Burning Bark?

[xman23]

After the last 12 days of below 0 nights, I'm looking to put anything in the stove that will produce heat. We have discussed bark from time to time, but has anyone done a test to determine the BTU value of bark? Most of my wood is oak, seasoned 3 years or more. By the time I'm burning it, about a third has the bark off. As it falls off I mulch the yard with it.

Question is, should we be saving the bark and loading the stove with it?

 

[robk]

If it’s dry, it should put off heat. Maybe I’m wrong but I’d say go for it. Curious to what others know.

 

[toddnic]

If it's dry, it will burn. I burn plenty of splits with bark on them and there are times that I'll throw a handful of bark in the wood stove. Bark is fuel....if it's dry, it'll burn

 

[begreen]

Bark burns. It often is full of silica, so you may see an increase in clinkers in the ash, but it does burn and provides heat.

 

[jetsam]

I have heard people claim that bark burns hotter/longer than the rest of the wood, but nobody seems to know why. That's a pretty good indication that whatever well-known wisdom you're recieving is in fact a big load of poo.

I've personally never tried doing a full load of bark, but I'd be interested to hear about it if someone else wants to save up a stoveful and burn it!

I always pick it up if it falls off- it's thin so it always fits in the stove somewhere.

 

[yooper08]

Here’s some reading on the topic:
https://ir.library.oregonstate.edu/downloads/6682x523q

My short summary, it definitely has BTUs but generally twice the ash content than wood. To see, I checked their oak value against the wood value, and the bark, pound for pound, has more BTUs. As with wood, species matters.

 

[electrathon]

I burn it all the time. Usually Fir, can be more than 2" thick. It burns well, fills the stove with ash though. It is a lot better than throwing it away.

 

[Rearscreen]

White birch bark is my girlfriends go to firestarter. Dry, it really goes up. Turns out there is tar in it and the Native Americans knew that. Also anti cancer properties? Not going to touch that all I know it starts my fires. Speaking of which, my stove has been going continuously for how long now?

 

[begreen]

Birch bark has many cool properties. Birch bark and white willow bark contain salicin which is the precursor to salicylate, the component of aspirin that relieves pain and inflammation.

 

[Blazing]

Almost all the bark on my oak comes off as I bring it in. I use it for short hot fires or burning coals down. Just this morning I burned some coals down three pieces of bark brought the the stove up around 450 so yeah it makes short heat.

 

[cjgoode]

Various barks from my logs, we use to start fires or in the fire pit. When dry they light easy burn well, but in my experience burn very fast compared to logs.

 

[Dobish]

i have a whole pile of elm bark that will probably go in a bonfire at some point. I only burn it if it is on the pile. I tried to use it as a fire starter, but it held a lot of moisture. Now that it is a bit more dried out, it might be better. Every so often I will throw a pile in the stove, but it smokes a ton!

 

[Highbeam]

My experience burning thick fir bark is that it smokes heavily before ignition and then puts out a lot of heat as it burns. Not much ash but more than the fir wood. I save it and use it in the shop stove.