one year seasoned stuff is burnable, Just inspect the chimney often & clean it every 6 weeks. Have some dead standing spruce, the top 1/2 is probably good to go now.
I agree with the others, cut and split what you have and much more importantly, get it split, stacked and up off the ground in a dry, sunny and breezy area. The spruce if dried properly will not cause creosote problems. Try to let everything season a full year or more, two years is what your aiming for. The paper birch is susceptible to holding water and rotting if not split and stacked off the ground in a dry, sunny area. The bark holds the moisture in, so therefore splitting really helps with birches to insure proper seasoning. Congrats on the land and cabin. We like pictures here.... Just saying...
Burn what ya got and hope ya got enough! Spruce will burn fine, as millions without hardwood access will attest to. As mentioned by many up thread who are much more experienced than I am, just season it properly and your good to go. Good luck splitting - spruce in my experience can be kind of a hassle to split sometimes with the way branches seems to carry all the way through the wood. I have had better luck splitting it in the lowest temperature you can stomach - seems to eat fewer wedges if you're splitting by hand when the wood is good and frozen.
Whatever you burn, please make sure its dry! And welcome aboard-very nice area up there! What happened to hardwoods in N Minn?
I'll just add that I agree on the Spruce. I've burned a lot of it after getting it cut, split, and stacked for at least a year. You can burn it sooner if it's in a good windy and sunny spot CSS off the ground. Pine and Spruce don't cause creosote. Wet wood and poor burning practice does that. Soft Maple will dry well enough in a year as well, but 2 is much better. Hang around for a while and as Fan said, we like pics.
X2! Pine doesn't cause creasote, WET WOOD does. Pine gets the bad rap because in the old days guys would burn their "good oak" that was seasoned for 3 months, run out and burn the pine that takes as little as 6 months to dry, burning much hotter it lights the creasote caused by the wet oak... Bad rap goes to pine..... Burn what's easy ready and dry!!! Welcome to the club!
Welcome to the forum jefneds. When it comes to selecting wood on 20 acres for just one house , I would start with dead and down wood and never expect to run out. You will lose more trees in a year, in a mature wood lot that size, than you are likely to need for heating. Regardless of species, make sure it is dried properly before you burn it and quit listening to old wives tales about creosote. Dry wood that is burned in a good hot fire does not create much creosote. Monitor your stack temperature and keep it well above 300ºF and you should not have a problem unless you have a tall exposed chimney above the roof line.
Welcome to FHC! Burn what you have, it's going to be fine as long as it's dry. As Oldman47 said, with 20 acres, you'll have more than enough dead trees to keep you warm. You probably won't ever need to cut living trees.
Welcome jeffneds. Nice to meet you. I have lots of experience with standing dead softwoods and feel that depending on how long they have been dead you should be able to go out and drop them and put them in the stove right away. Best to grab yourself a cheap moisture meter and check a freshly split center of a round with wood temp around 70f. That will give you a good measurement and a gauge as to how dry your standing dead is. Any reading under 20% mc is good to go.
My uncle had a resort in michigamme, mi. There are 4 private properties in our section 3 have 80+ acres I only have 20 my shared driveway is 1.25 mi long not plowed in winter. The first 1/2 mi is spruce swamp (neighbors) water 18"-24" high tons of beaver, a lot of moose and of course wolves and coyotes. I haven't a marsh area spagmimum moss and spruce and about 5-6 acrEs of high land. We love watching moose and wolves. There are deer and bear in the higher areas. We have a cabin on a 20+ acre shallow lake. This fall had a lot of ducks and geese. My boys could walk down our driveway and hunt grouse. My son in law first year bird hunter shot 17 grouse while hiking. It's pretty incredible. I have Parkinson's quite bad so can't hunt but they are having a blast. We are about 20 mi. Up Hwy 1 from Lake Superior and it's mainly glacial till. Craziest topography you could imagine. This fall we spotted 2 cows several times still trying to establish their main areas. So far (luckily) not spotted any Bulls. I'm not sure I want to meet a bull during rut season! The deer and wolves move down to Lake Superior area in the winter so we will be seeing them in the spring. Not sure what the moose do in the winter yet. The kids are going up Friday to continue tracking. I grew up in a rural area outside of Duluth and spent 2 summers working on a resort as a teen in Voygers National Park before it was a park. The resort was 7mi. From the nearest road or power by boat. So living off the grid didn't bother me but it suprises me my wife loves it.we have a solar power system with gen. back up gas stove and refrigerator. I'm not used to heating with wood yet. We have 2 cords of css birch. I was just trying to plan for summer cutting. And drying. I never saw a grey jay before I came up here they are more friendly than their cousin the blue jay! It has been a godsend to find this property in this difficult time of my life. We are on the border of the boundary waters canoe so no plane traffic is allowed. It's a welcome relief from living in Minneapolis for the last 46 years. I LOVE YUPPIES!!! Neds
Sounds like a nice lifestyle change. I've snowmobiled that area many times. Sounds like getting the boys css might be a good idea! Enjoy.
Sounds just like what a lot of burners would aspire to if they could actually do it! True that on the grey jays. We call 'em lumberjacks around here, don't know why-maybe because they would frequent logging sites for handouts. Fly right up to you and check you out! Lucky you with a wife that enjoys solitude. Yeah, sounds a little damp where your 20 acres are...at least you're providing a home for the mosquitoes! Michigamme is a very pretty area also. Ever notice that they nicest areas seem to have the lowest population?? What a coincidence! Stay warm, burn safe.
Welcome to the forum Jeff. Michigamme is a beautiful area indeed and a great place for a resort. It also sounds like you have a top notch area to live in and blessed with a wife that also loves it. You are new to wood burning so please allow me to invite you to some important reading: Primer on Woodburning by Backwoods Savage Sad that you have the Parkinson's but one has to live with what he has and it seems we all have our crosses to bear. We just have different ones. At least you live in an area that is good for your soul and that is worth more than any gold! We'll be watching for more posts from you and hearing about that crazy topography up there.
Welcome jeffneds You're gonna like it here, I guarantee it and sure nice to meet ya As my brethren have so succinctly stated, the wood you have available in abundance will be just fine-C/S/S, face it south and get it off the ground as high as is practical, say 12"-18" works wonders-Sounds like you have a wonderful place-We like pics, dogs and beer, jus saying...Again, glad you're here!
