Feel like felling a tree........

S

Square_peg

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.....or 10?

Camped up here back in September. Hart's Pass in the Northern Cascades. A forest fire came through 9 years ago. There are lots of dead trees you can take an axe to. I took a couple just for firewood in camp. A man can chop to his hearts content up there.

Dead_trees.jpg
 
Good stuff Pegs :)
There certainly isn't a shortage of dead trees around here :(
Our firewood is coming exclusively from beetle kill Lodge Pole Pine right around our cabin here.
Hell...
I just cut and burn !
 
I know the feeling. Between the pine beetles, the patches of SAD (sudden aspen decline), and whatever the heck (beetle?) is killing the stands of spruce, it's no big deal to come upon a very large patch of trees waiting to be chopped down in my area. I guess the good part is that there's no shortage of easy firewood!

now that it's been brought up, I have to say that I prefer a mix of maybe 70% aspen with 10% (gambel or scrub) oak and 20% spruce/pine for my firewood. the aspen burns so clean and is so convenient in the processing that I'll happily take the heat output penalty. I don't consider the fact that I have to gather twice as much a penalty. that's a bonus! of course, if more oak were available, I'd probably bump it up to 25 or 30% oak and skip the pine/spruce. thoughts?


cheers!

-ben
 
bearhunter said:
Good stuff Pegs :)
There certainly isn't a shortage of dead trees around here :(
Our firewood is coming exclusively from beetle kill Lodge Pole Pine right around our cabin here.
Hell...
I just cut and burn !
Click to expand...

I know that stuff. One of my old favorite campgrounds (Redfish Lake in Idaho) got hit by those :(

They felled each tree that got them, and were practically paying us to burn it :p
 
With the millions of acres that have burned in Idaho, there's no shortage of scenes like this one.

Grease said:
I know that stuff. One of my old favorite campgrounds (Redfish Lake in Idaho) got hit by those :(

They felled each tree that got them, and were practically paying us to burn it :p
Click to expand...

Redfish got hit by a microburst (maybe 2 years ago?) that took out a ton of trees around the lake. Adding insult to injury.
 
bjp said:
I know the feeling. Between the pine beetles, the patches of SAD (sudden aspen decline), and whatever the heck (beetle?) is killing the stands of spruce, it's no big deal to come upon a very large patch of trees waiting to be chopped down in my area. I guess the good part is that there's no shortage of easy firewood!

now that it's been brought up, I have to say that I prefer a mix of maybe 70% aspen with 10% (gambel or scrub) oak and 20% spruce/pine for my firewood. the aspen burns so clean and is so convenient in the processing that I'll happily take the heat output penalty. I don't consider the fact that I have to gather twice as much a penalty. that's a bonus! of course, if more oak were available, I'd probably bump it up to 25 or 30% oak and skip the pine/spruce. thoughts?


cheers!

-ben
Click to expand...

I don't think I've ever heard someone say that they like burning Aspen! :D
 
bjp said:
...aspen burns so clean and is so convenient in the processing that I'll happily take the heat output penalty. I don't consider the fact that I have to gather twice as much a penalty. that's a bonus!...
Click to expand...

From the book "Splitting Firewood" by David Tresemer:

"The fact is that the fuel value of one pound of oven-dried wood is the same for all species, about 8600 BTU. In general, for a given amount of warmth, the same weight of less dense poplar and the denser ash is lifted and carried for the same amount of energy. Unless firewood is bought by the volume... the best course is to burn what is available. Different species will dry at different rates, perhaps one reason for firemakers preferences."

from page 77 of the book, page 91 of the document
http://www.scribd.com/doc/38151947/Splitting-Firewood-1981

Based on this, if you are buying firewood by the cord, get the denser species. Otherwise, you are lifting and carrying the same weight of firewood (no matter what species) for the same heat output, so burn whatever species is available (as long as it has dried first), although some species will dry faster than others.

The author doesn't mention Ben's "bonus" of having to cut more lengths of a less dense species to equal the weight of a cord from denser species.
 
No aspen out east but I'll usually pass on poplar. If I have to burn it, I'll mix it in with hardwoods.
 
I'm not a seasoned wood burner (pun very much intended), but I find that mixing a little bit of hahdwood in with dry pine makes great burnin. The problem with 100% pine is that its finnicky because it don't coal, so the fires can go out if not pampered something. I'll mix a little split of locust or oak or something in at the beginning and can keeps things going good.
 
Steve Tall said:
From the book "Splitting Firewood" by David Tresemer:

"The fact is that the fuel value of one pound of oven-dried wood is the same for all species, about 8600 BTU. In general, for a given amount of warmth, the same weight of less dense poplar and the denser ash is lifted and carried for the same amount of energy. Unless firewood is bought by the volume... the best course is to burn what is available. Different species will dry at different rates, perhaps one reason for firemakers preferences."

from page 77 of the book, page 91 of the document
http://www.scribd.com/doc/38151947/Splitting-Firewood-1981

Based on this, if you are buying firewood by the cord, get the denser species. Otherwise, you are lifting and carrying the same weight of firewood (no matter what species) for the same heat output, so burn whatever species is available (as long as it has dried first), although some species will dry faster than others.

The author doesn't mention Ben's "bonus" of having to cut more lengths of a less dense species to equal the weight of a cord from denser species.
Click to expand...
Steve...
All I can say about that is that I certainly didn't learn that in forestry school from who was considered one of the best Dendrology profs in the country :confused:

http://firewoodresource.com/firewood-btu-ratings/
 
G-pig said:
I'm not a seasoned wood burner (pun very much intended), but I find that mixing a little bit of hahdwood in with dry pine makes great burnin. The problem with 100% pine is that its finnicky because it don't coal, so the fires can go out if not pampered something. I'll mix a little split of locust or oak or something in at the beginning and can keeps things going good.
Click to expand...

As I said above, I burn almost exclusively lodgepole pine and I have never had those problems.
We can fill our stove early in the morning, leave, get back late at night and just stir the coals a little throw a couple logs on and the fire starts on its own
But..,
We do have a very expensive and very efficient solid cast iron stove that's holds and releases the heat very well :)
Our old Ashley burnt about 1/2 as much more than the one we have now :)
But we never had problems with it either, it just burnt more wood.
 
bearhunter said:
... :confused:

http://firewoodresource.com/firewood-btu-ratings/
Click to expand...

The chart from the link shows the highest rated Western hardwood is Live Oak, with a whopping 36.6 million BTUs per cord.
At the bottom of the list is Cottonwood with a measly 16.8 million BTUs per cord.

BUT...

If you look at BTUs per pound of green wood, the Cottonwood actually beats the Live Oak!
Cottonwood: 4834
Live Oak: 4650

If you look at BTUs per pound of dry wood, the Cottonwood is similar to the Live Oak.
Cottonwood: 7550
Live Oak: 7562
 
G-pig said:
I'll mix a little split of locust or oak or something in at the beginning and can keeps things going good.
Click to expand...

I'm a fan of maple, myself. That stuff makes some nice hot coals for baking taters :D

M3mphis said:
Redfish got hit by a microburst (maybe 2 years ago?) that took out a ton of trees around the lake. Adding insult to injury.
Click to expand...

Again? Sheesh. It was probably 6 or 7 years ago that I remember it being bad. It didn't kill everything, but it sure thinned out the trees. There's probably not much left if they came again...
 
Steve Tall said:
BUT...

If you look at BTUs per pound of green wood, the Cottonwood actually beats the Live Oak!
Cottonwood: 4834
Live Oak: 4650

If you look at BTUs per pound of dry wood, the Cottonwood is similar to the Live Oak.
Cottonwood: 7550
Live Oak: 7562
Click to expand...

I noticed that, too. The chart confirms that weight/BTU is pretty flat across wood species.
 
Lodge pole, Douglas fir, Is all I burn, between the moth, beetle,and fire,been cutting 10 cords a year for 5 years a mile from my house,and I cant keep up
Burnt some willow once, would Have to dump the ashes every day,and the wood pile sprouts.
 
That's a good thing about lodgepole is they're just isn't a whole lot of ash. Our ash pan isn't very big, but I don't have to empty it but every couple of weeks or so and that's burning 24/7.
 
I'm mostly burning stormfall. Every winter the ground gets saturated. At some point the winds come thru and drop a bunch of wood. I mostly take maple and alder because they're so common. The maple is better denser wood but the alder is so easy to split that I take it. Mixed in with those I'll get some Doug fir and some plum. The wild plum isn't super common but it's around and I seek it out. If I see a plum down I get on it. Good stuff, real dense, burns hot and clean.
 
In the land of aligators and mudbugs we burn alot of storm fall and it's mostly oaks (red, live or black). Sometimes a sweetgum. All make nice beds of coals and hot fires. Sometimes I kinda wish I had something like aspen to burn........ clean campfire:D
 
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