which woods to use in your stove/fireplace

rhoda_bruce

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I am aware that a wood stove allows for more types of woods than a fireplace, due to it being a closed system. I grew up with a fireplace and when newly married and short on funds put in a boxwood stove and discovered, what I had always read to be true.....stoves are much better to have.
Well, I have a potbelly and DH......who is residing in the next town over, has a fireplace.
My godfather needed to get rid of 2 oaks. One is an evergreen. I honesly don't think it will matter. I really do believe I can burn it and maybe even DH. What do ya'll think?
But regardless of if anyone can answer my question, I had searched the forums and didn't come up with one devoted to this topic. So how about we share what all we have used and list them, so peeps can see at a quick glance.

I have used:
Oak (decidious)
Hackberry
Willow
Maple
Elm
Pecan

About the only rules I can recall about off limit wood are cypress, cedar and pines, due to creosote build-up and dangers of chimney fires. I really need to go out and split, so I can free up the trailer, cuz DS wants to go back to my godfather's tomorrow for the remainder of the wood, which is the trunk. I have mostly branches here now.
Really look forward to any and all responses. I know I have been away for a while....I didn't fall off the planet. Just super busy....crazy, really.
 

rhoda_bruce

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Not a bad thing to know, seeings as I have obtained some Eucalyptus (for medicinal uses only). I have never heard of madrone though.
 

Hinotori

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We use cedar and fir mostly. Lodgepole pine and tamarack are what my parents mostly used when I was growing up. Clean the chimney once a year and no issues with creosote, and that was with the old inefficient Blaze Princess my parents had.

We have a Lopi Endeavor we bought a few years ago. There is hardly any build up at all in the chimney. I only clean out the ash about once a month after it gets to about an inch deep. I think I had one ash can full of ash last year.

We don't have a lot of hardwood available here for firewood. I wouldn't use cottonwood in a stove. My eucalyptus trees winter killed last year except for 2 which died back to the ground. I did check on it's qualities before putting it in a burn pile. To much oil in it. A few twigs for starting a fire is about all want use.
 

Hinotori

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Cottonwood is super low on btus. Not worth the effort to cut and split it.

Douglas fir is the best we normally get. It's actually pretty good on the btus. There was only couple logs of cedar in the last batch we bought. I'd rather not burn cedar. The fir is the much better wood.

Fir splits pretty easy once it's dry. I prefer about 12 inch wide logs. I have a little 5 pound hand maul I split it with. The look my husband gave me when he first saw I was using that glorified hatchet was hilarious. He did not believe me that it was easier than swinging the big maul until he tried it. Nice sharp whack and log is in half. I cut our wood to about 2 to 3 inches wide. We have a pretty small firebox and I can load that size better. I only burn a fire once a day.
 

Denim Deb

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I burn mostly oak, but also burn cherry, red maple, hickory, walnut, and mulberry. Occasionally, I get some other woods, but not that often. And while I have a sassafras that I just cut down, it doesn't make the best firewood. It burns well, but burns quickly. It's fine if you want to just take the chill off, but not if you want a fire burning all day or all night.
 

rhoda_bruce

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DD........any type of oak? I have 2 types in question right now and DH is scared of the live oak.
 

Denim Deb

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We don't have live oak here, but I've burned black, southern red and white that I know of for sure and probably others. But from what I've read, as long as it's seasoned properly, live oak makes great firewood. It's just hard to split.
 

rhoda_bruce

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Well, some of the logs are a bit hard to split. Fortunately we cut the logs short, to fit inside a potbelly. If we were still using the boxwood, the extra inches would be really hard to split. Hoping this winter won't be as mean as last.
 
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