What Are We Burning This Season?
- Thread starter Caw
- Start date
-
Active since 1995, Hearth.com is THE place on the internet for free information and advice about wood stoves, pellet stoves and other energy saving equipment.
We strive to provide opinions, articles, discussions and history related to Hearth Products and in a more general sense, energy issues.
We promote the EFFICIENT, RESPONSIBLE, CLEAN and SAFE use of all fuels, whether renewable or fossil.
Has the first fire last night. Mostly pine with a few Ash splits mixed in. Monday it is suppose to only get to 50 so will be burning more then. Right now the days are in the 60's and nights in upper 40's so will be burning sporadically for a bit.
Loaded up over a cord of beech this summer. So I am thinking it might be ready in 2025.
Second season using my PE Vista and got 4 cords stacked. Still have some old cherry to use up. My wood will be much better this year. Checked some oak I have and coming in at 16%. Last year I mixed in some Redstones to the mix. This year will cut back on the wood bricks. Got a nice mix of red oak, ash, maples and cherry so I’m good to go. Had the class A cleaned by a sweep in May and said everything looked good just powder which came off with the soot eater.
I've got the porch stacked and ready for this winter. Lot's of shagbark hickory, red oak, honey locust, and a little ash and hard maple. Haven't started a fire yet, just letting the geothermal take the load for now. Our ash is getting punky fast now, I'm going to build a big wood shed and get as much cut and split so I can enjoy it for a few more years.
The year of 2023 will go down in my history book as a shytshow of a year. I guess my rooster getting killed on new year's day was forshadowing haha. Getting laid off from work, going through couple illness and getting on short term disability, getting a new job offer rescinded, begging land lord to let me continue rent...
all in all means I have done crap job stocking fuel. My burn strategy this year -
1. Shoulder seasons (Oct - Nov, Mar - April) - I need to burn probably 12~16hrs per day. I'll probably light a new fire each day. Bottom of stove will be loaded with huge beech splits that was blown over last winter and that I'm splitting as we speak. Top of stove will be loaded with biobricks. Idea is that as soon as I light the stove, it will be burning very dry fuel (bricks) while moisture is slowly baked out of beech. Tried this strategy last night, bricks caught on in about 5min with vigorous secondary activity by 10min, eventually beech fired about an hour later. Very vigorous secondary for about 3 hours, flames for about 5 hours total, and maintained significant heat output for >12hrs with a small partial reload of bricks.
To do: need to get a pallet of bricks, but by now most places are sold out. Need to figure out an alternative compressed fuel. Also will need to split about a cord of huge beech splits.
2. Continuous burn seasons: (Nov - Mar): I think I'll need about 2~3 cords plus half pallet of bricks. I got about 1 cord of dried locust. I'll probably end up taking delivery for 2 cords of green firewood that I'll mix in with the locust. Assuming a 25% MC in the green wood, a 50/50 split of green wood with locust + 3, 4 bricks filling in the nooks in stove will give me an average MC per load of <20%. Not ideal but it'll work.
all in all means I have done crap job stocking fuel. My burn strategy this year -
1. Shoulder seasons (Oct - Nov, Mar - April) - I need to burn probably 12~16hrs per day. I'll probably light a new fire each day. Bottom of stove will be loaded with huge beech splits that was blown over last winter and that I'm splitting as we speak. Top of stove will be loaded with biobricks. Idea is that as soon as I light the stove, it will be burning very dry fuel (bricks) while moisture is slowly baked out of beech. Tried this strategy last night, bricks caught on in about 5min with vigorous secondary activity by 10min, eventually beech fired about an hour later. Very vigorous secondary for about 3 hours, flames for about 5 hours total, and maintained significant heat output for >12hrs with a small partial reload of bricks.
To do: need to get a pallet of bricks, but by now most places are sold out. Need to figure out an alternative compressed fuel. Also will need to split about a cord of huge beech splits.
2. Continuous burn seasons: (Nov - Mar): I think I'll need about 2~3 cords plus half pallet of bricks. I got about 1 cord of dried locust. I'll probably end up taking delivery for 2 cords of green firewood that I'll mix in with the locust. Assuming a 25% MC in the green wood, a 50/50 split of green wood with locust + 3, 4 bricks filling in the nooks in stove will give me an average MC per load of <20%. Not ideal but it'll work.
In the past month I've burned up all my shoulder season wood which was kept in my tool shed all summer. It gets super hot and humid in there in the summer and I'll put odd shaped pieces and Y-shaped pieces and pieces with knots in them that were too hard to split. Now I'm burning mostly ash and cherry and beech and will be until it gets super cold when I'll start burning some of the red oak supply I've built up the past few years.
I have access to as many cords of seasoned black locust that I want, just have to pay a little more for it so I'll probably get 1-2 cords of BL and the rest a mix.
Mostly red oak this year, and every year (pic from 2 winters ago when my oak was still reddish).
JamesGuido
Feeling the Heat
Shoulder Season Wood = White Pine / 15 face cord for this heating season if needed.
Until it gets real cold = Ash, Soft Maple
The coldest part of our winter = Beech / 6 face if needed but usually we burn 2 in a cold winter, Ironwood or Hardhack (the oldtimers here call it hardhack) 2 face if needed but we usually burn 1 and we have 2 of Sugar Maple if needed.
We also have the pellet stove but we usually save that for minus temps for the overnight heat.
Until it gets real cold = Ash, Soft Maple
The coldest part of our winter = Beech / 6 face if needed but usually we burn 2 in a cold winter, Ironwood or Hardhack (the oldtimers here call it hardhack) 2 face if needed but we usually burn 1 and we have 2 of Sugar Maple if needed.
We also have the pellet stove but we usually save that for minus temps for the overnight heat.
Your ironwood… hop hornbeam (has catkins like birch and stringy bark) or the hornbeam with smooth bark and muscle knots?
![[Hearth.com] What Are We Burning This Season?](https://www.hearth.com/talk/data/attachments/317/317518-34f7d7178b09709e416e17c27f5b0bef.jpg?hash=6AL6xZvgna "[Hearth.com] What Are We Burning This Season?")
![[Hearth.com] What Are We Burning This Season?](https://www.hearth.com/talk/data/attachments/317/317519-a832a45c14787f269778d58431b3f0ea.jpg?hash=P3N4ivdYFB "[Hearth.com] What Are We Burning This Season?")
Beer Belly
Minister of Fire
A coworker had a dead ash tree laying in backyard for about 3 years that I brought home this weekend. Hand split about ~1 cord of ash, around 22% MC. It's now stacked and going to be my main wood source along with biobricks.
Wisco Shepherd
Minister of Fire
Pine first then Ash, my ash is still sitting at 22-24% so the plan is to move it into the garage which has in floor heat 1 face cord at a time with a fan then move it to the porch for stove use and start a new garage "batch" (I know this is a lot of handling but ill make it work for my first year burning). Hoping a few weeks of that will knock it off a touch more.
kennyp2339
Minister of Fire
I have the regular ash, maple, oak, cherry mix, but new to me in abundance is elm and hickory, still have about 2 week's worth of black locust just incase the real cold comes in.
