"Brian Barnson" wrote in message
news:0LXNd.318790$6l.98366@pd7tw2no...

"SteveW" wrote in message
. com...
I need to find a type of tree to plant that will give me good quality
firewood in a short amount of time. Someone mentioned Poplar to me.
Does
anyone have any recommendations?

Depends on where you live. Around here (Pacific Northwest) Alder
and Bigleaf Maple grow relatively quickly. Birch is wonderful for
firewood and Poplar is the nastiest wood I've ever split.
Brian, in Cedar



Birch is pretty firewood, but it all depends on what the OP is after - a
nice fireplace log or a good woodstove log. Birch is pretty much useless in
the woodstove, but it does produce some nice looking flames.
--

-Mike-

"Mike Marlow" wrote in message
...

Those of us that either have burned woodstoves in the past or still do,
might take exception with that comment George. Unlike the Ford and Chevy
debate, wood does indeed have certain very identifiable properties when it
comes to it use as firewood. Some burns fast with low heat output, some
the
opposite, and this is characteristic of the tree, not an individual
experience. No one is going to get the BTU's and the longevity and the
coals out of a nice chunk of pine that can be gotten out of a piece of
maple. It's just not a subjective thing. While you last statement is
true
for most woods (ash being just one example of the exception), there is
indeed more to the matter than whether the wood is dry. At least if
you're
interested in really getting heat from the stuff..
--

Sadly incorrect. A pound of wood is pretty much a pound of wood, though
conifers generally yield a bit more per pound because of the volatiles.

The difference is in inconvenience. Poplar is not caller gofer (gopher)
wood for nothing, but the heat it produces per pound is based primarily on
carbon, just like hickory. The trick is to burn and capture that heat
efficiently. The stoves are skewed toward convenience, not efficiency.
Your gas furnace doesn't damp the flame, it just burns it in spurts. With
wood you've got a big pilot light to feed.

Folks back in the old country used to sleep on the stove, which was a long
brick/mortar or mud construct designed to burn grass and twigs - rapidly -
which got the greatest thermal benefit out of them. The mass of the stove
captured BTUs pretty well, and kept things bearable, if not toasty, through
the night.

"SteveW" wrote in message
. com...
I need to find a type of tree to plant that will give me good quality
firewood in a short amount of time. Someone mentioned Poplar to me. Does
anyone have any recommendations?

Thanks

Steve
Poplar is not a very good firewood. It will create lots of cresote in the
chimney.
I know from experience. I loaded my stove one night and closed the dampers
so it would burn slow and last all night.
The next morning cresote had formed on the door and was running out the
door.
It looked like tar.

Virgle

On Mon, 07 Feb 2005 17:55:58 GMT, "SteveW"
wrote:

I need to find a type of tree to plant that will give me good quality
firewood in a short amount of time. Someone mentioned Poplar to me. Does
anyone have any recommendations?

Thanks

Steve

Since you are a wooddorker, you must make sawdust.

"Pressed sawdust firelogs. These are made from tightly compressed 100%
pure wood sawdust, without the addition of waxes, chemicals or other
additives. Pound for pound, these give even more heat than natural
firewood – 8500 BTU per pound in comparison with 6400 BTU for natural
wood. They can be used in fireplaces, woodstoves, inserts, and
campfires. All in all, these firelogs give all the heat and more of
natural wood, and have the convenience of popular wax firelogs."

http://www.worldwise.com/firorfir.html




tjwatson1ATcomcastDOTnet (real email)
http://home.comcast.net/~tjwatson1 (webpage)

Do what I do:

My fireplace burns quite nicely on skid wood.

I make regular pickups of skids from local merchants who are glad to be rid
of them. Every now and then, you even find some wood good enough to use in
the shop. Most of it is softwood, but hardwood isnt' uncommon. It's free
and it's a replaceable supply - you just have to spend 20 minutes with a
cordless circ saw out in the garage cutting it up.

PS - all my workshop "errors" end up in the fireplace too!



Brian


"SteveW" wrote in message
. com...
I need to find a type of tree to plant that will give me good quality
firewood in a short amount of time. Someone mentioned Poplar to me. Does
anyone have any recommendations?

Thanks

Steve

On Tue, 8 Feb 2005 08:19:10 -0500, "Mike Marlow"
wrote:



George - please ignore my other reply to you. I do believe I completely
missed you point. I knew I heard this buzzing sound over my head...

me too! I think it was the black helicopters..


mac

Please remove splinters before emailing

On 08 Feb 2005 09:03:48 GMT, otforme (Charlie Self)
wrote:

The old faithfuls are around for a reason: they burn readily when dry, they
produce little (comparatively) ash, and they burn at a reasonable speed,
allowing a fire to be banked for the night, or for one load of wood during a
cold day to provide heat for four to six hours.

I hate to argue with Charlie, but in this case all the people weighing
in on the firewood debate seem to be from areas where hardwoods reign.
The truth is that if it will burn, it will heat. Dryer is better, and
some woods work better than others, but essentially anything you can
cram in the stove or fireplace will make heat.

For most of my life I've heated with wood. The ones I've used the most
are fir, spruce, pine and alder. The alder was occasionally mixed with
madrone and was when I lived in the Puget Sound area of Washington
state. *All* of these woods produced plenty of heat and, if well
dried, had no particular creosote problems. When I burned a lot of
pine I would run the stove wide open for a half hour or so twice a day
to burn off any build-up. Only once had to clean the chimney in 11
years in that house - and we heated 2500 square feet of uninsulated
farm house in NE Washington state solely with wood for those years.

If you want fast firewood alder, poplar, aspen or cottonwood all will
work. They will need to be well dried to approach efficiency, and will
take more cords than some of the "better" woods, but they *will* work.
During my time in the Puget Sound area a local forester suggested that
if you had a reasonably efficient stove and an insulated house you
could supply yourself perpetually with wood *in that climate* from one
acre of ground, properly managed. The primary source of wood would
have been aspen, because they would grow 5-10 feet per year and add an
inch or more in diameter each year.

All the OP needs is a fast-growing tree that will produce wood. Yes,
fast-growing means probably at least 10 years to firewood production,
but if you plant heavily you can begin thinning at 5 years and be
getting at least part of your wood after that. Constant re-planting
and careful management should result in a perpetual firewood supply
thereafter.

Tim Douglass

http://www.DouglassClan.com

"B Man" writes:

Do what I do:

My fireplace burns quite nicely on skid wood.

I make regular pickups of skids from local merchants who are glad to be rid
of them. Every now and then, you even find some wood good enough to use in
the shop. Most of it is softwood, but hardwood isnt' uncommon. It's free
and it's a replaceable supply - you just have to spend 20 minutes with a
cordless circ saw out in the garage cutting it up.

I've burnt pallet wood before. If they are the common softwood pallets,
it is hardly worth the effort to cut them up. The wood burns up in no
time. Hardwood pallets are much better, but the wood is sometimes better
off in the woodshop.

Brian elfert

In article , Tim Douglass wrote:

I hate to argue with Charlie, but in this case all the people weighing
in on the firewood debate seem to be from areas where hardwoods reign.
The truth is that if it will burn, it will heat. Dryer is better, and
some woods work better than others, but essentially anything you can
cram in the stove or fireplace will make heat.

Well, yes, of course -- but the point is that some woods do a better job of
making heat than others. I hope you don't mean to suggest that aspen and
cottonwood make just as good firewood as hickory and white oak.

--
Regards,
Doug Miller (alphageek at milmac dot com)

Nobody ever left footprints in the sands of time by sitting on his butt.
And who wants to leave buttprints in the sands of time?

"Tim Douglass" wrote in message
...
On 08 Feb 2005 09:03:48 GMT, otforme (Charlie Self)
wrote:

The old faithfuls are around for a reason: they burn readily when dry,
they
produce little (comparatively) ash, and they burn at a reasonable speed,
allowing a fire to be banked for the night, or for one load of wood during
a
cold day to provide heat for four to six hours.



I think too, that one has to consider the point of diminishing return. I
normally only burn Oak and Hickory but if it only burns 30% longer and
hotter than a wood that is half the price you need to draw the line some
where.

B Man responds:


Do what I do:

My fireplace burns quite nicely on skid wood.

I make regular pickups of skids from local merchants who are glad to be rid
of them. Every now and then, you even find some wood good enough to use in
the shop. Most of it is softwood, but hardwood isnt' uncommon. It's free
and it's a replaceable supply - you just have to spend 20 minutes with a
cordless circ saw out in the garage cutting it up.

PS - all my workshop "errors" end up in the fireplace too!


And most trucking companies will be delighted to let you pick up used pallets
and take them home. Just ask at the dispatch office. They have to pay to have
the stuff hauled away.

Charlie Self
"I think we agree, the past is over." George W. Bush

Yes, it hardly ever is a good idea to grow your own firewood.

However it is not true that all tree species are equal.
Some species will give more useful firewood than others (books do exist).
Mostly everybody who was seriously engaged with such things used a coppicing
system (rotation times much shorter than thirty years). But it is hard work.
There are easier ways of getting firewood.
PvR

* * *
Doug Miller schreef
Principal recommendation: abandon the idea, on two grounds.

First, the best firewood comes from slow-growing trees such as oaks,
hickories, and sugar maples. The wood of fast-growing trees is inherently
less dense, and hence does not make as good firewood, as the wood of
slow-growing trees. Poplar specifically is not good firewood; it burns
rapidly, and has little fuel value.

Second, and more important, you will not get a reasonable *quantity* of
firewood "in a short amount of time" from *any* tree that you plant. That
just doesn't happen. Not by _human_ standards, anyway. Thirty years *is* "a
short amount of time" _to_a_tree_.

Secondary recommendation: there are ways of getting cheap firewood, as
long as you're willing to work for it. If your city or state government
removes a tree, you may be able to get the wood just by asking for it (as
long as you're able to haul it away). If you have a chainsaw, you could
offer to cut up fallen trees (or limbs) for your neighbors after a storm, in
exchange for the wood. In some states, you can get firewood *very* cheaply
in state-owned forests. Here in Indiana, for example, the state sells
logging rights to commercial timber harvesters. The commercial guys are
usually interested only in the first 30-40' of trunk, and they leave the
rest on the ground. After they're done, Joe Citizen can come in and take
whatever he wants for three bucks a pickup truck load.

--
Regards,
Doug Miller (alphageek at milmac dot com)

Nobody ever left footprints in the sands of time by sitting on his butt.
And who wants to leave buttprints in the sands of time?

"Charlie Self" wrote in message
...
B Man responds:


And most trucking companies will be delighted to let you pick up used
pallets
and take them home. Just ask at the dispatch office. They have to pay to
have
the stuff hauled away.

I think that all depends on where you look. In the Housotn area our company
used to get 15 to 25 pallets weekly. We sold them for $2 each and they had
to come and get them ALL with no culling throug for the good ones.




Charlie Self
"I think we agree, the past is over." George W. Bush

SteveW wrote:
I need to find a type of tree to plant that will give me good quality
firewood in a short amount of time. Someone mentioned Poplar to me.
Does
anyone have any recommendations?


Black locust grows fast and is reputed to burn quite hot.

--

FF

"Tom Watson" wrote in message
...


snip


Bah! Not one exotic on there! C'mon! Wouldn't real men burn Zebrawood,
Wenge or Mahogany???
Whadda about Ebony! That's gotta make great kindling!

Luigi Z. responds:

On Tue, 08 Feb 2005 09:03:48 +0000, Charlie Self wrote:

Most of the oaks work very well, as do hickory and pecan, beech, birch,
black gum, sweet gum (cross grain), elm (if you like splitting
crossgrained woods), locust, the ashes, maple (preferably hard),
Kentucky coffee tree, hackberry, persimmon, sassafras and walnut and
cherry (trimmings only, please).

Those of us who have nothing but spruce, pine and poplars to burn find it
absolutely disgusting and/or heartbreaking that you would even consider
burning any of those.

Trimmings, limbs, etc. are abundant. I could probably visit a logging site
tomorrow and come away with 2-3 cords of wood for the cutting, all of it 6" in
diameter or less. And sometimes there's not much choice, when the inside of a
huge old oak is rotted away and it comes down in a storm--I heated for nearly
two winters with an oak that had been about 42" in diameter and I have no idea
how tall--80' at least. Between the limbs and the outer 1' of that trunk, I had
myself an immense wood pile. I once cut a standing dead hickory, too. Talk
about hard! I didn't think it would ever fall, and then it was nearly
impossible to split...only about 12" in diameter, with center rot for some
reason.

It isn't necessary to cut lumber woods. Got a friend who just the other day
decided to clear his yard of some bigleaf maple stumps. Cut them to ground
level, started splitting and liked the spalted lumber that was in several of
them. He now has a stash of short (18" or so) narrow spalted maple boards,
along with a few chunks for turning. No waste there.

Charlie Self
"I think we agree, the past is over." George W. Bush

Yes, but the wood has very high silica content and will dull a saw chain
quickly. Just a nuisance.

Steve

wrote in message
oups.com...

SteveW wrote:
I need to find a type of tree to plant that will give me good quality
firewood in a short amount of time. Someone mentioned Poplar to me.
Does
anyone have any recommendations?


Black locust grows fast and is reputed to burn quite hot.

--

FF

On Tue, 08 Feb 2005 18:32:21 GMT, (Doug Miller)
wrote:

In article , Tim Douglass wrote:

I hate to argue with Charlie, but in this case all the people weighing
in on the firewood debate seem to be from areas where hardwoods reign.
The truth is that if it will burn, it will heat. Dryer is better, and
some woods work better than others, but essentially anything you can
cram in the stove or fireplace will make heat.

Well, yes, of course -- but the point is that some woods do a better job of
making heat than others. I hope you don't mean to suggest that aspen and
cottonwood make just as good firewood as hickory and white oak.

Of course not, but the original post was about quick growing firewood
trees, and the general response was that oak and hickory grow to
slowly to be considered quick-growing - as though there weren't any
other options if you are interested in firewood soon as opposed to the
best firewood possible. I have never burned either oak or hickory
except as the result of some unfortunate breakdown in woodworking
skills, so I can't even make a useful comparison, I simply point out
that if you want to grow trees to make heat there are a lot of
fast-growing options that will do the job.

Tim Douglass

http://www.DouglassClan.com

Steven and Gail Peterson wrote:
Yes, but the wood has very high silica content and will dull a saw
chain
quickly. Just a nuisance.

Steve

wrote in message
oups.com...

SteveW wrote:
I need to find a type of tree to plant that will give me good
quality
firewood in a short amount of time. Someone mentioned Poplar to
me.
Does
anyone have any recommendations?


Black locust grows fast and is reputed to burn quite hot.


If you cut it when its green it cuts pretty easy--most woods
do. Locust gets pretty hard as it cures.

--

FF

In article , Tim Douglass wrote:

Of course not, but the original post was about quick growing firewood
trees, and the general response was that oak and hickory grow to
slowly to be considered quick-growing - as though there weren't any
other options if you are interested in firewood soon as opposed to the
best firewood possible. I have never burned either oak or hickory
except as the result of some unfortunate breakdown in woodworking
skills, so I can't even make a useful comparison, I simply point out
that if you want to grow trees to make heat there are a lot of
fast-growing options that will do the job.

With all due respect ... you're talking nonsense. There is NO species of tree
that grows fast enough that you can plant one (as the OP was asking) and get
firewood, good *or* bad, quickly -- even the rapid-growing hybrid poplars
take ten years before they reach firewood thickness (and they'll never be
firewood quality). The *only* way to get quick firewood is from trees that
have already been growing for a number of years. Anyone who thinks he can
plant and grow his own firewood is dreaming.

--
Regards,
Doug Miller (alphageek at milmac dot com)

Nobody ever left footprints in the sands of time by sitting on his butt.
And who wants to leave buttprints in the sands of time?

"Doug Miller" wrote in message
om...


With all due respect ... you're talking nonsense. There is NO species of
tree
that grows fast enough that you can plant one (as the OP was asking) and
get
firewood, good *or* bad, quickly -- even the rapid-growing hybrid poplars
take ten years before they reach firewood thickness (and they'll never be
firewood quality). The *only* way to get quick firewood is from trees that
have already been growing for a number of years. Anyone who thinks he can
plant and grow his own firewood is dreaming.

Would a tree that grows to 35' with a 30" trunk in 10 years be fast enough?
I had a Chinese Tallow taken out in March that I have been burning all this
winter. 2, 7 to 9" diameter logs typically burned hot and all evening.
These trees grow wild in the Gulf Coast states.

On Tue, 08 Feb 2005 23:39:54 GMT, (Doug Miller)
wrote:

In article , Tim Douglass wrote:

Of course not, but the original post was about quick growing firewood
trees, and the general response was that oak and hickory grow to
slowly to be considered quick-growing - as though there weren't any
other options if you are interested in firewood soon as opposed to the
best firewood possible. I have never burned either oak or hickory
except as the result of some unfortunate breakdown in woodworking
skills, so I can't even make a useful comparison, I simply point out
that if you want to grow trees to make heat there are a lot of
fast-growing options that will do the job.

With all due respect ... you're talking nonsense. There is NO species of tree
that grows fast enough that you can plant one (as the OP was asking) and get
firewood, good *or* bad, quickly -- even the rapid-growing hybrid poplars
take ten years before they reach firewood thickness (and they'll never be
firewood quality). The *only* way to get quick firewood is from trees that
have already been growing for a number of years. Anyone who thinks he can
plant and grow his own firewood is dreaming.

The OP never specified what he considered a "short amount of time".
When talking about growing trees I consider 10-15 years a short amount
of time, so that is the framework I'm using. I know many people who
are cutting trees for firewood that they have planted - I even know
loggers who are cutting timber on ground that they clear cut before in
their career. So it is not a dream that you can plant and grow your
own firewood, it just takes a few years. If I had 5 acres in a
temperate and wet climate (like the Puget Sound basin) I could easily
start with bare ground and within 5 years be getting enough small
thinnings off of the trees I planted to at least provide a substantial
percentage of my firewood needs. From 10 years on I could cut all the
wood I needed and never run short - forever. Yeah, the wood would be
alder, but I heated a house with it for a lot of years and it does the
job.

Tim Douglass

http://www.DouglassClan.com

On Mon, 07 Feb 2005 17:55:58 GMT, "SteveW"
wrote:

I need to find a type of tree to plant that will give me good quality
firewood in a short amount of time. Someone mentioned Poplar to me. Does
anyone have any recommendations?

Thanks

Steve


Not wood, but have you considered a corn stove? There are corn-burning
stoves that produce good heat similar to the pellet stoves. Corn produces
7000 BTU/lb. Since corn weighs 56 lbs per bushel, a good midwest yield of
200 bushel (conservative) per acre would yield 78.6 million BTU per acre
each year from the shelled corn. You could also harvest the cobs and
stalks for additional fuel (realizing that somewhere you are going to have
to put some of those nutrients back into the soil). A sophisticated
operation could utilize a dual system, with one burning the kernels, the
other, if you could locate the equipment to pelletize the stalks could burn
the straw as pellets.




+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
The absence of accidents does not mean the presence of safety
Army General Richard Cody
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

Charlie Self wrote:
George E. Cawthon responds:


but what you found is
that talking about wood and wood stoves is about the same as
the arguments you get when talking about Ford, Chevy, GMC,
and Dodge. Much of what people tell you is highly biased
and may be based on one rather exceptional experience.

The only thing that is important is that the wood be dry and
some take a long time to dry.


Not really. Dry poplar is still lousy firewood. It burns too fast to be
satisfactory in most situations. Most lighter weight, faster growing hardwoods
are like that. Softwoods...well, I don't know of any that make a satisfactory
firewood, at least none that grow in the U.S. south, or as far north as upstate
NY. Pines are too resinous, creating chimney creosote problems even when dry.
And, like poplar, they burn too fast.

At the other end, sycamore is difficult to dry in log form, but also burns too
fast.

The old faithfuls are around for a reason: they burn readily when dry, they
produce little (comparatively) ash, and they burn at a reasonable speed,
allowing a fire to be banked for the night, or for one load of wood during a
cold day to provide heat for four to six hours.

Most of the oaks work very well, as do hickory and pecan, beech, birch, black
gum, sweet gum (cross grain), elm (if you like splitting crossgrained woods),
locust, the ashes, maple (preferably hard), Kentucky coffee tree, hackberry,
persimmon, sassafras and walnut and cherry (trimmings only, please).

My experience is only a bit biased. I heated entirely with wood for nearly 20,
from south Central Virginia to upstate NY and back and I wrote two books on the
subject back then. I didn't try everything, of course, because 20+ years ago,
there were western woods--mesquite for one--that hadn't made it east in large
enough quantities to have scraps of burning size. But I've burned those listed
above, and I can't think of a one of them that offers fast growing and good
burning. Pin oak comes closest, but, as someone else noted, it is not great
firewood. I've found it satisfactory, but I find others much better.

Charlie Self
"I think we agree, the past is over." George W. Bush

You've certainly burned a lot of different woods. I also
heated mostly with a wood stove for about 20 years, but I
live in the west. We burn just about everything, and in
contrast to most discussions of terrible woods, it all
burns, some fast, some more slowly. We don't burn many hard
woods; birch is about the best. Quaking aspen is suppose to
be bad, but it burns ok. But the most available woods are
pine (Ponderosa and lodgepole), white fir, Douglas fir,
spruce, and tamarack in some places. But heck, even cedar
is good for kindling and for fast fires in the early autumn
and late spring.

You don't like softwoods because of creosote, my wife
doesn't like maple (from decorative trees) because it burns
to hot, and my inlaws don't like it because it makes too
much ash.

It all burns!

Mike Marlow wrote:
"George E. Cawthon" wrote in message
...

Leon wrote:

"SteveW" wrote in message
gy.com...


I need to find a type of tree to plant that will give me good quality
firewood in a short amount of time. Someone mentioned Poplar to me.

Does

anyone have any recommendations?



Well normally I would not say that was possible but I had a Chinese

Tallow

removed and asked the guy taking it down to cut it into pieces 18 to 20
inches long and put them in my fire wood rack. He asked if I was going

to

burn it and indicated that it did not burn well in a fire place. I told

him

that I wanted to turn the wood. Well 8 months later winter is here and

I

burned it. I was pleasantly surprised that 8 to 10 inch diameter non

split

logs were dried enough to burn and would burn for about 2 hours each and

put

out quite a bit of heat. This tree is a very fast grower.



http://www.answers.com/main/ntquery?...109&meth od=2


I know nothing about Chinese Tallow, but what you found is
that talking about wood and wood stoves is about the same as
the arguments you get when talking about Ford, Chevy, GMC,
and Dodge. Much of what people tell you is highly biased
and may be based on one rather exceptional experience.

The only thing that is important is that the wood be dry and
some take a long time to dry.


George - please ignore my other reply to you. I do believe I completely
missed you point. I knew I heard this buzzing sound over my head...


You'll probably regret that.

Mike Marlow wrote:
"Brian Barnson" wrote in message
news:0LXNd.318790$6l.98366@pd7tw2no...

"SteveW" wrote in message
y.com...

I need to find a type of tree to plant that will give me good quality
firewood in a short amount of time. Someone mentioned Poplar to me.

Does

anyone have any recommendations?

Depends on where you live. Around here (Pacific Northwest) Alder
and Bigleaf Maple grow relatively quickly. Birch is wonderful for
firewood and Poplar is the nastiest wood I've ever split.
Brian, in Cedar




Birch is pretty firewood, but it all depends on what the OP is after - a
nice fireplace log or a good woodstove log. Birch is pretty much useless in
the woodstove, but it does produce some nice looking flames.

Not true. I consider it the best of the available woods
(not that much of it available) here for holding a fire.
But in much of the west, the most common native woods burned
are Doug fir and ponderosa pine.

Charlie Self wrote:

And most trucking companies will be delighted to let you pick up used
pallets and take them home. Just ask at the dispatch office. They have to
pay to have the stuff hauled away.

Not anymore. These days, most outfits sell them back to companies that buy
and/or make pallets so they can be re-used. Wood doesn't grow on trees you
know. It's a valuable commodity that can't just be tossed in the landfill
anymore.

(And wood *doesn't* grow *on* trees.

--
Michael McIntyre ---- Silvan
Linux fanatic, and certified Geek; registered Linux user #243621
http://www.geocities.com/Paris/Rue/5407/
http://rosegarden.sourceforge.net/tutorial/

Luigi Zanasi wrote:
On Tue, 08 Feb 2005 09:03:48 +0000, Charlie Self wrote:


Most of the oaks work very well, as do hickory and pecan, beech, birch,
black gum, sweet gum (cross grain), elm (if you like splitting
crossgrained woods), locust, the ashes, maple (preferably hard),
Kentucky coffee tree, hackberry, persimmon, sassafras and walnut and
cherry (trimmings only, please).


Those of us who have nothing but spruce, pine and poplars to burn find it
absolutely disgusting and/or heartbreaking that you would even consider
burning any of those.


I'm with you Luigi. I can barely part with the smallest
piece of milled hardwood. Most of the silver maple and
birch I have burned was reaction wood (limbs) up to 10"
diameter. Still I feel bad about burning any of it.

SteveW wrote:

I need to find a type of tree to plant that will give me good quality
firewood in a short amount of time. Someone mentioned Poplar to me. Does
anyone have any recommendations?

I'd start here. The National Arbor Day Foundation has been experimenting
with stands of fuel wood that they use for heating. Their stands are
sheared off, and re-grow new tops within 6-7 years, but they are chipping
them rather than sectioning and splitting them I think. Not a lot of
detail here, but it's a place to start:

http://www.arborday.org/programs/far...etails/12.html

I'm sure they'd be happy to provide more information if you asked.

(Or not. They never respond to any of my email, and I'm a contributing
member, dammit. Oh well.)

--
Michael McIntyre ---- Silvan
Linux fanatic, and certified Geek; registered Linux user #243621
http://www.geocities.com/Paris/Rue/5407/
http://rosegarden.sourceforge.net/tutorial/

P van Rijckevorsel wrote:
Yes, it hardly ever is a good idea to grow your own firewood.

Depends on what you mean. Buy 10 acres of forest that
hasn't been logged in 20-30 years and you will have firewood
forever.

However it is not true that all tree species are equal.
Some species will give more useful firewood than others (books do exist).
Mostly everybody who was seriously engaged with such things used a coppicing
system (rotation times much shorter than thirty years). But it is hard work.
There are easier ways of getting firewood.
PvR

Yeah there are easier ways, see above.


* * *
Doug Miller schreef

Principal recommendation: abandon the idea, on two grounds.


First, the best firewood comes from slow-growing trees such as oaks,

hickories, and sugar maples. The wood of fast-growing trees is inherently
less dense, and hence does not make as good firewood, as the wood of
slow-growing trees. Poplar specifically is not good firewood; it burns
rapidly, and has little fuel value.

Sure dense woods are the best, they just aren't native in
abundance everywhere. But Poplar is commonly burned in some
areas.


Second, and more important, you will not get a reasonable *quantity* of

firewood "in a short amount of time" from *any* tree that you plant. That
just doesn't happen. Not by _human_ standards, anyway. Thirty years *is* "a
short amount of time" _to_a_tree_.

Not necessarily, some trees only live about 30 years. Of
course you have already dismissed Lombardy poplar, but their
average life span is only 25-35 years. We had a neighbor
down the street plant a row on one side of their lot and cut
everyone of them in about 20 years when they had bases of
18" to 24" and were well over 100' tall. Birch grows fast.
I cut my clump birch (actually paper birch) after 20 years
and after fighting a fungus disease for several years. It
had three major trunks and yielded a lot of wood with many
blocks in the 10-8" diameter.



Secondary recommendation: there are ways of getting cheap firewood, as

long as you're willing to work for it. If your city or state government
removes a tree, you may be able to get the wood just by asking for it (as
long as you're able to haul it away). If you have a chainsaw, you could
offer to cut up fallen trees (or limbs) for your neighbors after a storm, in
exchange for the wood. In some states, you can get firewood *very* cheaply
in state-owned forests. Here in Indiana, for example, the state sells
logging rights to commercial timber harvesters. The commercial guys are
usually interested only in the first 30-40' of trunk, and they leave the
rest on the ground. After they're done, Joe Citizen can come in and take
whatever he wants for three bucks a pickup truck load.


--
Regards,
Doug Miller (alphageek at milmac dot com)

Nobody ever left footprints in the sands of time by sitting on his butt.
And who wants to leave buttprints in the sands of time?

Actually, silica content of black locust is zero
PvR

Steven and Gail Peterson schreef
Yes, but the wood has very high silica content and will dull a saw chain
quickly. Just a nuisance.

wrote
Black locust grows fast and is reputed to burn quite hot.

P van Rijckevorsel wrote:
Yes, it hardly ever is a good idea to grow your own firewood.

George E. Cawthon schreef
Depends on what you mean. Buy 10 acres of forest that
hasn't been logged in 20-30 years and you will have firewood
forever.

***
In that case you are not growing your own firewood but harvesting wood that
has grown over the past 20-30 years. Also, "forever" will depend on your
rate of consumption.

George E. Cawthon responds:

My experience is only a bit biased. I heated entirely with wood for nearly
20,
from south Central Virginia to upstate NY and back and I wrote two books on
the
subject back then. I didn't try everything, of course, because 20+ years
ago,
there were western woods--mesquite for one--that hadn't made it east in
large
enough quantities to have scraps of burning size. But I've burned those
listed
above, and I can't think of a one of them that offers fast growing and good
burning. Pin oak comes closest, but, as someone else noted, it is not great
firewood. I've found it satisfactory, but I find others much better.

Charlie Self
"I think we agree, the past is over." George W. Bush

You've certainly burned a lot of different woods. I also
heated mostly with a wood stove for about 20 years, but I
live in the west. We burn just about everything, and in
contrast to most discussions of terrible woods, it all
burns, some fast, some more slowly. We don't burn many hard
woods; birch is about the best. Quaking aspen is suppose to
be bad, but it burns ok. But the most available woods are
pine (Ponderosa and lodgepole), white fir, Douglas fir,
spruce, and tamarack in some places. But heck, even cedar
is good for kindling and for fast fires in the early autumn
and late spring.

You don't like softwoods because of creosote, my wife
doesn't like maple (from decorative trees) because it burns
to hot, and my inlaws don't like it because it makes too
much ash.

It all burns!

Gotta agree with that last. But my bias is a simple one: back when I was using
wood for heat, I wanted to be able to load up a nearly airtight stove, shut the
vents most of the way down, and get up in the morning to a reasonably warm
house. Poplar, regardless of type, won't do it. Pine won't do it...pines are
the softwoods I dislike most for resin content and creosote production. I've
let them dry out for three or four years, though, and found them superb for
quick heat.

Another point I guess none of us has made that I saw: quick heat. If you've got
a large area to heat from a dead or near dead stove, poplar, pine and similar
lightweight woods are great because they burn fast, produce their heat in a
much shorter period than do most oaks, hickory, etc.

IMO, though, hickory (and by extension, pecan) is the best U.S. firewood. The
best part of that: it's a nearly hateful wood for woodworking.

Charlie Self
"I think we agree, the past is over." George W. Bush

Thinking back a number of years. In my area, poplar was being
planted to replace what had been harvested. That was the choice
because it was one of the quickest growing species.

Two quick thoughts...

1) Birch is supposed to have the highest BTU output when used as
firewood. Not sure about poplar. You might want to check that
aspect.

2) Local borg charges an arm and a leg for S4S Poplar. Not sure
why. I can't imagine trying to stain it. Price is very close to
S4S Maple. Might be better off selling it, than burning it...

Pat






On Mon, 07 Feb 2005 17:55:58 GMT, "SteveW"
wrote:

I need to find a type of tree to plant that will give me good quality
firewood in a short amount of time. Someone mentioned Poplar to me. Does
anyone have any recommendations?

Thanks

Steve

"George E. Cawthon" wrote in message
...

Not necessarily, some trees only live about 30 years. Of
course you have already dismissed Lombardy poplar, but their
average life span is only 25-35 years. We had a neighbor
down the street plant a row on one side of their lot and cut
everyone of them in about 20 years when they had bases of
18" to 24" and were well over 100' tall. Birch grows fast.
I cut my clump birch (actually paper birch) after 20 years
and after fighting a fungus disease for several years. It
had three major trunks and yielded a lot of wood with many
blocks in the 10-8" diameter.


The birch that grows around here (white birch?) gets punky *really* fast.
Faster than beech. In fact most of it does not come off the stump all that
great.
--

-Mike-

"P van Rijckevorsel" wrote in message
...
P van Rijckevorsel wrote:
Yes, it hardly ever is a good idea to grow your own firewood.

George E. Cawthon schreef
Depends on what you mean. Buy 10 acres of forest that
hasn't been logged in 20-30 years and you will have firewood
forever.

***
In that case you are not growing your own firewood but harvesting wood
that
has grown over the past 20-30 years. Also, "forever" will depend on your
rate of consumption.


Baloney. You're splitting hairs. I'm sure you know what he's saying.
After a few years you will be thinning and burning what was only seed when
you purchased the land. Hardwood responds best to that kind of care and,
since land is relatively cheap here, coppicing is not normally practiced.

Of course you will have to pay tax at three times or more the rate the state
pays for wooded acres as the price of your stewardship, but, as liberals
would say, that's what you get for being greedy and trying to keep something
for yourself.

Can't resist. :-)

Lived on the west coast for quite a while. Traveled the Island forests
and coastal waterway areas quite a bit. Been through the gulf Islands --
just logged off rocks now -- and traveled through Desolation Sound and
the interior of BC (and Alberta) quite extensively... Spent a fair bit
of time walking "old growth" forests.

My old partner was a professional forester. Got him out to look at the
"huge cedars" in my front yard - in a small burb just outside Vancouver.
Had to hold him up - - he was laughing so hard about "saplings". They
were only 30" across and about 90 feet high. Every time he came over
after that he started giggling and smirking when he saw the trees. This
was when I had just moved out there... :-)

He used to harvest old growth on Vancouver Island and the coast. He said
most of the trees were 20 to 40 feet across near the base when he
started cutting. Most of the cedar trees were about a millenia and older
when he started in the trade. He pushed hard for conservation and a
slower cut rate - everyone told him the forest would go on forever and
thought him a raving lunatic. They had a "log the next hillside"
mentality and could not imagine the end of the forestry trade. Now we
have mostly second and third generation forests on the West coast. Most
if us have never seen a forest of large trees. We see museums like
Cathedral Grove and think it's a big forest... But the trees out there
can be 2000 to 3000 years old - just darn few now.

You can still see some Big Old trees in Cathedral Grove near Nanaimo BC.
Kind of a religious experience if you ask me. Never measured those trees
myself, but I could have parked an 18' canoe or my car inside the trunk
of one and had room to lay the sleeping bag...

George E. Cawthon wrote:
Will wrote:

Left out a comma. TOIEG (There's one in every group.) However, if you
do find a hybrid -- post a picture of the wood..

I thought he said he wanted fast growing hardwood. For Hard wood those
trees DO grow fast. :-) Couple hundred years and you have great trees
-- now take western red cedar - that takes a while to reach maturity
-- few hundred years or so (a couple of millenia or so and it's
reasonably large). Now that is slowooooowwww.


Whoa. Let's not exaggerate too much. I lived where there were western
red cedar. They are relatively fast growing and require lots of
moisture. Don't believe I ever saw a 200 year old one except in a
reserve. A 2-foot diameter cedar on our place was usually at most 80
years old and likely much younger and would have a lot of rot. Since the
place was logged in the 30's, most of the large trees I saw had to be no
more than 60 years old. Damn few trees (individuals) of any kind (and
certainly not Western Red Cedar) live a couple of millenia.

--
Will
Occasional Techno-geek

There is a way to do this, if you have acreage and water and nutrients.
Plant trees and prune occasionally to promote growth of lower branches.
Once they are big enough, around 6" or so, harvest the branches but leave
the trunk and roots to grow another crop of branches. The roots are the
engine for growth; the trunk just holds up the branches and provides
transport for nutrients. It takes a while, at least 10 years, for the first
crop of branches, but after that you can get sustained yield of fire wood,
given enough producing trees. "Enough" depends on a number of factors. I
don't have the links, but there are sustained forestry sites that explain.

Steve

"P van Rijckevorsel" wrote in message
...
Actually, silica content of black locust is zero

Not the ones in my yard! Sparks are visible when you cut the wood. The
chain has to be sharpened frequently. Chains don't last all that long.
Also quite a bit of ash is left. But it burns long and hot.

Steve

PvR

Steven and Gail Peterson schreef
Yes, but the wood has very high silica content and will dull a saw chain
quickly. Just a nuisance.

wrote
Black locust grows fast and is reputed to burn quite hot.

"Will" wrote in message
. ..

My old partner was a professional forester. Got him out to look at the
"huge cedars" in my front yard - in a small burb just outside Vancouver.
Had to hold him up - - he was laughing so hard about "saplings". They were
only 30" across and about 90 feet high. Every time he came over after that
he started giggling and smirking when he saw the trees. This was when I
had just moved out there... :-)

Are you saying that your trees are about 36 times as tall as they are wide?


He used to harvest old growth on Vancouver Island and the coast. He said
most of the trees were 20 to 40 feet across near the base when he started
cutting.

If these trees were proportionally as tall to width as your trees some would
be over a quarter of a mile high. Those are some trees..

I would love to see those monsters I have always been amazed at their size.