A Few Words About Wood
For Your Sustainability
In the William Shakespeare play “HAMLET” our proud and distraught prince, while rifling through some books in the library exclaimed “Words, words, words.” This scene came to mind while I was waiting for my wife at the Library Center and had just finished a service call on a wood stove. The wood stove checked out to be fine, however, the wood the homeowner was using did not.
I have a few service calls a year on wood stoves and more times than not it is not the stove that is the problem but the wood; Ah ha, a blog is born.
So lets talk wood! In particular let us talk about the wood we plan to burn. First, we need to acquire the wood either by purchasing it or by going out in the back forty to retrieve it. When purchasing wood you will want to ask some key questions and perform some simple tests. How long has it been since the tree was cut into firewood? How long has it been curing or drying? What type of wood is it? Has the wood ever been treated? How do you cure or dry the wood? The answers to these questions are very important. Firewood should be cured for 1.5 years.
Question one and two seems like the same question yet it is not. They may have chopped the tree down 2 years ago for firewood but have only been curing it for six months, so it is important to ask both the questions. The answer to what type of wood is it will let you know several things. If it is a hard wood like oak, apple, hickory etc. that will tell you that it will burn hotter and last longer than a soft wood like spruce, pine, fir. The answer will also tell you if it would be beneficial if it were split wood (It is quite difficult to burn hard woods, when starting a fire or when you have a low fire, that have not been split). You never want to burn treated wood indoors or in a wood stove. Treated wood can and will give off toxic fumes and may burn too hot for a wood stove. The firewood should be covered to protect it from snow and rain. If the firewood is stored outside the top should be covered with the ends open and stored off the ground in order to let it breath or in the event it does get wet. The test you will want to perform is to check for moisture content of the wood. Easiest way to see if the wood is dry is to examine it. If the wood has a network of cracks on the ends that is a good sign the wood might be dry. Pick up two pieces of wood and strike them together. If the wood makes a cracking sound the wood is fairly dry however if you get a thud sound it might be best to find another source because this wood is obviously wet. One last thing you can do to test if the wood is dry would be to take a core sample. Most people do not do this, and that is fine, so long as you do the other test.
Burning of wet wood is the usual suspect when someone tells me that the wood stove they purchased from me is not getting hot or is not working properly.
It is almost impossible to burn a non-split hard wood that is wet. Wet wood also promotes the build up of creosote (the main substance that ignites when one has a chimney fire) which is a very dangerous mixture of toxins, gases, and water which will build up in your chimney very quickly if you are burning wet wood. Another concern to burning wet wood is the pollution it emits into environment. If you see a chimney and black smoke is bellowing out of it you could pretty well guess they are burning wet wood. Firewood should have a moisture content of under 20%.
OK, easy enough, right? So lets talk about harvesting your own wood. As a Naturalist I like to give a land owner a new thought on how he/she might want to look at harvesting their wood. First I would ask myself if I can retrieve enough wood from fallen trees or broken branches. If that answer is yes, I have a much easier day ahead of me and will be easily done by lunch. The only thing I will want to keep in mind is to not remove a possible habitat for a wintering fox, rabbit or other creatures. If the answer is no I have a much longer and tiring day ahead.
Which tree to cut down is the question posed to me. Do I go for the maple that is being crowded out by the oaks? The maple might have a tough time in future years. Do I cut one of the healthy oaks? I do have plenty of oaks! Maybe I should cut the diseased pine? Decisions, decisions, decisions! The diseased pine is a dinner table to quite a few species it seems and the disease seems to be regulated to this one tree. Might be a good candidate for next year so for now I will leave it. I have only a few maples, so for diversity sake I will leave it as well. That leaves the oak! Good old hard oak! I believe I will cut the one closest to the maple and maybe one day it will thrive.
Be warm,
Michael Baird
417-209-3227
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