Willow

[RORY12553]

One of my 1st scrounges was willow and now I know it wasn't one of the best. I don't have a lot of it but have enough. Should I mix it with some oak and maple in the seasoning pile to ensure that i'm not burning just willow or use it next fall or spring in the shoulder season? One nice part about the wood is that a lot was already split and the rest are small rounds that will be split very easily.

 

[eclecticcottage]

We used ours up for shoulder season when we first got the stove. Now we have more seasoning for the coming season, and more to split and get seasoning. Burns hot and fast, or so we found. Makes more ash than some other stuff. You could use it for shoulder season or whenever if you're home and don't mind feeding the stove more frequently. Or mix it with hardwoods, it will just burn faster than that. I'd still take it for free, but we aren't picky about species when scrounging.

 

[RORY12553]

I'm not picky either but just wasn't sure of the best way to utilize the wood. Will be spliting it this weekend and trying to clean the yard up before I get more wood.

 

[thewoodlands]

One of my 1st scrounges was willow and now I know it wasn't one of the best. I don't have a lot of it but have enough. Should I mix it with some oak and maple in the seasoning pile to ensure that i'm not burning just willow or use it next fall or spring in the shoulder season? One nice part about the wood is that a lot was already split and the rest are small rounds that will be split very easily.

RORY12553, I would use it for the shoulder season.


zap

 

[seeyal8r]

My favorite thing about willow is that it is light. Not much BTU's and I spend more time cooling the stove to take out the ashes than I do reaping the rewards of CSS. I have some and when a tree on my property dies I do burn it but I'm not letting any new ones grow back. Instead I'm planting oaks and cypress in their place.

 

[RORY12553]

My favorite thing about willow is that it is light. Not much BTU's and I spend more time cooling the stove to take out the ashes than I do reaping the rewards of CSS. I have some and when a tree on my property dies I do burn it but I'm not letting any new ones grow back. Instead I'm planting oaks and cypress in their place.

Thanks guys! live and learn. have mostly all hard woods right now but might hold some off to the side for the summer time for outside when the family wants to roast marshmallows and to keep the bugs away.

 

[eclecticcottage]

My favorite thing about willow is that it is light. Not much BTU's and I spend more time cooling the stove to take out the ashes than I do reaping the rewards of CSS. I have some and when a tree on my property dies I do burn it but I'm not letting any new ones grow back. Instead I'm planting oaks and cypress in their place.

Thanks guys! live and learn. have mostly all hard woods right now but might hold some off to the side for the summer time for outside when the family wants to roast marshmallows and to keep the bugs away.

Uh...you might want to rethink using it for marshmellows. It's usually kinda stinky when burned

 

[RORY12553]

My favorite thing about willow is that it is light. Not much BTU's and I spend more time cooling the stove to take out the ashes than I do reaping the rewards of CSS. I have some and when a tree on my property dies I do burn it but I'm not letting any new ones grow back. Instead I'm planting oaks and cypress in their place.

Thanks guys! live and learn. have mostly all hard woods right now but might hold some off to the side for the summer time for outside when the family wants to roast marshmallows and to keep the bugs away.

Uh...you might want to rethink using it for marshmellows. It's usually kinda stinky when burned

Great my neighbors should love me! Glad they aren't to close!

 

[ScotO]

you DEFINATELY don't want to use it for any kind of cooking. It smells like PISS when burning, can't imagine it tastes much better than it smells! :roll: Do like Zap said, make a stack for the shoulder season and use it then. It does burn hot, but it burns quick too. Great for every other day type of fires. And yes, your neighbors may think you burn diapers in your stove...... :lol:

 

[Wood Duck]

I would mix it in with the better wood. For me shoulder season means I want to start fires each evening and have them burn overnight, then probably reload in the morning for a quick warm up before I let the stove burn out. Willow is nice for the morning reload and I like to use it mixed with oak or similar wood in the evening becaues the willow starts up fast (but burns out fast). I wouldn't want to encounter a section of the wood pile that was all willow, I'd rather have a mix. I also don't mind having some lighter stuff mixed in during the winter. Sometimes it is nice to have a hot but shorter-lasting fire than I can get with oak or locust.

 

[Dune]

Willow is the one wood I can't bring myself to take.

 

[Gunks]

If you live in southern NY you are in the shoulder season. Burn those willow.

 

[RORY12553]

If you live in southern NY you are in the shoulder season. Burn those willow.

I'm in orange county which is south of you...it is FREEZING today so i'm not sure what defines shoulder season? It's not split yet so i can't use it for a while anyway

 

[eclecticcottage]

Willow is the one wood I can't bring myself to take.

:D I love people that won't take it, more for ME Seriously though, there's a tree company around here that posts on CL every so often for free "campwood". It's usually stuff like willow, pine, box elder-in other words, not the premo oak, locust, etc. I LOVE that, cuz a lot of folk won't bother with "camp wood" thinking it's junk wood, not fresh cut rounds. We figure we'll mix it with the hardwoods, and I'll pull it out for night and weekend burns when I can reload more often and save the "better" stuff for daylong/away from the house burns.

 

[Dune]

Willow is the one wood I can't bring myself to take.

:D I love people that won't take it, more for ME Seriously though, there's a tree company around here that posts on CL every so often for free "campwood". It's usually stuff like willow, pine, box elder-in other words, not the premo oak, locust, etc. I LOVE that, cuz a lot of folk won't bother with "camp wood" thinking it's junk wood, not fresh cut rounds. We figure we'll mix it with the hardwoods, and I'll pull it out for night and weekend burns when I can reload more often and save the "better" stuff for daylong/away from the house burns.

Glad I can help.
I am burning almost all pine this year. Burned up about 1/2 cord of oak before I got into pine only mode. Even this weekend when we had one night in the teens, I thought I would bring in some oak but didn't. I like poplar even better than pine, but seldom see any.
Willow just doesn't do it for me. One fell over my yard a few years back. I burned it but wouldn't waste gas money to go get it.
The pine I burn is dropped in my yard, bucked for free by tree services that don't want to pay the disposal fee. I still scrounged enough oak and hickory to burn a few years from now without much effort this year, which I am now splitting and stacking.

Trying to weigh the labor difference between scrounging half as much hardwood and processing and burning twice as much softwood.
So far it looks like I will keep scrounging the hardwood then taper off more towards pine as I get elderly.

I can be a little choosy about the wood I take since I am a few years ahead. By my reckoning I have the winter of '15-16' taken care of with hardwood alone. Any pine I burn between now and then will stretch that out even further.

If I were you I would continue to gather whatever wood is available as well, until you are a few years ahead. Just not willow.

 

[RORY12553]

Willow is the one wood I can't bring myself to take.

:D I love people that won't take it, more for ME Seriously though, there's a tree company around here that posts on CL every so often for free "campwood". It's usually stuff like willow, pine, box elder-in other words, not the premo oak, locust, etc. I LOVE that, cuz a lot of folk won't bother with "camp wood" thinking it's junk wood, not fresh cut rounds. We figure we'll mix it with the hardwoods, and I'll pull it out for night and weekend burns when I can reload more often and save the "better" stuff for daylong/away from the house burns.

Glad I can help.
I am burning almost all pine this year. Burned up about 1/2 cord of oak before I got into pine only mode. Even this weekend when we had one night in the teens, I thought I would bring in some oak but didn't. I like poplar even better than pine, but seldom see any.
Willow just doesn't do it for me. One fell over my yard a few years back. I burned it but wouldn't waste gas money to go get it.
The pine I burn is dropped in my yard, bucked for free by tree services that don't want to pay the disposal fee. I still scrounged enough oak and hickory to burn a few years from now without much effort this year, which I am now splitting and stacking.

Trying to weigh the labor difference between scrounging half as much hardwood and processing and burning twice as much softwood.
So far it looks like I will keep scrounging the hardwood then taper off more towards pine as I get elderly.


I can be a little choosy about the wood I take since I am a few years ahead. By my reckoning I have the winter of '15-16' taken care of with hardwood alone. Any pine I burn between now and then will stretch that out even further.

If I were you I would continue to gather whatever wood is available as well, until you are a few years ahead. Just not willow.

Honestly the willow was an error on my part. For the distance I had to go to get it it wasn't worth it. Only plus side is that a lot of it was already split. I have a little left to split just wanted to know how I should go about getting rid of it. Any scrounges I usually do have been hardwood and once I finish pickng up all the scrounges I have set up I should be way ahead. Just not enough time on the weekends right now to do everything.

 

[firefighterjake]

By my own account I'm three years ahead . . . and even now I will still burn the less desired wood such as willow, popple, basswood and the various softwoods . . . to me if the wood is dry and nicely seasoned . . . it will burn . . . and what burns will produce BTUs.

On these less desired wood species I would a) burn it in the shoulder season when you just need a quick fire to take the chill out of the air in the evening, b) mix it in with other wood during the course of the year (a lot of time this wood works very well when getting a fire going with small coals), c) just burn a load when you're home and don't mind reloading in a few hours or d) keep it aside for the times when you or your buddies come by looking for some wood to take camping since they know you're the "wood guy."

 

[eclecticcottage]

d) keep it aside for the times when you or your buddies come by looking for some wood to take camping since they know you're the "wood guy."

Hehehe...a good batch of Willow might just cure that habit, lol.

Although I didn't really notice the smell, but I wasn't outside either. We never really smell the stove in the house anyway. I will remember not to burn it in the Temco though!