White birch

[Welderman85]

My mom had a white birch come down the other day. Is it worth stacking for the stove or leave for camp fires

 

[peakbagger]

Unless a tornado dropped it it not worth much if it fell by itself. White birch rots from the top down and inside out. If the top branches are dead its probably already starting to rot. So unless its healthy and green, not worth grabbing. Its a nice intermediate BTU firewood. If cut and split quickly after cutting it dries quick.

 

[patrickk222]

personally i say use it unless its like super punky ive tossed quite a few blicks in ny stove and it started pretty easy and threw out some descent heat

 

[ABMax24]

I like white Birch, around here it's the primo stuff. But as already mentioned it's quite often rotten when it comes down by itself.

 

[Sawset]

Kind of what they said on Jurassic Park, "is it heavy, well then it's valuable".
Gnaw the bark a little with the saw to get it to dry. Or split it early. Otherwise it will turn hollow.

 

[kborndale]

Peel off the bark, that stuff makes an excellent fire starter.

 

[firefighterjake]

All of the LL Bean catalogs show beautiful people sitting around fireplaces with white birch in the fire and beside the fireplace . . . so it has to be good wood, right?

Actually I like white birch. My wife likes it even better. A mid-grade wood BTU-wise, it splits fairly easily and is decent enough for most burning. My wife mostly likes it since it "comes with its own fire starter" with the paper bark making a re-start fairly easy.

 

[hickoryhoarder]

If I'm up in Michigan, where I think you have a lot of hardwood like maple (maybe not so much oak or hickory), I'm more likely to put my energy into maples. If wood is scarce, white birch makes heat, and I like it for fires if it's not hollowed out.

Yellow birch seemed promising to me when I was up in the UP, but never tried it for firewood.

 

[firefighterjake]

If I'm up in Michigan, where I think you have a lot of hardwood like maple (maybe not so much oak or hickory), I'm more likely to put my energy into maples. If wood is scarce, white birch makes heat, and I like it for fires if it's not hollowed out.

Yellow birch seemed promising to me when I was up in the UP, but never tried it for firewood.

If I remember correctly, yellow birch is better than white birch and up there in terms of BTU . . . plus it smells really nice when you split it.

 

[MongoMongoson]

When I lived in the UP, white birch was considered to be pretty poor firewood. Burns fast, rots fast... keep in mind the woods there are full of sugar maple, ironwood, yellow birch, black cherry, red oak, and the like. Now I am much less fussy and I am happy to take white birch if it is solid and throw it on the pile. I just make sure to split it right away. I think it is just fine and compliments well some of the longer burning hardwoods I have.

Yellow birch is some very good firewood. I don't know where it sits on the btu chart, but to me it is right up there with sugar maple.

White birch is the best at looking pretty, and widowmakers. Others have mentioned the tops die and rot. Those dead tops can be killers when you are dropping white birch.

 

[Woodsplitter67]

Birch has its uses. If its not punky you need to split it and stack it ASAP before it rots..

 

[Simonkenton]

Hiawatha made his canoe from birch bark.

 

[peakbagger]

Birchbark is quite waterproof and rot resistant. That is one of the reason birch rots so fast. Wrap a piece of wet wood with plastic wrap and will rot as quick.

There is company in New England that buys birch bark stripped from trees before they are harvested. They sell the bark to interior designers and usually sell out.

 

[Bad LP]

Yellow birch burns fine. Right next to the maple. 😝

 

[peakbagger]

Hard to kill a yellow birch, the old ones get dense growth rings but boy can they be B*tch to split.

 

[SpaceBus]

Living in a spruce/fir forest I'm always happy to find a dead birch in good enough shape to burn. If you live in an area with plenty of ash, maple, and oak, then it might not be worth your trouble. On my property dry birch is about as good as it gets.