[AT] firewood

[Ralph Goff]

Ed Stewart wrote:
> Hi, I live about ten mile west of the eastern continental divide in PA. 
> I heat with wood and backup with oil. I burn redoak, black or 
> rockoak,and whiteoak, Black birch(which I like best because of the 
> amount of charcoal it makes) Soft maple, hard or sugar maple, beech, 
> black cherry some popular, cucumber. the eastern pines have to much 
> pitch even though they burn hot, they will load the chimney with cresote 
> and then catch fire. which has burned many houses in its day. My furnace 
> is outside the house and all the mess stays out there also which is much 
> better than it used to be with the stoves indoors. We also have a lot of 
> quaking aspen here but it will not burn till dry and then it burns like 
> gunpowder, 

Ed (and Mark) the poplar we use here is also known as "trembling aspen" 
and it makes very good firewood when properly dried. True, it burned out 
fairly fast in the old inefficient wood stoves but my brother has one of 
the new airtight units and a poplar block lasts a long time in there and 
gives excellent heat. Beavers like it too and will clean out a bush 
pretty quick if not controlled. We found from experience that 
water-logged beaver wood takes almost forever to dry enough to burn and 
is not worth the trouble of hauling home.

The best poplar wood is cut green, left to dry with the branches on and 
next year branched and hauled in to saw to stove lengths. We have also 
found good results from fire killed poplar although its dirty to handle.
Black poplar is not as good. Maple makes very good firewood but it 
doesn't grow in the wild here. All the maples locally were planted by 
somebody although when one dies off or blows down in the wind we will 
cut it up for firewood.
I've got a few more old time wood cutting photos that I hope to post one 
of these days.

Ralph in Sask.
>