A Year's Worth of Firewood for Cooking and Heating - What is Good Wood and What's Not, Ep.6
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- Опубліковано 1 жов 2024
- Winter is coming and I'm ready, with over 30 face cords of hard and soft wood cut, split and stored for a year's worth of cooking and heating.
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I just bought 7 acres of old farm land in Poland. Abandoned for 30+ years. Overgrown with Maple, Ash and white Birch. The Ash has up to 45 cm thick trunks and have started to break from own weight. It grows with mulcible stems, so each "tree" has 7 - 12 "trees" in bundle. One bundle can last me a year I think as firewood. And I have hundreds. But soon I can build temporary cabin - so I can stay there over night. It is 1 hour drive from home. But the end plan is good homestead, off grid and mostly self reliance in food. I will have to hunt and fish for protein. And buy occasional cattle and pig for butchering. I plan to use excess wood for gasifier generator to help the solar system to drive the homestead in winter. This winter firewood harvest will be salvage fallen tress and dead standing.. Perhaps one day I will make furniture from the Ash and smoke fish and meat with the Maple.
Maple, hard Maple, is good for a lot of purposes. Just try to burn/smoke scrap. Everything you build with it will last many lifetimes. It does tend to split when super dry, so machine it fairly young.
Best of luck there. You may need to bug out and retreat to your woods. Any shelter is a good shelter.
Shawn, I built a slightly larger version of your wood shelter about ten years ago. I added a tarp to the front of my shelter to keep the driving rain and snow out fall to spring. I just rolled up a length of 1x3 wood in the top to screw through and hold the top and the same at the bottom to keep it weighed down. Works perfect!
What is it about a chainsaw that is so fulfilling!?! At the end of the day you know you have accomplished something!
It’s incredible how much wood can be cut in a day with a good chainsaw
Taking notes! I have learned a lot about wood and creosote! Sharing with my sons! Thank you! God bless you and your lovely family! Take care!
Save your back and use the tire trick when you chop wood. Fill the tire cavity with large pieces and then chop away. Everything’s stays in the tire. Bending over back gets old fast.
That's a good trick!😊😊
Have seen that done with a log chain too
Yeah, backs are special. This is a Cunning Plan.
👍👌👏 You are absolutely right, Sir. But instead of a heavy tire, he can simply use one or better two cheap elastic bands/rubber bands with hooks.
Best regards, luck and health in particular.
Maybe I like the Misery - Mrs Doyle from Father Ted Series
Dear Shawn James.
👍👌👏 I love making firewood and I like watching people making firewood. Please kindly allow me to suggest that you build yourself a simple cutting rack for the slab wood. It was quite frightening 😱🙈 to watch you cutting into the pile with your chainsaw. 2) Additionally: Please get yourself a second chopping block. For making kindling wood it should be much higher than the one you use for chopping the big pieces so that you don't have to bend over at all. Thanks in advance for consideration.
Best regards, luck and health in particular.
I really appreciate the deep dive into the various properties of wood and how they burn at varying degrees. I learned something from this!!
Its always nice feeling when you know no matter how cold it gets, you have enough firewood to stay warm and cozy.
I absolutely love everything you do, Shawn, and you deserve much merit for your ongoing patience in your projects--much less the burden of filming it all and editing like a pro!
I'm glad to see the firewood adding up. But please don't cut willy-nilly into that stack of slabs. Great opportunity for a kick back of that power saw blade and chain.😉 6:15
Agreed.
Not the time to get careless.
We burn a lot of red and white oak , hickory and yellow birch here in Arkansas. The white oaks here are getting hit with some type of oak bore and many are just rotting at ground level and falling The pine here is very soft and burns hot and very fast . I'd love to see you do a video on your cleaning process for your chimney . Thank you and Be safe !
We have ash Dieback in the Uk and Ireland…. Some of our few big trees are dying where we live. Sad.
Same here . Ash is hard to come by . Going the way of chestnut and Elm for us. @@Shane_O
Nothing like being prepared, Awesome job Shawn.
😁👍🏼
There are 2 seasons in the north country, Winter and Getting Ready For Winter
Are there any cuckoo birds where you live? My sister-in-law in Vermont has cuckoo birds. I've seen and heard them digging just like your chopping. Cindy 👋
Thanks for sharing your knowledge on wood and wood stoves, much appreciated Sir! You got a lot done this year, nice work! Love the cabin, it’s incredible! ✌🏼❤️🙏🏼
Shawn I really enjoy your video's, especially the ones of you actually building your cabin, your outdoor kitchen, and anything else you build with your hands. You go into such very good detail when building, or anything else you do such as your garden, or even getting your firewood ready. I'm sure thousands of your fans can hardly wait until you build the bedroom addition to your log cabin. It's a great idea to add it on to the side of uour cabin, instead of taking up space inside to build the bedroom. I also think you should do the same for your bathroom, instead of taking up the corner space in the main living area, I think you should do the same as you are doing with your bedroom. Add a separate room off of your main living area on the back wall, and add the bathroom, then you can make it bigger, and it will have enough room for you to put in a bathtub, a jacuzzi, and/or a separate shower stall. By doing this you can keep more of your cabin space for the living area. You could also make the bathroom off of the new bedroom you are building in the spring. If you lay it out properly you can have access to your new bathroom from your bedroom, and another entrance to it from your livingroom area. This will allow guests to use your bathroom without entering from the inside of your bedroom. Any way these are just some of my personal thoughts, that I like to share with you. Regardless of how you do any if it, I am sure you will attract hundreds of thousands of people no matter how you do all these additions to your awesome cabin, I know I will be watching for sure! Thanks for posting such great content Shawn!
Shawn, many years ago my dad made a cordwood saw from an old Isuzu truck engine that my mom still uses. It has a good size blade on it (don't remember the size now), and it really works well. My mom uses pallet wood for some of her firewood, as well as some logs that my brothers pick up locally. A saw blade is easier to maintain than a saw chain, and has only one part to maintain of itself.
I've always wanted a cordwood saw. They made them for the 3pt hitches of the old Ford tractors. They look dangerous, but they sure seem to work well!
Love all of this. Was bed ridden for two years. Really admire what you have done. I am about 20 years older but u inspire me to do at least some of what you are doing. Congratulations!
Dane
Dane I’m 74 and presently the full time caregiver for my wife. When she passes I’ll move back to the Colorado Mountains and live off grid in a 16’x48’ home. I already own the property and it has a well & septic system. I’ll get a wood stove and solar panels. There is plenty of room for a garden and I have water rights from a canal.
Careful, Justin Truedoodoo may carbon tax you for this.
Incrivel.
Você é muito bom no que faz. Tem tábuas aí que daria belos cachepos para orquideas!
Lindo, parabéns!
Aquele abraço!
Hi Shawn, 🔥🪵🪓very well explained! I know that there are many good types of firewood, but the ideal is to know how to balance a “mix” of hard and soft woods at the same time....because soft woods generate a lot of flame (and heat up quickly), but they are consumed in a short time, while hardwoods do not generate large flames, but they take much longer to burn and allow us to have a more even and lasting fire... here is the white Eucalyptus as soft wood to make a flame mixed with Quebracho to maintain the flame. fire for a long time...the proportion ratio we use is for every 300 kilos of Eucalyptus, 100 kilos of quebracho.
I wonder if you could make charcoal out of creosote since it does burn ? we have Red Oak, Cherry, Ash, Hard Maple, Walnut, Hickory, Locust I clean chimneys 4 to 6 times over the coarse of winter to be as safe as possible for the most part we burn similar to you Our laws have banned any new stove sales that do not have a catilytic combuster
I’d like to see an updated view of the entire layout. I love the workshop and haven’t seen it in a long time and forget where it’s located in relation to the cabin.
The most common firewood in most parts of Norway are the birch spp (Betula pubescens and B. pendula). Though 80% of our forests are either spruce or pine not so much is used/preferred for the same reasons you said (sparks, low BTU). However, always when I walk the woods or cut timber and I come across old stumps of pine, preferably from old burns, or when the top of a pine has been attacked by a special fungus (tyritoppsopp) and died off, I shop off a bit of the dense heartwood full of resin/tar. It smells wonderful in the fire place, burns like a torch and was in fact historically a good source of light in dark winters.
Brings back childhood memories of the day when my brother mow grass told me my real name was not chop wood it was Michael. He said our oldest sister wash dishes told him.
can you update us on the work done by your forest consultant. thx
Basically just the one trail cut and marked a, acre or two of diseased and inferior trees for removal. I’ll show the trail in a video this week
Awesome tutorial👍 I first learned about trees and fire in S.E. B.C. where gigantic cedars and pines rule...and I had no chainsaw😂. But once having learned, in B.C. and the Yukon, when I returned to the prairies, often I'd be the only one around, male or female, who knew how to prep and start a fire! 👍😎🇨🇦🔥
This might be an odd request, but I'd love to hear the same sort of deep dive that you did here on how you deal with flying bugs in the summer. Black flies, mosquitoes, deer flies, etc. This past summer I was trying to tour some land and was chased off the property by the deer flies.
Our most commonly used species for firewood are: Beech, white birch, wild cherry, black ash mixed with any dead wood, which has to be removed anyway. 🇦🇹 Austria, Alpine area
Well I live in Southern Kentucky in lumber country. We have every type of wood but hardwood is highly abundant. I hate seeing anything going to waist but we have enough wood to heat homes on the side of the roads cutmup from storms. Unfortunately people are to lazy and if they do use wood they buy it in bundles for high prices at the store and all that free wood just goes to waist
Hi Shawn: Here in Australia we have various types of eucalyptus - Gum Trees mostly hard wood. Also in some states they have Iron Bark, and in western Australia they have Jarrah trees,these trees in Australia are mostly protected therefore are not allowed to be harvested unless they are dead and on privately owned land. All these trees are excellent for fire wood, and burn very hot.
European and American hardwoods are softwoods in comparison to Australian species.
@@bradcavanagh3092
That’s not completely true ! Old Ironsides the ship was made from live oak ! It is very very hard ! I use a 40 ton splitter to split live oak that is 12 “to 18” diameter!
In the Eastern Interior, we burn white Spruce almost exclusively.. fire burns very hot, adding in alder helps it last. Larch is a good mix of heat/ duration
Greetings from PEI. I'm on four acres on the North Shore, mostly Black and White spruce, some paper or white birch. Hurricane Fiona destroyed part of my land so I'm set for firewood. I have a Regency mid size wood stove for my 1100 sq foot log home. I burn about 2 1/2 cord of softwood and 1 cord of hardwood a year (if you consider Birch Hardwood). Most of the red oak were pillaged by the settlers for ship masts. I have some beech, but not cutting it for firewood. Eastern part of the island has nice stands of yellow birch, rare as hens teeth in my area. I'm retired now so filling the stove frequently with softwood isn't an issue. Much Aspen here as well, I use that for kindling. I have about 20 cord put down under various covered structures. I normally start burning on a regular basis around Mid November.
You might cosider investing in a mobile log cutter splitter for the future. While logging ,cutting and splitting is admirable iI takes a toll on the body 😊👍
Living in Central Texas. It is known as the Hill Country. Here we have Mesquite wood which burns very hot and very fast. Makes great coals for BBQ and also for heat beds in the fire places or stoves. We use Oak Trees for longer burning fires after we establish a bed of heat with the mesquite. At least that's what I did when I lived where there was a fire place. Lots of folks use just mesquite, but it burns out a fire place or stove quicker. Our State Tree is the Pecan. Sometimes, when am desperate, I used fallen and dried limbs. Love your videos. Even though I live way down here, a learn a lot of useful lessons from you. Thank you for taking the time to share your knowledge so that we can learn,.
I'm in West Virginia. We're at 1,700 ft elevation. Our woods are oak dominant, with mostly chestnut oak here and some red oak. On my property, we also have maple and some young black birch with yellow pine dying out. As the elevation decreases, you see more tulip poplar, beech, and white oak. I burn chestnut oak almost exclusively. There's a beetle killing them. I cut them after they have been standing dead for 2 years. They burn hot and long, leaving an amazing bed of coals. I go through 3-5 cords a year. It's our primary source of heat.
Up here in Norway, we tend yo love birch that have been growing in the mountains. Under harsh growing conditions the wood become very dense and gives good heat.
I have been watching you for years and I want to commend you as one of the hardest working man I have ever seen. On UA-cam. I watched you put up your first house, etc. Keep up that energy level into older age, and you will experience the values to your health. Just remember to relax and enjoy your family from time to time. 😊
I'm surprised you didn't go the masonry fireplace/rocket mass heater way for heating. A fire a day, burnt hot and fast would keep the place warm for a day and you don't have to tend the fire - also no creosote since it burns so hot and spruce and pine is great in this too. Cooking on an old-school wood fired cooktop with smaller firebox would use much less wood.
For reference, here in Finland I only use about 10m^3 (8 face cords - granted, well seasoned) of mixed wood (birch, spruce and pine) a year to heat my house and provide hot water for a year - and that's 120m^2 house. I use a combination of a masonry fireplace and a wood gasifier connected to a buffer, but the principle is the same as a rocket mass heater. There is barely any creosote in the chimney every year when I clean it.
And the one exception for bark: birch bark. I use that for kindling, burns even when it's wet due to the oils it contains. Nature's fire-starter :)
I have had one official concussion +3- 4 other concussions due to depth perception problems, have Aspergers Syndrome, undiagnosed PTSD due to an evil ex-general Manager from McDonald's from 2005 with flash backs, I.B.S. or Colitis, Gerd, hypoglycemia, SEVERE depression, attention deficit disorder, Candida Albicans, Jock Itch, Athlete's foot,
Shawn, can you please explain your fire plan. Just interested. Best wishes from Western Australia 🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺
CHAPS! Chaps Chaps... fiberglass lined.. easy to use..... You are alone often... THEY SAVED my life/// I am very careful but I slipped on mud while cutting a 14 inch tree.... Sht happens and before I even knew my saw hit me... It stopped due to the CHAPSSSSSsssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss... Love to see you in a good pair... Absolutely NOOOOOOOOOOoooooooooooooo reason not to... I have been in the woods allllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll my life... as a matter of fact i have them on now as I am bringing wood just cut down to size.... Get SMART! See True hands Pottery... Vermont... been writing to you.. CHAPS!
Nobody mentioned the statue of a deer behind Shawn? Thought it was a real buck until it never moved an inch during the entire video. Then there was another animal statue that held his hat at the end or am I seeing things?
It does look real, as well as the bear and bird..
Good job. Firewood, like almost everything involves tradeoffs. Good discussion for the public. My wife and I have been heating with wood for 35 plus years the best wood is what you have available.
Can you use creosote as a fuel?
Creosote was also processed into gas and used for lighting that way. As a fuel, it was used to power ships at sea and blast furnaces for different industrial needs, once it was discovered to be more efficient than unrefined coal or wood.
Shawn, the Soo area is very similar to yours. We do have some white oak, walnut and butternut. Got snow yesterday, 6”. Too early. Be safe
Shawn love your channel but only rookies use Husqvarna! Serious outdoorsmen and loggers only use Stihl! Stihl will start when Husqvarna won't! Been using Stihl for over 50+ years! Why do people settle for substandard saws like Husqvarna???
Just south of you our family has a camp in the mountains of northwestern Pennsylvania (also known as The Pennsylvania "wilds") and we get hammered by lake effect snow from lake Erie. We have Pine, Maple, Birch, but lots of Cherry which is what we primarily heat our place with. Actually your woodlands remind me of our place, I even hear the same birds calling (and who can forget about those spring peepers too). Speaking of birds, nice to see you're getting some bird houses up, let them do the dirty work and take care of the bug population for you. I think i even saw a bat house on your property (last time i checked our bat house, there were so many bats in it that i couldn't count em). Owl boxes are good too, they'll take care of those rodents. Anyway, keep on living for a "living", i think it's safe to say you are inspiring people. Thanks!
I've also seen Martijn Doolaard on his channel throwing a strap around a bunch of wood and chopping it that way. Shawn is such a great teacher.
Build a V rack on 16" centers for your scab wood. When full, cut through the entire rack on 16" centers. Easy Pizzy.
Uncle Ray used to say, "Firewood warms you twice. Once when you chop it, and once when you burn it." He was from Michigan's UP.
Right now, I burn nearly 100% black cherry. I've been cutting down 6-12 trees each year, buck them and I put them out on pallets for year. In the spring I'll cut them to size and split. The split wood resides on my covered porch from late April until September when I start burning. After that time, the wood is checked and ready to rock. My wife says I cut too much, but I remain unconvinced that's a thing. I'm in northern New York. I still have ash trees around, but it's a matter of time before the asian import kills them.
why not cut circles in your stove top to get direct flame access?
Depends on your bark. I live in the Pacific Northwest. Douglas Fir bark, that you can find many times 3 to 5 inches thick, when dry makes a long burning hot fire. Used it many time while hiking the the Cascade Mountains or out on the Olympic Peninsula for camp fires.
OMG, nothing but talking about wood. Sheesh, if a person doesn't know how to do a fire by now they should be watching another channel. This channel is like college and you are talking about the ABC.
I only use firewood in my BBQ smoker. When my tree trimming guys trim my live oak trees every 3-4 years, I have them save me some of the branches, which I split and dry out in the garage. I have also bought bags of hickory, pecan and mesquite wood in the past. Mesquite is especially good for smoking beef brisket and pork ribs. Mesquite comes from south Texas and has a unique flavor.
In the North East of England (the old one) here. As far as availability goes, it's Scots Pine and Sitka Spruce from all our plantations in this area, though obviously they have all the soft wood downsides you mention. There's a fair amount of beech woods but mostly unmanaged, so firewood from them is few and far between. It's amazing to see all your progress, Shawn. All the best.
Curiously Balsa Wood is a Hardwood. Balsa Wood is a hardwood that is incredibly lightweight and soft (think model aeroplanes 60 years ago).
I was talking about different kinds of firewood with an old friend one time. "Old" Friend meaning he was 90 years old (lived to 94). He said "Kid, it's all good firewood. Burn it and it will keep your ass warm."
How much is in one cord? In Europe north we talk about stack or solid cubic meters. By googling 1 face cord is something like 3.4 to 4 cubic meters? So your 20 cords is about 80 cubic meters. That is a lot of fire wood.
I live in the Ozarks in Northern Arkansas. We have Red Oak, White Oak, Water Oak, Post Oak and Hickory is what most folks use for firewood with the Red Oak being the best. Hickory burns super hot and is hard on a stove and also pops sparks everywhere but it will flat put out the heat.
Out here in western Washington State, we have cedar, fir, pine and alder. The alder is my favorite for long burn, good heat. Cedar of course for starting fires, fir and pine for the hot quick fire. One trick with alder, is split it when it’s green, dry alder is murder…..😅😅….thanks for sharing, good video.
Thank you for the explanation of difference uses of the different types of wood. Very interesting. Beautiful journey.
Lots of grand Fir, Red and spruce in my corner. But the Tamarack is the best. It’s available, but you gotta get up into the high stuff.
here in nz, most everyone in single level dwellings rurally have well-designed fireboxes of fairly standard designs, different sizes, big glass doors so lovely big fire views. i'm obsessive about a clean door...hate feeling a lovely fire n not being able to see it, tho i loathe open fires coz of the wasted heat.
best woods here are really old pine, ..burns fast n lotsa heat; manuka, which is hilarious coz it used to be regarded by idiots as "scrub" till manuka honey became THE thing..burns hot n slow; macrocapa which is a pine..hot n sparky; eucalyptus, sappy n lights easily n smells lovely.
Shawn, Pittsburgh Pa. Locust is the Best!! Osage orange burns very hot! We haver a lot of Ash, oak, maple, also elm is very stringy but burns well!
I am in Alberta. I burn mostly Tamarack with some Poplar. I can get some birch but is it scarce unless I go a few hours north of me. I clean out my chimney twice a year. As long as I burn hot the creosote does not build up to quickly.
I forgot about larch. I have a few cut offs that I burn as well
Creosol is the result of complex chemical reactions. 'Pine tar' build up is often considered creosol in a chimney, it's just soot which is unburnt fuel (predominantly birch and conifers logs). Signs of smoke is unburnt fuel.
Here in the Mid Southeast USA our best woods that grows in abundance for firewood are in this order from The Best, Great, Good, to usable but less desirable...
HARD WOODS
*Hickory
*Oak, White Oak, Red Oak, Pin Oak.
*Maple
*Elm
*Sweet Gum
*Walnut is also probably one of the best if not the best longest & hottest burning firewood’s here. But they don’t grow in abundance & they’re used much more for lumber or musical instruments than firewood because of their high value $ !
SOFT WOODS
*Birch
* Poplar
*white Pine & * Spruce Pine & other species of Evergreen are on the bottom of the list and usually people either discard it for firewood or it’s practically free in firewood form in many cases. Although it makes good building lumbers it’s usually not used here for firewood. Because of its creosoting effects on chimneys and flu pipes.
U ask so that’s predominantly the kind of firewood we use here in the Mid Southeast USA. The 4 most popular most used firewood’s here are all hardwoods
*Hickory-Most sought for hardwood for firewood.
* Oak - All forms of it & the most used here for firewood.
* Maple- excellent hot burning firewood but don’t burn as long as the 2 above.
* Elm- good firewood but not as abundant as Hickory, Oak , Maple & Sweet Gum. But more desired over the Sweet Gum but also less abundant than Sweet Gum.
Hi shawn, we have a small cabin in the alpine regions of Australia, we burn gum trees or eucalyptus timber. Incredibly hot. I have a 100 year old wood cooker and collect the small sticks for this processed into cigar sized bits, very accurate for heat control.
Tamarack wood is popular here in North Idaho . We only have a few Tamarack on our little five acre property so we’ve used mainly birch and fir.
If you put the saw right up to the dog teeth at the beginning of the guide bar you'll have more control over the timber, it'll stop it sliding so much especially with a saw that looks like a 562. I'm a lumberjack from Ireland. Just a tip
we burn maple and birch here. Maple makes a nice fire. Ahh humidity! Our log cabin doors swell in humidity here in NE MN.
I buy my firewood split and delivered, Mixed hardwood simular to your area! Upper Gatineau area! I buy slabs from one of the local saw mills for kindling and split it myself!
Watching from central Portugal, we burn eucalyptus here as it is plentiful and very dense hardwood.
We used to load free truckloads of slab wood from a water powered sawmill in Southern NB...all we burned for years when times got tough...had to clean the chimney a lot more but our heating costs were reduced to whatever fuel we used for transport. My used to hand cut everything with a bow saw to firebox lengths. Ahhhh, childhood 😂😂
Killing me! I’m in the PNW here and we primarily burn fir and hemlock for heating. Maple, oak and wood like that is hard to come by and takes a while to season. I’ll burn alder and cedar if I have to but they are fast and hot burns. Love madrona, that’s a good hardwood if you can get it. But yeah, my dad and now me and my brother cut and heat with fir and hemlock. We love it.
Thank you Shawn for the interesting lesson of the wonderful world of firewood 😂. Heat our little house with wood only for about 10 years and at this time you can't afford to buy coal . In Germany is the Queen of wood undoubtly the beech ,followed by pine and dry seasoned birch. Our maple isn't that hard like yours but our oaks and ashes are. Fir and willow are very hard and to have in some countries but the pure gold dust in heating is the larch .It's a kind of status, I believe it's their slowly growning . I put now a piece of dry birch 15 inch high by a diameter of 18 inch on the coals of some beech quarters and close the dumper to a smale gap. Thank you again for this well made vid . All the best from Northern Germany Ludwig.
Pretty fancy wood cuttin. Did Doug carve that raccoon? Thank you . Happy Halloween
Thank you , Shawn .
🐺 Loupis Canis .
Now i am fire Wood Master 😂,thank you Shawn James, krep care and healthy 👍🙏❤️
We cut down a ponderosa pine tree that the diameter of the tree was 22 inches. 36 inches up from the ground we counted 125 growth rings. This was in the mountains of Colorado at 8,000’ elevation. The tree died last winter.
Always busy amazing winter biter cold here Happy Halloween hug to Cali
what a science in wood burning. i changed to a pellet boiler, in Estonia. I just couldn't win with the wood boiler (and sooooo glad i did)
I'm sure you already know this, but after handling different species of firewood for many years with different levels of moisture, you come to know how dry a given piece of firewood is by it's weight.
Please wear chaps and watch your footwork, especially when you are cutting stuff in piles or laying on the ground/using your feet to stabilize what you are cutting.
How do you cope with working on your own, the lack of convenience and readily available materials that comes with it and lack of support?
Protection des jambes pépé 😡😡
Here in West Virginia where i live we have lots of Hickory, oak, ash if it's nor dead and rotten. And lots of Locust which is excellent firewood , and great heating value.
All dry wood burns & has its own use for something. My wood stove isn't picky.
For those of us who do not have an extensive working knowledge on this subject, there is a great book. "The Complete Heating with Wood" By Larry Gay, from back in the 1970's It talks about everything in detail.
Shawn kept mentioning a "face cord". It is import to know what that is. It is a stack of wood 4 feet high, 8 feet long and "only" 1 layer thick, versus a CORD which is 4 feet high, 4 feet thick and 8 feet long.
So, Shawn mentioned "20 face cords". If he cuts his pieces 12 inches long, he will end up with 5 CORDS of fire wood.
Great video Shawn. It shows us that even slabs cut offs are good fire wood. ;-)
Good point. I cut mostly 16” so three to a cord
In the 70s, we had elm diseased wood, and it wiped out our mature trees. So burning elm was the choice. We were able to cut for 6 years when our kids were small, and they never had a cold floor in the house. Southern Minnesota.
AZ. Pine and cedar is abundant up in the mountains, so… it sucks here for hardwood diversity.
Why are you keeping a dear captive in the background? He seems to be alive! 😥😥😥
Hello shawn love the videos keep up the good work your new cabin is absolutely beautiful
I found a video of a female chopping wood with a different axe head that was neat. She swung her axe and it broke the logs into 4 pieces of wood with one swing. It's a weird looking axe head.
We burn lots of white poplar here in sask. If we are able to find birch, that is like candy 🎂
I’m from Ireland and Ash is the gold standard for firewood, timber is very plentiful with the ash dieback disease as trees get cut not to waste them after they die.
The economy of homesteading is based on labour and excellent planning. There is a reason people move to the city. They think it is easier.
Did you ever watch the tv show called The Waltons? Little House on the Prairie?