Of all the various wood you burn, which type of wood produces the most ash for you? For me, it’s black locust, excellent firewood, but sheesh the ash builds up quick. What say you?
Ash accumulation
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Maple for me.
Black locust without bark does not produce much ashes for me.
Black locust without bark does not produce much ashes for me.
Maple then Birch, but I might live under a rock because I have never seen most these hardwoods mentioned in here!
Yes, I am burning some soft maple now. It does produce more overnight coals, but a lot more ash than I normally deal with.
Dieselhead
Minister of Fire
Wisco Shepherd
Minister of Fire
Ash is aptly named. It produces a lot.
Thats really nice to be able to go that long between cleanings. Burning full time, I am scooping ashes out twice a week.
I don’t remember my BL creating a lot of ash, and I burn a lot with bark. I can say it’s by far my favorite to burn, however I’ve slowed down my usage for firewood because I’m saving it for outdoor wood projects. I absolutely stay away from poplar/cottonwood, boxelder, willow and basswood. But I’m lucky and have a lot of apple, and elm (3 yrs to season), hickory (2 yrs), cherry (3-6 mos) and thousands of black locust and maples should I ever run out!
I noticed this too, and I was curious about the etymology. It turns out that the two words (the tree vs. the leftover stuff in your stove) have different origins.
That's interesting that they come from different places. I always got more ash from Ash trees. The ash from Ash seemed to be finer in texture as well, which meant cleaning out the pipes and above the baffle more often as fly ash would accumulate quickly. Thanks to the EAB, I haven't burned any ash in 5-6 years after burning nothing but for the first 3-4 years I lived in my current house.
Caw
Minister of Fire
Talking hardwoods, for me red maple makes the biggest mess. Red oak makes the least mess while burning the hottest and long coaling. I find having a mix is key though. Burning 100% oak is nice and clean but when it gets super cold and it's time to push the stove you run into coaling issues and wish you had some less coaling, faster burning stuff. Variety is good!
But yeah. I love maple, I burn a ton of it, but it is very messy.
But yeah. I love maple, I burn a ton of it, but it is very messy.
The only real hardwood I have access to around here is locust, and otherwise burn doug fir and other Pacific Northwest wood species, so when I switch over to locust, much more ash in comparison. Virtually no ash with doug fir, kind of amazing really.
Does anyone have a practical use around the house for large quantities of ash? Garden certainly doesn't need it as the pH could use more acid. if anything. I have been dumping it into a small depression at the corner of my house where water tends to pool up and enter my basement. Other than that, I usually put it in my city trash.
Yep. Make sure it's cold, put it in pet food bags, duct tape them shut, put them in the trash. When burning hard I produce about 3 gallons a week.
I end up with about 25-30 gallons of ashes and in the spring I just spread them out over the lawn before it rains. Came from nature goes back to nature.
Ash will raise the ph of your soil, so if you have low ph, spreading ash on your lawn, garden, etc. is generally beneficial. If you already have a higher ph soil probably not a good idea. My soil is low ph, so i spread my ashes all over the place.
