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Thread: What's your preferred firewood source?

  1. #21
    Alaska, The Madness! 1stimestar's Avatar
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    Up here we have black spruce and birch. The spruce is the hottest burning but they are small. The birch is for long nights.
    Wood is $250 a cord here.
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  2. #22
    Senior Member alaskabushman's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by 1stimestar View Post
    Up here we have black spruce and birch. The spruce is the hottest burning but they are small. The birch is for long nights.
    Wood is $250 a cord here.
    Split dry yellow cedar here is $200 a cord. Hemlock is going for around $150.
    There ain't too many problems you can't fix with $500 or a 30-06.

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  3. #23
    Senior Member alaskabushman's Avatar
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    I noticed that many of you cut your wood on your own property. In my area of Alaska, private property tends to be small. My lot is less than an acre. However, the lack of private lands is balanced by LOTS of public land, and the hundreds of miles of old logging roads means endless places to go hunting for firewood.

    I live in the Tongass National Forest, the Forest Service allows people to cut wood for personal use and sale. As long as the tree is dead (standing or otherwise) then it is legal to cut. For resale a permit is required, but for personal use it is free.

    I do cut up the trees on my property when some come down. I had to fall 7 trees in order to get a satellite connection so I could finally get internet. These trees will all be firewood. Probably more than enough to fill the 8 cord capacity of my woodshed.
    There ain't too many problems you can't fix with $500 or a 30-06.

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  4. #24
    Senior Member hunter63's Avatar
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    I mostly cut my own, or lately buy it....out at the cabin....
    Gave away a lot of the elms the were dead standing....to a couple of neighbors....they were cutting and hauling away for themselves.

    I only asked they pile up any brush they did cut...but mostly they took the whole trees.

    One friend for 25 years, one of the first people we met at "The Place" was very sick, one winter, so couldn't work....I cut split and delivered, stacked, several loads.....to help out.

    Interesting enough, his wife...also a good friend, our bartender, EMT, emergency room nurse and helped take care of our dogs while I was having my excitement last fall.

    Good example or what goes around, come back around...

    I still have a good pile behind the garage, for the garage wood stove....
    Haven't used that stove lately......so that plie has been there awhile....so I need to use it before I lose it.


    Right now in the city and county...you can pick up off the curb...or go to many parks...to pick up all the blighted ash trees cut wood you want.

    Driving around in town.,..make you sick seeing all the dead trees everywhere...the ones on private property are the owner's responsibility.
    Many of these are in older neighborhoods...with older people on fixed incomes....but need to deal with them so they don't fall on their houses.....Big problem.

    Before the ash blight...parks would mark what trees they wanted cut...and you could put in for a permit.
    That became a insurance issue so they quit that and have them cut.....now you just pick it up...with a permit.

    Even the yard waste dump...on of my favorite "Lawn and Garden centers"...has a spot for people to drop off cut up trees, the big stuff....and anyone can pick u all they want.

    So you can drop off yard waste, then fill back up with ground tree mulch, or compost...as well as firewood ...for free.

    I have a few birch on the hill behind the cabin....but they are not a lot in that area...much more in northern Wisconsin....one of our deer hunting areas.
    Never really brought home much wood...but do collect the bark...and have vainly searched for chaga....for fire spark catcher.

    Nothing beats the wood heat for giving you that warm fuzzy feeling...literary.
    Last edited by hunter63; 04-06-2017 at 12:04 PM.
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  5. #25
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    We burn pine and some juniper because that's all your allowed to cut here. There is very little hard wood in the area and it's illegal to take it from the forest.
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  6. #26
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    A few years ago I brought home a few cords of oak from the nearby state forest here in PA. The price was $15 a cord. I hear it's gone up to $20. A permit is required. Only dead trees that don't have wildlife living in them can be taken, and the wood must be hand carried out to the road. Areas that are being marked for timber sale are off limits, and of course areas being logged are out. The price for commercial firewood harvest is higher, but state foresters will mark 10 cords in an area that can be brought out with a machine less than 30 HP at the commercial price.

    When we get the house to a point that we can start heating with wood again, we'll probably start buying logs delivered. Last time I checked, a tri-axle log truck stacked tight and high went for $650. I think it's the way to go for an old guy like me.

    Heat value of wood is proportional to weight assuming factors such as moisture content, stove efficiency, etc. are equal. So a cord or stove load of heavy wood will produce more heat than that of a light weight wood.

    I lean toward the oaks which are plentiful around here. Aside from it's weight it tends to split along the grain making for somewhat equal size from end to end. Some detractors would be smell and slow seasoning, though it dries faster when split.

    Aromatic woods include the hickories, apple, yellow birch, and maple to name a few. Hickory isn't too common around here. Apple is available from orchards, but being pruned for production, it tends to be crooked. Maple and yellow birch are common.

    Not too crazy about willow, poplar, or aspen due to their low heat value, but for the right price they make fine chill chasers before and after winter.

    Wood I don't like would be boundary trees due to hardware content, and street side trees because of hardware and large amounts of rot.

    For pure entertainment drop a length of green gum on the splitter and watch it steam while it screams. There is nothing entertaining about splitting gum by hand with it's curly grain that doesn't want to let go.


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  7. #27
    Senior Member kyratshooter's Avatar
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    Kid down the road, I say kid but he is 30 and has a 2 year old kid of his own, is taking out the big ash from the yard next door. By big I mean about 100 years old, over 3' in diameter and killed by Emerald Ash Boers last year, but still solid.

    The neighbors were fussing because it was going to cost them $500 to get it removed before it fell on something and did major damage. I told them to call down the road and our neighbor would remove it for the wood.

    He helped me take down two big ones two years back and I lost track of the number of truckloads he took home. He was driving a full sized Dodge and we filled it 5 or 6 time up to the top of the cab. He still as half of it left, and well aged.

    Now he has about 10 more truckloads in hand and will be good for another two years, the neighbors are thrilled they saved $500 and everyone is happy.
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  8. #28
    Senior Member hunter63's Avatar
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    Send him over....
    Got a couple of box elders that are overhanging the sheds.....look like PITA to get down without hitting something....by myself.

    LOL...
    Lots of dead ash......can't really make any money selling wood...too much a round....and cutting can be a legal bonding problem.
    Ash burns pretty well.
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  9. #29
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    Down here the choices are generally Live Oak or Mesquite and to a lesser extent, pecan. There are some people who burn wood for heat here, but not very many. I don't think I made a single fire in the fireplace last winter. Most of it is use to Bar-B-Que. #1 son runs a tree trimming/removal business and he sells to the area Bar-b-que joints. The wood is secondary to the removal/trimming. He gets $200/cord for green or dead. No hemming or hawing, no haggling about the price. He removes the tree, usually cuts up the smaller branches on the trailer he's using to haul it off and the cuts and splits the big stuff at his yard. Next stop is the B-b-que place to unload. There's one fellow about 8 miles from him that he made a helluva deal to. $100/cord for anything green or dead but he had to take it all, any time he had it. The guy complained about it. So, he told him, "No problem, I'll take it another 8 miles to the next place they'll give me $200 no questions asked.

    He does Okay. Works his butt off all day every day and makes a living.

    All I have to do is mention that I need Bar-b-que wood and he'll drop off a tub of the chips and small pieces form the splitting.

    Alan

  10. #30
    Senior Member Antonyraison's Avatar
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    Preferred wood is what ever is dry
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  11. #31

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    IF no trees went down that year... yeah, firewood is bought.

    We like seasoned oak, apple and cherry.






    Last edited by slide95; 03-12-2019 at 01:51 PM.

  12. #32

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    My father gets really good Oak and I stole some to use in my fireplace since the wood I purchased was green after being told it was seasoned

    Next season I am getting it from my father's delivery person even if I have to have it dropped at his house and pick it up myself. I searched CL, and drove around town and found nothing that seemed to fit the budget I was looking for and had little guarantee of the quality. I actually stopped at the place I bought my wood from to complain but still have not heard back from the message I left for the gentleman before Christmas. If I don't hear back by New Year's, he has lost a customer for many other things (shrubs, mulch, stone, etc.)









    Last edited by slide95; 06-27-2019 at 06:11 AM.

  13. #33
    Administrator Rick's Avatar
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    Well I'll be. I had no idea that New Year's came so late in Algeria. Here it is June and New Year's was month's ago. I guess in Algeria life moves slower and New Years just hasn't made it there yet. In that case, let me be the first to wish you a Happy New Year.

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