Oak My Gosh...More Wood!

[Caw]

JackPot! Great looking oak. All Hand Splittable looks like. The time saved having that dropped in driveway is Huge. And he gave you the good stuff, not the twisted knotty unsplittable junk.

Ha, and my wife is so addicted to the woodstove now, she would probably let me stack our whole backyard!

That's why I tip him well! I want to ensue he keeps bringing me the good stuff. It saves me a ton of work.

My wife and kids are both addicted too. I love it. She still won't give me any more yard though lol. She claims 15 cords is enough but we all know "enough"is not a measurable amount. Can always use more!

 

[bigealta]

After the load I'm going to search out some red maple/cherry for 24/25 shoulder season.

I'de suggest taking oak whenever possible. With limited space to stack you want the most btu per cord you can get, assuming obtaining and processing are equal. I used to burn lots of maple and cherry and other wood but now, if i have enough oak, i'll pretty much pass on anything other than oak. You can always just have smaller fires in the shoulder season. I think of it like if you only have a small safe to store all your money in. Do you want to fill it with pennies, quaters, singles, tens, twenties or hundreds? I don't have room for less than the best i can get my hands on.

I'm burning cherry right now from a few trees in my yard. I used to like it but i'm burning thru Soooo much faster than the oak. The stack is shrinking at an alarming rate!

Also I hand split, and most of the oak splits so easy and fast, cherry can be a hassle to split, our maple here is mostly norway so that's not a great burning wood, we don't get much red maple so don't know about that? Assume it's quite a bit more dense than the basically weedy norway maples we have down here.

 

[Mutineer]

The red maples we have here in NE Ohio are on the light, less dense side, I've never split Norway that I know of so I can't compare, but compared to sugar maple the red is much lighter. Agree also with the ash output observations, I can go 10-12 days burning red oak and the only reason I empty the ashes is that there are too many clinkers in the bottom of the box, not much ash. The maples and cherry all generate significantly more ash.

 

[Caw]

I'de suggest taking oak whenever possible. With limited space to stack you want the most btu per cord you can get, assuming obtaining and processing are equal. I used to burn lots of maple and cherry and other wood but now, if i have enough oak, i'll pretty much pass on anything other than oak. You can always just have smaller fires in the shoulder season. I think of it like if you only have a small safe to store all your money in. Do you want to fill it with pennies, quaters, singles, tens, twenties or hundreds? I don't have room for less than the best i can get my hands on.

I'm burning cherry right now from a few trees in my yard. I used to like it but i'm burning thru Soooo much faster than the oak. The stack is shrinking at an alarming rate!

Also I hand split, and most of the oak splits so easy and fast, cherry can be a hassle to split, our maple here is mostly norway so that's not a great burning wood, we don't get much red maple so don't know about that? Assume it's quite a bit more dense than the basically weedy norway maples we have down here.

I rarely say no to any hardwoods as my previous wood score posts can attest to lol. I am an addict. I do like having some maple/cherry around tho for a few reasons:

1. It dries in 1 season whereas oak takes 2-3 depending on split size/start MC. It's nice being able to turn around some good wood quickly incase the oak needs that extra year.

2. It ignites much faster on less coals. I can be more flexible with my reload times if I use one or two maple/cherry splits in a load of oak. For that reason it also makes better kindling. Dry maple/cherry splinters go up like paper.

3. It's native and abundant around me. Looking out my window I can see 50+ maple/oak/cherry/pine plus a lots of birch/ash/elm trees. I like to use what's local.

4. During shoulder season sure I can have smaller fires but the oak fires often last forever. Great during the cold, not a great when you just want a small burst. I can pack the stove with one or the other or even mix it all to get different heat/burn times.

5. I just like having a little of everything!

TLDR - Take all the good hardwood you can get and figure out the space/wife situation later!

 

[clancey]

I tell you let her know that it is less snow plowing for you in the winter time and wives are always "right" and just pile up the driveway with more good wood to make "less work" for yourself with the snow plowing when it comes--lol lol..old clancey

 

[clancey]

She should spank him in the wood house...clancey

 

[lml999]

Exactly! Perhaps you'd like to explain this to the wife.

Just tell her you're storing it for me, until you can drop it off. I'm just over the bridge in Sandwich.

 

[Caw]

Just tell her you're storing it for me, until you can drop it off. I'm just over the bridge in Sandwich.

Keep it local! Speaking of local, what's the wood situation like down on the cape? We have a place in Dennisport and all I see are pines and scraggly small oaks everywhere I look. It's gotta be hard getting decent wood.

 

[lml999]

Keep it local! Speaking of local, what's the wood situation like down on the cape? We have a place in Dennisport and all I see are pines and scraggly small oaks everywhere I look. It's gotta be hard getting decent wood.

Scraggly is pretty much what we have here. I source most of my wood via a guy in Plymouth.

 

[thewoodlands]

Nice work @Caw , that will be throwing some nice heat for you and your family once it's seasoned.

 

[bigdaddy100]

Keep it local! Speaking of local, what's the wood situation like down on the cape? We have a place in Dennisport and all I see are pines and scraggly small oaks everywhere I look. It's gotta be hard getting decent wood.

i from time to time get free oak maples scamore locus walnut etc

 

[Caw]

i from time to time get free oak maples scamore locus walnut etc

Cape Cod Pennsylvannia has good wood then!