Firewood?

[Catscratch]

If I cut it and get it to the back door the wife will keep a fire going most of the winter. I like hedge. Hate to even get the saw dirty for oak or anything else.

Any of you guys burn for warmth? Have a favorite wood? Sharpen your own chains?

 

[Stubborn1VT]

I'm in Vermont and have always burned wood. My brother lives in the farmhouse that we grew up in, and that house has never had a heat source other than firewood.
We have an oil furnace in our small house, but I heat it primarily with wood. I'm a fan of sugar maple or ironwood when it's very cold. I also cut standing dead elms that have lost their bark.
All told, I cut 30-40 cords a year. I cut for my house, my brother, and sell a fair amount. My wife jokes that it's my only other hobby besides hunting. I'm self-employed and make part of my living doing tree work. I do sharpen my own chains.

 

[rocksnstumps]

I do the same with elm waiting until bark falls off. I call it my vertical storage until needed lol

Mostly elm, ironwood, and bitternut hickory for the shop wood stove. A bit of cherry, hard maple, or beech that busts off during storms.

The elm and hickory have disease issues. The little bit of white ash around will be next.

That ironwood is tough stuff just like hedge mentioned above. Occasionally you can see a spark come off a chain even.

Most sparks are self induced from hitting rocks tho. Bucking wood laying down in the snow is always a challenge. Can't go 5 ft without a rock hiding under that snow somewhere.

 

[T-Max]

Cat, you got any Kentucky Coffeetree? That stuff burns hot!


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[Mortenson]

Having a fireplace would be a dream. Prefer oak for campfires. Splits so nice. When cleaning up messes I like keeping mulberry and hedge also.

 

[Catscratch]

Dang Stubborn, you're one of "those" guys! I love cutting wood but have zero interest in cutting 40 ricks a yr. That's a lot!

Rocknstumps, I get lots of sparks with hedge when I'm cutting really old and dried wood. That's my favorite!

T-Max, I had Kentucky Coffee trees until the aerial sprayers hit our place. I don't think any of them survived it. Now you got me thinking about it, going to have to go looking for some. I might have a tree to 2 who survived. Do you burn it often?

 

[DJN]

We heat mainly with a wood burning stove (do have a propane furnace for backup, but hate to kick it on). Usually takes around 3 cords (128 sq ft/cord) to get us through a season. Have burned a lot of black cherry since its easily available (either storm damaged or needed to be thinned) around the family farm, but not terribly picky what we burn. Just as long as it’s properly seasoned! Lots of ash now as well as they’ve died out. Just a handful of hedge on the farm, so only get a random broken limb from them here or there. Have been eyeing up a couple large white mulberry that are shading out some apple and pear plantings… just a matter of not taking out the apples and pears when getting the mulberry. Lol
Yes, sharpen my own.

 

[Derek Reese 29]

I have a little wood insert in the fireplace in my basement. I like to burn anything I cut around my place that has included hickory, cherry, chestnut, sugar maple and black walnut. My favorites of those so far are the cherry, hickory and walnut. If nothing else that little stove keeps the basement warm…

 

[KY wild]

I was all wood for 20 years and I definitely don't miss it. I would burn 6 to 8 pick up loads a winter. Mostly burnt oak, hickory and black locust for over night heat. I would also use quicker burning wood to get fire going like tulip poplar and soft maple. Mostly tried to avoid things that was hard to split like sweet gum and sycamore.

 

[Mortenson]

Grandpa and dad won a bid to cut and deliver 150 full cord (4x4x8) to a local lodge quite a few seasons back in the day. Guess I'm not too sad I missed out on that. Even before that grandpa and his dad were logging wood lots and they'd hand sharpen those big 2 man hand says and then wrap them up in thick heavy blankets from WWI so they wouldn't get nicked.

 

[KY wild]

I don't care how cold it was if I cut a load a wood I would be sweating from head to toe. I always thought the chainsaw is doing most of the work why I am sweating so much? It was a workout

 

[T-Max]

Dang Stubborn, you're one of "those" guys! I love cutting wood but have zero interest in cutting 40 ricks a yr. That's a lot!

Rocknstumps, I get lots of sparks with hedge when I'm cutting really old and dried wood. That's my favorite!

T-Max, I had Kentucky Coffee trees until the aerial sprayers hit our place. I don't think any of them survived it. Now you got me thinking about it, going to have to go looking for some. I might have a tree to 2 who survived. Do you burn it often?

I cut a lot of wood for my aunt with a wood furnace. She says she will get a nice bed of coals and throw on 2 hedge and 2 coffee tree logs and it lasts all night. She really likes it. When you throw it it has that high pitched feedback like hedge. Seems really dense.


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[Bowsnbucks]

We mostly heated our home for over 37 years with wood. We have a full-wall fireplace in our lower level that I put a woodstove insert in from the get-go. Being in the lower level, natural convection brought the heat upstairs via open stairs. Floors and walls got plenty warm. I burned mostly oak, but also some cherry, hickory, ash, soft maple, hop hornbeam, and a small bit of sycamore (un-split limb-wood). I always cut a year ahead to allow time to season & dry out. Most winters we'd burn about 3 full cords - sometimes more. I sharpen my own chains. I love cutting firewood & seeing ranked piles adding up. It's work - but for me it's a relaxing work!!

Ash dying / dead everywhere now from EAB.

 

[rocksnstumps]

Cat, you got any Kentucky Coffeetree? That stuff burns hot!


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This thread made me drag out some old tree book reference stuff. Coffee tree is almost identical in specific gravity to Black locust. Higher than pretty much all the oaks but still under shagbark hickory (champ for the hickories)

 

[H20fwler]

I grew up cutting wood with my Dad in winter, we heated our house with it. We also had lots of farm ground so were always cutting back the edge on woods and working fence rows over.

I don't use wood to heat anymore and neither do any of my kids but I still enjoy cutting wood in winter on super cold days just for the nostalgia of it. I also really enjoy splitting wood by hand, usually cut and split a few cords every winter.
These days I will pick a couple big walnut with low branches or a couple of the hundreds of big hickory we have at the farms, usually something growing where I don't really want or because they throw shade on my fruit trees. I sell the split wood to co-workers in late spring or early summer. I drop walnuts and hickories because they split nice. I will cut up other trees like locust or whatever is in the wrong place but prefer the walnut/hickory, I try and not cut any oak if I don't absolutely have too.

I drop my chains off at the small engine store when I have a few that need sharpened.

Sad thing is that neither of my sons will touch a chainsaw, they just didn't grow up having to cut wood like I did, and they have a natural fear of saws. They can sure make some nice bunny piles with the brush and are help stacking and pulling limbs though if they are around.

 

[SD51555]

When I was a kid, we burned for primary heat, and the furnace was set at 64, so if we wanted warm, we had to burn. I grew to hate making firewood. Now I look forward to it. I enjoy the entire process, sky busting, making the good stuff for campfire grilling, releasing the stuff good for habitat, finding other uses for the stuff that's not great firewood. I've gotten it down now where everything I cut has a purpose, whether that's firewood, brush piles, fill, or big softwood logs just getting stacked up to be left to rot down to be mulch in later years.

I don't sharpen my own chains. I have 8 or 9 chains now, and I keep two nails in the garage, one for sharp, one for dull. When I get down to 2 sharp chains left, I take the rest in to get sharpened. I'm getting close to being over half way across my property for what I want to cut, so I've got to slow down and be a little more methodical about what I'm doing. I don't wanna use up all of my ash too soon, but EAB is also 20 or so miles away. What I've been cutting has been coming back fairly fast, so maybe I'll have more ash by the time I'm done with the first pass.

 

[Telemark]

I grew up cutting wood with my dad. They still have a pile of wood behind their house that is rotting into the ground. Hasn't been touched for decades. I use it as a backstop for shooting sometimes.

In Norway electricity is expensive, so we burn whatever we can get. There is a lot of Sitka spruce available. I prefer beech, oak, alder, and whatever the local birch species is.

In Ontario we burn anything and everything in the fire pit. I cut up some white cedar to get fires going easily, but we mostly use sugar maple for cooking fires. Everything is generally stacked separately. We used to burn oak, but I take all the oak logs for shiitake farming now.

I sharpen my chains with a rat tail file when the sawdust starts getting fine.

 

[Tree Spud]

Prefer to use oak and birch is a great one to use when we have one the goes down, but we had the emerald ash borer infest about 20 acres of black ash so we have been taking those down and cutting up for firewood. It is a wet woods so easiest to go in and cut the wood down when ground is frozen. It's hard, but I love the whole process. Good way to get outside and get some exercise especially in the winter.

My zen process ... chop wood carry water!







What emerald ash borer does to a tree ...

 

[Swampwalker]

I’ve been heating with wood for about 30 years now. The outdoor wood boiler takes about 10 cords a season to heat the old farmhouse however the last couple of years we used about 8.5 cords.
Due to the amount of poison ivy in our woods I do all my cutting during the winter.
I’ve gone through all the standing dead trees years ago so now most of the trees I cut are doing TSI. The majority is hard maple along with black cherry, hickory and elm and a few black walnut and bur oak cull trees.
I sharpen my own chains using the 2 in 1 files which work great.
The boiler is about 30 years old and when it goes bad I probably won’t replace it due to my age and the pay back time with the cost of new boilers. I don’t have a clue what it will cost to heat this place with propane but I’m sure I’ll be surprised.
I told the wife when the boiler goes out maybe I’ll have the woods logged and use the profits to pay for some propane bills.



.

 

[Natty Bumppo]

We heat out home just about entirely with wood with two heaters. We have an insert and we have a European style masonry heater. I fell, cut, and split about 3 cords a year...ash, red maple, apple, black cherry, and yellow and paper birch. And then we buy another 3 cords split. We also cut and split another cord of spruce and/or fir (which I have an endless supply of) for our evaporator in the sugar house.

We finally just got EAB, so my trees are just beginning to shows the signs of "blonding.". In the next few years I will easily have our required 6 cords a year in just ash.

I am terrible at sharpening chains. A skill I have never mastered.