Firewood for arch

[devils11217]

WHat does everyone use for wood? Anyone find a particular wood better than another? Thinking about using pine as there is always someone gettin rid of pine.

[asknupp]

Good dry hardwood split small is best

[brookledge]

This is a topic that you will get a lot of opinions. Quite frankly I think it all comes down to you and your sitiuation. In my case I cut hardwood for my wood furnace that heats my house. So I have been cutting softwoods to put through the evaporator. For me it promotes growth for my maples. I'm always looking to cull trees around young maples and that is what works best for my orchard. Also I get free pine, hemlock etc, delivered to the sugarhouse so it is very easy to just cut and split.
You will also hear that some types of arches perform better with hard wood than softwood. You will also have to fire more often with softwood.
Keith

[Russell Lampron]

I use a mixture of hardwood and softwood. When I want to get the evaporator hot in a hurry I use softwood. Dry pine is like rocket fuel. I have an outdoor wood boiler and use the limb wood from the trees I cut for the evaporator.

[Clarkfield Farms]

Ask 10 people, you'll get 4,674 opinions! :o

Locally, a lot of people used to claim that hemlock was an extremely rot-resistant, hard wood. I finally asked why they'd say that, since I knew it to be otherwise... "Well," they'd reply, "the railroads use it almost exclusively for their ties!"
"No," said I, "they use it because it's the cheapest, most abundant local wood." Don't hear them saying it much anymore, at least not in my presence.

An old story that might explain it better than most:

On Easter Sunday morning, a man was drawn to the kitchen by the smell of a maple-glazed ham that his wife was cooking. He looked at the table and saw that about 1" of both ends of the ham had been cut off and set there. He remembered that this had been going on at least as long as he and his wife had been married, and he asked her about it.

"Well," she replied, "Mom always did it, she's in the other room why don't you ask her?"

Like a man on a mission, he went in and asked his mother-in-law the same question.

"Well," she replied, "MY mother always did it, why don't you ask her when we go visit her at the nursing home today?"

When they finally arrived at the nursing home, he bit his tongue waiting for the appropriate time to ask her, and when it came he blurted out the same question: "Grandma, WHY do you cut an inch off each end of the Easter ham?"

"Well, sonny," she replied, "because the ham is 16" long and my pan was only 14" long!"

I guess I'd suggest to do what suits YOUR needs best. But explaining WHY just may stop rumors and unneeded traditions from beginning! :D

[Super Sapper]

Free is the best.

[flhr10]

Like everyone else say, whatever works best in your situation. I use a mix of ash, oak, hickory, maple, beech, thorn apple, hardwood 4x4s from work. As long as it's good and dry and split small. I take a scoop shovel full of coals from my outdoor boiler and put it in the arch and stack it full and it's roaring in no time. Good luck and have fun!!!