Big or Small/Aspen and Basswood

[thewoodlands]

Aspen and Basswood burn fast so would you cut and split so it's bigger or does it burn to hot, so you should make your splits smaller for burning in a woodstove (Liberty).


Zap

 

[smokinj]

not sure how this will compare but in my furnace softer woods I use bigger splits

 

[SolarAndWood]

I do both. Small stuff to use as a base layer at reload time and big stuff when you want to get more burn time out of it.

 

[Backwoods Savage]

Bigger is better if you have the right sized firebox. Also consider leaving some in log form rather than splitting as they will hold even longer.

 

[Wood Duck]

I think bigger - you'll get more wood in the stove with less surface area using a few large instead of many small splits, and the larger splits will last longer. Also, aspen and basswood season pretty fast, so no need to split small to make sure they are ready to burn on time (assuming you are splitting for next year).

 

[CowboyAndy]

the majority of mine is BIG, to get longer burn times out of it. but i also find myself having to really reduce the air because it burns so hot.

 

[lexybird]

bigger and in log form *BUT be sure its good and dry ,most wood takes forever and day to season in log form

 

[firefighterjake]

Aspen and Basswood burn fast so would you cut and split so it's bigger or does it burn to hot, so you should make your splits smaller for burning in a woodstove (Liberty).


Zap

Around here poplar and basswood are considered "junk wood" . . . but that's OK for me . . . others may not value it, but I think all wood has a proper place and time to be burned.

If this is all I was burning I would have a mix of large and small splits . . . small splits to get the fire established and large splits for longer burns.

If this was just extra wood to go along with my mix of hardwood I would use this wood in the shoulder season, to get the fire going or during the day time when I was around the fire since this wood tends to burn up quickly. In this case I would go for a mix of small to medium sized splits myself and use the better stuff (i.e. maple, oak, elm, etc.) whenever I was going away for a while or going to sleep.

 

[LLigetfa]

Around here poplar and basswood are considered "junk wood" . . . but that's OK for me . . . others may not value it, but I think all wood has a proper place...

Before I had a woodshed and before I started using pallets, I would build a base out of junk wood to keep my good wood up off the ground. Later, when I built my shed I didn't know what to do with all that junkwood that was starting to get punky. It was too much effort to drag out to the bush to rot and too wet for the burn pile so I bucked it up and stacked it in the shed. Burned it a few years later as it was wasting space.

 

[JBinKC]

It really depends if I had a limited supply I would tend to split it small and use it as a fire starter and for use during the shoulder season. If I had an abundance of it and forced to use it in the dead of winter. I would keep that portion of it on the large side and mix it with your higher btu species where all the corresponding firewood pieces of the same length would approximately weigh the same fully seasoned.