Compare Firewood burn times
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 5 ก.ย. 2024
- Compare Firewood burn times. What is the best variety of firewood?
The questions and debates around which softwoods and hardwoods are the best are never-ending.
Does it make a huge difference? Which burns longest?
Which is hottest?
Is it actually the same burn time if you burn the same WEIGHT of different varieties?
Another problem is often logs are bought and sold by weight not volume, but firewood is sold by volume. In this area firewood is generally sold by the cord, which when properly measured is a stacked volume measuring 4x4x8 feet (128 cubic feet).
We look at the most common firewood varieties here - Poplar, Spruce, Tamarack and Birch. Each burn used the same volume of wood. We compared the weight, burn time, leftover ash and charcoal, and pounds per hour burned. We also discuss the amount of heat given off during the burns. We had some surprising results.
1 milk crate filled with 16 inch firewood were these weights:
Poplar 26.24 pounds
Spruce 29.16 pounds
Tamarack 34.18 pounds
Birch 37.34 pounds
burn times hrs per basket:
P 6:50, S 11:15, T 13:30, B 13:45
Burn time minutes/ pound:
Poplar 15.625 -20.5
Spruce 23:15
Tamarack 23.7
Birch 22.1
Results in my opinion: Tamarack burns hotter than birch with the same burn time.
As a firewood buyer: find whatever properly seasoned variety is heaviest if you want it to have the longest burn time between filling up the stove.
If filling time is irrelevant, buy the cheapest price per pound.
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What a great comparison, thanks to Grandma for her patience with the study and her work. It is interesting that BTU's (relatively speaking) per pound is so similar. An interesting video Buddy!
I agree with the interesting per pound conclusion. It would be interesting if a guy was more scientific and measured exact weight and moisture content, then in a more controlled burn to see how much difference there is.
For certain the heavier wood lasts longer between stoking up the fire.
Have a great Sunday.
good job brother and Grama, lots of knowledge here combined, i have all those on my land except poplar, i been waiting to haul in and split some spruce and Tamarac, the old boys said easy om tamerac, ill use it as last log at bed and choke her down for morinng and first restart fire on a cold morning, spruce and birtch in between, based on Grama saying Tamarack a little hot mid day , Thank you for your time and effort
Thanks Dale. If you've got all the options then it sounds like your plan is perfect. I was extremely surprised last week to discover how old some tamarack is.
(As you might see scrolling through my channel I recently had an opportunity to visit New Zealand. )
I was surprised to see how fast the trees grow there and decided I'd compare. I cut a piece of tamarack and counted the growth rings only to discover this particular 9 inch tree was 195 years old!! So don't cut them all down expecting another crop in 20 years.
I'll be making a video of the comparison for sure.
Stay tuned for further nonsense and entertainment my friend and thanks for watching and for your comments.
Good wood review my friends.
Have burned birch, it's pretty good. Poplar here doesn't last long. Like your Mom's turbo blaster fan, gotta have that. Tamarack must be pretty good.
Here, I'd go with oak n Ash.
But use to cut what was available, and was thankful for it.
Even poplar is good for lighting denser woods. Appreciate y'all ,🤝
Thanks Will. I think every location will have a different best option.
I know the stuff I burned visiting Australia was MILES better than this stuff.
Have a great Sunday!
@@lovesloudcars everyone has there favorites too. Smell of cherry wood or cedar. Always two of my favorites
All birch is not the same. Yellow birch is much harder and will burn much longer than White birch. Burn what you can get a good deal on and what is available. Most important is that it is correctly seasoned.
@@markmacdonald6452 yes sir! There's all kinds of folks only burn one type because of good or bad experiences with other varieties while their neighbor burns the opposite.
Thanks for watching and for your comment stay tuned for more my friend.
In the end, you burn what's availalbe and affordable. One important measurement is BTUs of heat generated per hour. Some woods can generate more heat (BTUs per hour) than other woods. You would need less of that higher heat wood. Live Oak has up to 36.6 million BTUs per chord of wood while birch has a little more than half that heat value. Burn time doesn't have much use unless you know the BTUs. I have a parafin emergency candle that generates 100 BTUs/hr and will burn for 175 hours (advertised). If I can figure a way to condense that 100 BTUs/175 hrs into 1 hour, I'd have 17,500 BTUs of heat for one hour. But I'll give you credit about one thing relating to burn time - you'll know when to set your alarm at night to restoke the fire. I don't like to wake up to a cold house in the dead of winter like some folks in California are doing now.
Super great comment Dan! I'm fascinated with that birch oak comparison. I know folks in other places back east who have hardwoods like that to burn, say those varieties are substantially better than what we have here.
Kind of a shame knowing there's such high quality out there for other people, but that's how it goes I guess.
My only experience with excellent firewood was near Alice Springs Australia in 2018. I was FLOORED with how hot the wood was while camping in a place called Fink River National Park or something.
It looks like BTU's per hour for our 4 common varieties, tamarack is best.
Stay tuned for further nonsense and entertainment my friend.
Been looking forward to you making this video. Thank you for doing it.
Very interesting stuff.
We have about ten acres of land to pull trees from.
Somewhere around 70% beech trees.
The rest is mostly hardwood. Red maple. Tiny bit of sugar maple. Fair amount of red oak. Tiny bit of white oak. Some poplar mixed in. We have a little bit of birch in at least four different varieties.
Beech trees are the favorite for us to harvest and burn. Excellent BTU return. Easy enough to harvest. They grow back on their own without us doing anything so we just have to prune the trees as we go.
Sounds like you guys have the perfect scenario for the firewood game then. Everything there is probably better than what grows here. One of the other comments below from out of the house with Paul- he's in Ontario & shows his firewood collecting. He's probably similar to what you have.
@@lovesloudcars I hit subscribe on that channel. Thanks!
I have all these available. I like Aspen because it renders into coals as it burns. Birch burns like a piece of paper. Spruce and Tamarack burn like congealed oil, lots of pitch burning.
I almost always burn poplar myself, it's cheaper. But I was surprised how long tamarack burns. It's nice stuff.
Another impressive thing about tamarack was the age of some trees. I posted a video last month comparing the ages of a pine in New Zealand and a tamarack here it was surprising.
Here's the link if you're interested.
Either way thanks for watching and for your comment!
th-cam.com/video/W56a4g0Yp_M/w-d-xo.html
For me it depends on the temperature outside and what I want to put in the stoves. Poplar/aspen is my go to because it's plentiful here. But at 40 below some pine or tamarack is king. If it's-10 and I put that in the stove I get in trouble 😆
Exactly right Jeremy. No need for the big guns when it's not freezing cold.
Poplar is way easier to come by & when counting costs of that , it usually suits me fine.
Tamarack is definitely the best for heat and burn time for logs put into the stove.
Wonder if it changed your views, think you suggested tamarack would be the winner. Like others have said, if it cheap or low cost you'll burn what you have, but buying to burn might be a whole lot different. A column of cost per hour might've been interesting.
Take care 😎🇬🇧.
Yes. Cost per hour is a good idea. I'll have to figure that out, but it's roughly 200 for poplar, 350 for spruce and 450 for birch and tamarack. That being said, good poplar might be the same value/heat hours/ dollars. But on a cold day it burns up twice as fast.
To be more accurate it would take proper measures of weight, moisture content and burn time as well as a way to determine which one throws the most BTU's during that burn time. - then that's only accurate for here, since hardwoods like you have & are found elsewhere don't grow here.
Seems like tamarack is the better between that and birch, but like you say, perhaps not for dollars spent.
Good morning my friend.
Missed your reply this morning. I'll check the other comment
@@lovesloudcars no biggie. 👍
Is that a catalytic stove ?
Yes Sir it is. Not sure if that would change the results of the experiment, or just increase the efficiency or burn time of everything evenly.
What's your thoughts?
Not exactly a scientific comparison considering all the pieces are cut to different lengths. Of course they are going to weigh differently!
Well it's pretty much all processed at 16 inches, so that's not so much the factor as density of the wood. I was interested in weight/volume, that's why the milk cartons were used.
I agree with you though, so many variables it's pretty tough to make it an exact science.
I hope you enjoyed it. Thanks for watching and for your comment my friend. Stay tuned for further nonsense and entertainment!
We look forward to you doing a better job and not just being an arm chair critic, I cut wood for 40 years , burned it 60 , his test fell right in line with what I suspected, and learned from actual experience and hard work
@@daleval2182 thanks! It was all 16 inch wood, and we expected it to weigh differently because of it being different varieties.
Exact volumes or weights- but cannot be both.
@@lovesloudcars I am happy with your sir. I was talking to the other neg comment on your method. Merry Christmas