Outdoor Wood Furnace Info

All-Purpose OWF Discussions => Fire Wood => Topic started by: Hank on March 26, 2008, 09:42:48 PM

Title: The Best Wood
Post by: Hank on March 26, 2008, 09:42:48 PM: ::) Anyone have any ideas of which kind of wood is the best to burn, I have been burning a lot of sycamore and it does not do to bad. I also have used oak, locust. What wood last the longest. ;D
Title: Re: The Best Wood
Post by: willieG on March 27, 2008, 06:09:14 PM: Quote from: Hank on March 26, 2008, 09:42:48 PM
::) Anyone have any ideas of which kind of wood is the best to burn, I have been burning a lot of sycamore and it does not do to bad. I also have used oak, locust. What wood last the longest. ;D

a pound of wood has about 8600 BTU init...so if you have equally dry wood..the heavier wood (denser) will have more BTU in it and last longer

also if you burn wet wood (unseasoned) it will take about 1000 BTU to evaperate each pound of water that is in the wood...so you can see it is very important to burn only seasoned wood

i guess (only my interpritation) that means if you have a 100 pounds of dry oak (20 percent or less moisture)

100 pounds of wood produces 860,000 BTU..less 20,000 to evaperate the moisture..leaves you 840,000 BTU of heat
100 pounds of green wood (60 percent moisture) same amount of BTU 860,000 less 60,000...leaves you 800,000

according to the wood charts i have seen (they must take into account the moisture of 20 percent ..a cord of dry oak weighs about 4000 pounds and produces 25.7 million BTUs

so wet would be another 40 percent less BTU's per cord...about 10 million ..so wet wood would lessen your available heat to about 15 million from 25 million

if my math is right..burn dry wood

try the link for a firewood chart

http://mb-soft.com/juca/print/firewood.html
Title: Re: The Best Wood
Post by: RX7145 on March 28, 2008, 06:34:34 AM: Free and/or cheap wood seem to burn the best. So that is what I burn. :thumbup: ;D
Title: Re: The Best Wood
Post by: adamant on March 28, 2008, 01:55:06 PM: Quote from: RX7145 on March 28, 2008, 06:34:34 AM
Free and/or cheap wood seem to burn the best. So that is what I burn. :thumbup: ;D

amen ;D
Title: Re: The Best Wood
Post by: adamant on March 28, 2008, 02:43:04 PM: here is a link from another site..
http://www.ianrpubs.unl.edu/epublic/live/g1554/build/g1554.pdf
Title: Re: The Best Wood
Post by: willieG on March 28, 2008, 05:37:49 PM: nice page..lots of good info
Title: Re: The Best Wood
Post by: jcappe on March 31, 2008, 03:38:52 PM: great info and good link! I have access to some hardwoods, oak,hickory, walnut and such but my own personal land is filled with the softer stuff like maple, birch and willow type trees. I'm not to terribly concerned about running out because each storm we have there is more wood that falls than I can cut.
Title: Re: The Best Wood
Post by: charlie on March 31, 2008, 06:13:57 PM: IRONWOOD ;D
Title: Re: The Best Wood
Post by: MyLeakyWoodDoctor on February 06, 2009, 09:15:08 AM: Quote from: charlie on March 31, 2008, 06:13:57 PM
IRONWOOD ;D

You lucky bastard! :P

That's pretty dense wood!!! :thumbup:
Title: Re: The Best Wood
Post by: ckbetz on February 06, 2009, 10:48:03 PM: I have a little bit of Osage Orange on my property. It's the stuff that drops those big hedge apples. Anyway, it kinda resembles locust and I hear is great for fence post. You can cut a tree down, saw it up and throw it into your fire and it immediately starts to crack and pop and do it's thing. That stuff is as close to burning coal as anything I can think of. I'm thinking about planting it everywhere just to have to burn..hehehe
Title: Re: The Best Wood
Post by: John D on February 07, 2009, 07:14:12 PM: I am loving locust the best so far.It dries much faster than oak,it drops its own bark,speeding drying times even more.It also seems to come in 8-12"rounds perfect for the OWB without splitting,and it burns HOT and clean.