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[mtoll]

Is cherry a hard wood how well does it burn fast slow etc

[CountryBoyJohn]

I have the same question! I hear guys raving about it all the time, but it's BTU rating is worse than soft maple! 18 million BTUs per cord! That's not that great! I actually have a chance to cut quite a bit of it, but I'm not sure how worth it it is!

[mlappin]

In a pinch you can burn cherry green.

I'd think it'd be better than soft maple though, especially considering the weight difference when it's dry

[Scott7m]

Its def heavier than soft maple...  Ive been burning quite a bit of it and I do consider it a quality firewood.  Its not oak, but does a lot better than most

[Sluggo]

I agree with Scott,I don't think twice about burning it.

[juddspaintballs]

Cherry burns great.  In fact, I love burning pretty much all fruit trees.  They grow slow and have a very dense hard wood and they usually smell really good burning too.  I burn a lot of bradford pear wood by nature of the family tree business and the fact that they split and break apart in the wind very easily.  It's very heavy and slow burning, but a royal PITA to split.  It "chunks" rather than splits down the grain like a good piece of red oak but if you load your boiler up with pear wood it'll usually burn longer than oak in my experience.  I only split it if I can't lift it 

[CountryBoyJohn]

Thanks guys! I have a fence row full of cherry I have to get out before the excavator gets it!

[free heat]

Cherry is a great burning wood. The real benefit that I see in cherry is that it seasons really quick, like only a few months if it has been split. Where I live it's pretty plentiful and in my top 5 in preference.
My Wisconsin top 5 hardwoods to burn
1. Hickory hands down tons of btus and many hours of burn time
2. Oak Red or White a close 2nd to hickory
3. Hard maple
4.Cherry good heat just doesn't give you as good of a coal bed
5. American elm tons of heat but also tons of ash

[mlappin]

American elm...don't hear much of people liking that one, most likely because its a b*tch to split. Chinese elm isn't worth cutting, while I prefer red elm over oak when I can get it.

Burn mostly elm, oak, and wild cherry here.

[doow14]

cherry seasoned 6 or 8 months is good stuff I never pass it up,lots of it here in ohio. Way better than soft maple.Imo

[AirForcePOL]

I've been burning and cutting quite a bit of cherry lately.   A guy I know had his property logged and there's all kinds of cherry out there.   A lot of it is already at %20.

[wissel12]

I'm also going to clear a fence row of cherry. A lot of them are ugly trees. They don't grow there nice in a
fence row. So coming down.

[jrider]

Nothing wrong with cherry.  In fact, for the fire place people out there, it's considered primo wood by many and will bring top dollar because of its aroma when being burned.

[Sprinter]

This is one thing we need on this site, is a whole complete list of species and but content.
I see no one has mentioned that there are many,many specie of cherry. Some will make oak look like poplar. We have a lot of orchards in Michigan, and there are some cherry that you can't split by hand and even give a splitter plenty of strain. You can't even pound a nail in it.
The heavier the better wood.
With what we have here, 1 piece of cherry is equal to 3 red oak in the fire.

[CountryBoyJohn]

This is the chart I use:  http://thelograck.com/firewood_rating_chart.html  There was another one I used to use, but they did some weird adjustments based on the voids in a cord that I didn't like.  So, I just use this one now.