Burning Question

[SeanD]

Things got tight on wood at the end of the season and I was burning more brush and branches than I would have liked. A lot of it had the bark still on it and it obviously slowed the boil down, but some of the dried 3/4" - 1" pieces without bark seemed to do better. It seems some of the pieces - beech, maple, and some oak - still had their bark and I know they are from a season or two ago, so I'm not even sure how long some of those pieces take to dry out.

Is it worth any effort to include branches into the pile for next season or the one after or should I avoid it altogether?

Sean

[Haynes Forest Products]

Sean The one problem with burning small limbs is the time it takes to cram them into the fire box. Every time you open the doors your boil slows down and heat rushes up the stack and that wastes fuel and cuts your boil rate down. I fire with oil so I dont have down time. its balls to the wall as soon as I hit the switch. But with wood its like hitting the breaks on your car every time you open the doors to fire. Now if wood is your fuel you have to start thinking outside the box. I have farmer friends that will throw about anything into his fire box. I havent seen his wife lately............sorry.
A list of thair favorite things telephone poles creosote burns hot. Old shingles burns real hot. Old RR ties. Old sap tubing and mainline fun to watch. All items that are free. The lesson I learned when I got into this hobby helping the old timers was KEEP THE #@#$%^&^&%$$#$% DOORS SHUT.

CHUCK

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

If wood is good and dry like it is supposed to be, the bark just helps inginite the wood faster and you get a quicker restart of the fire after firing until the solid wood ignites.

[barrelstove]

according to my wood science professors all wood has the same btu's per oven dry pound, that is 0% moisture content.

that being said an oven dry pound of oak takes up alot less space than an oven dry pound of white pine!

i like small wood for a fast hot fire, and i stuff the firebox full. so limbs just mean that there is less to split.

i like to burn well dried or standing dead softwood, and save the hardwood for the house. the only exception to the above rules is that some softwoods have a higher reading because of the extractives (read pitch) burn really hot!

as long as what you are feeding your stove is easy to handle so it can be fed quickly, i dont suppose it matters much what you put in there.

im eyeing an old cedar fence right now, trying to figure out how to cut between the nails!

[brookledge]

I have also heard that about the BTU's of wood are about the same of each specie based on the weight of the wood dried. A ton of oak will have the same amount of BTUs as a ton of pine. The only thing is that a ton of pine will take up more space than the hardwood.
Keith

[wdchuck]

My Father has a portable sawmill, so we burn anything! With a good supply of slabs each year, and an RO machine, we burn wood that's 2 to 3 years old. This year we got into a bunch of 3 year old cedar- seems that the best way to burn it was to keep the firebox full so as to limit the oxygen flow. Yeah, it wasnt the longest burning wood, but we mixed it in with dry hardwood and its plenty hot!

[tessiersfarm]

I also ran out this year and I readilly found old and broken pallets at several lumber yards free for the taking. I got ones that were un painted and they worked great. Free dry hardwood. It doesn't get much easier.

[Sugarmaker]

Just found about 5-6 pick up loads of skids with a mile of work so I started bring them home tonight. They do make a hot fire for syrup.

Chris