I miss my oak firewood

[Ole Anderson]

For years I have gotten red oak firewood mixed with a bit of other heavy hardwoods. Takes two years to season, but that is ok. This year I helped my son split 3 face cords of what appears to be cherry. Beautiful red wood, easy to split, seasons in just a year. Fire starts easily, but boy does it burn fast in our fireplace. Should have known just by its light weight. With cherry, there is no such thing as a long lasting fire. Might as well be burning poplar.

[Steve Demuth]

I burn whatever needs removed or thinned from the woods. Everything from Eastern Red Cedar, which is so light and oily that it's barely different from burning cardboard, to Black Locust, which is so dense that it's impossible to burn in a small fire - you need a pretty large critical mass of heat to volatilize it to sustain flames. I burn a fair amount of Red Pine and White Pine, because there is a lot to thin, and a fair amount of Red Elm, because elms grow in profusion here on the edge of woodlands, but only to about 25 years in age, before succumbing to Dutch Elm Disease. Poplar (actual poplar, Populus deltoides, or Eastern Cottonwood) when one of them comes down or sheds a big branch (and they can be real big) is also common.

It's all the same to me. Have to feed the stove twice as often if burning a light wood, pay a little more attention to the draft on it to keep the heavy stuff happy. Love the radiant heat.

[Pat Germain]

Firewood is more scarce here in Colorado. Lots of people are converting their wood stoves to pellet stoves. What I don't understand is even I go camping in the middle of nowhere, I'm not allowed to gather wood for a fire. Even if there isn't a fire ban, which is rare, I can't pick up dead wood from the ground. Still haven't figured out that one...

[Brian Elfert]

Firewood is more scarce here in Colorado. Lots of people are converting their wood stoves to pellet stoves. What I don't understand is even I go camping in the middle of nowhere, I'm not allowed to gather wood for a fire. Even if there isn't a fire ban, which is rare, I can't pick up dead wood from the ground. Still haven't figured out that one...

Popular campgrounds would be stripped bare of dead wood on the ground in no time. Campers would likely start to cut branches off of trees in order to have firewood. Boy Scout camps typically allow the Scouts to take wood off the ground. What tends to happen is all of the decent firewood is gone in an instant. Many times the Scouts will try to burn either rotten or green wood because all the dry wood is long gone.

A number of the local Boy Scout camps have started to supply firewood. The wood comes from dangerous trees the camp ranger cuts down. The ranger and/or volunteers will split the wood into good firewood. Also, some of the local Boy Scout camps get truckloads of cut offs from Andersen Windows. The founders of Andersen were big supporters of the Boy Scouts, plus Andersen needs to do something with all the cut offs they generate.

[Bill Dufour]

Grape burns well and slow and hot almost like charcoal. Hard to get it going. here the big thing is almond. The trees are replaced in 25-35 year cycles.
What happened to burning corn?
Bill D

[mike stenson]

I normally just burn mesquite. I have enough of it, and it's just general maintenance. It's hot, and slow... splits worse than pecan/hickory though. The fire the other night was mostly red oak, walnut, some cherry, a couple sticks of poplar, and a chunk of hickory for good measure though.

[Edward Weber]

Grape burns well and slow and hot almost like charcoal. Hard to get it going. here the big thing is almond. The trees are replaced in 25-35 year cycles.
What happened to burning corn?
Bill D

Almond is great to burn. One of the highest btu rated woods (32.9), burns hot and long.

[Ron Citerone]

Grape burns well and slow and hot almost like charcoal. Hard to get it going. here the big thing is almond. The trees are replaced in 25-35 year cycles.
What happened to burning corn?
Bill D

Interesting Bill, Hear in Southeast PA I have never seen an almond tree or almond wood. And we have some grapes, but never heard of it used for firewood. We have so much other hardwood though.

[Stan Calow]

Grape vines, the woody ones, are sometimes used for smoking (BBQ) around here.

[Mark Wedel]

Eucalyptus is another hot burning wood that was planted throughout this area (Northern California) - those doing so thinking that as a fast growing tree, it would be good for lumber, and then learned the lumber from it isn't good quality and it is very hard on the tools. And now those trees tend to fall over in rain and wind storms.

Having grown some grape vines, as well as fruit trees (almond is a fairly close relation to peach), it would seem like it would take a long time to get any significant amount of grape wood. I suppose it could show up is a vineyard is tearing out all their old vines, but pruning of those doesn't leave a lot to grow year after year.

A coworker of mine used to buy almond wood on the basis it was more sustainable than oak (almond coming from the orchards that were being chopped down for whatever reason, where as oak is might be coming from some property with no plans to replant). I wonder of other fruit woods are available, given the central valley grows almost every type of stone fruit.

[Bruce Wrenn]

Owning a log splitter widens the choice of woods to burn. Stuff that you can't split by hand now becomes firewood. Biggest tree we ever split was a white oak that was felled in a hurricane. Measured right at four feet at chest height. Toughest was some gum logs. Impossible to split by hand.

[Bill Dufour]

The grape was old stuff ripped out to build a massive church and parking lot. About the size of my upper arm. Probably 70-80 years old.
Something like 95% of the USA almond production is within 50 miles. USA is about 80% of worldwide production.
Eucalyptus has something like 1,000 species. Some is good for furniture. Not what got planted in California. The blue Gum Eucalyptus plated at UC Berkeley. are the tallest hardwood trees in North America. I think planted about 1900. They are the kind that blow over. The other common one is red. Their roots are strong but the branches rot and fall off.
Bill D

[Derek Kessler]

Right, cherry is a quick, flashy show. I usually just do mesquite or hickory.

[Maurice Mcmurry]

What happened to burning corn?
Bill D

There is still plenty being burned in cars and trucks. It works well in pellet stoves. My Farmer friends pay close attention to the markets and futures and know exactly when to start using their produce for fuel. There is a lot of disappointment and grumbling when economics tell you "its time to start burning our crops". Our neighbors try hard to avoid selling to Poet.

[Edward Weber]

Interesting Bill, Hear in Southeast PA I have never seen an almond tree or almond wood. And we have some grapes, but never heard of it used for firewood. We have so much other hardwood though.

Where I live, there are nut orchards all around (not to mention grapes). Almonds can produce for 25-30 years, but after that, they call in the "orchard removal service", yes that's a real thing and sell the wood.

(I used to live in Bucks County)