# Best Firewood?



## Pilgrim (Oct 16, 2010)

For you real fire-lovers out there:
In your opinion, what are the five best firewood trees?
My guess would be HICKORY, RED OAK, WHITE OAK, WATER OAK, & ????


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## shakey gizzard (Oct 16, 2010)

Free hickory!


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## divinginn (Oct 17, 2010)

Hickory is my favorite.


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## Backlasher82 (Oct 17, 2010)

Hickory and White Oak. Red Oak stinks and Water Oak is stringy and hard to split.


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## Reece2 (Oct 17, 2010)

Locust and Hickory


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## BBQBOSS (Oct 17, 2010)

My personal preference is red oak for firewood..... Hickory is good as well but i typically use all of that i get for cooking...


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## 7Mag Hunter (Oct 17, 2010)

Campfire or home heating ????
Red Oak, White Oak, Hickory....Wood stove for home heating...
Water Oak holds to much moisture...

Campfires, any........


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## NCHillbilly (Oct 17, 2010)

Locust is the absolute best. After that, I would say hickory, ash, white oak, cherry, and red oak.


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## jigman29 (Oct 17, 2010)

locust makes a hot fire but you have to be careful my wifes grandpa busted the side in his heater twice with it.I like red oak or Edited to Remove Profanity ----Edited to Remove Profanity ----Edited to Remove Profanity ----Edited to Remove Profanity ---- oak as some call it here,it may stink but it makes a good fire.


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## game dog (Oct 19, 2010)

i like red oak myself


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## elfiii (Oct 19, 2010)

Hickory, hickory, hickory, hickory and hickory, in that order.


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## fishfryer (Oct 19, 2010)

None of you folks ever burn pecan?First cousin to hickory,some say it is hickory.Burns hot,smells good.


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## NCHillbilly (Oct 19, 2010)

Pecan is just another species of hickory. Same genus as the rest of them.


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## deadend (Oct 19, 2010)

The best firewood is free, and split, delivered, and stacked by someone else.


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## Hut2 (Oct 19, 2010)

Orange tree firewood is the best I've ever burned. Burns very clean & hot!  Got a pleasant smell too.


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## jcinpc (Oct 19, 2010)

dadgum, another PC dude, I was gonna say the same thing, but I think its becuase we have so many groves being pushed up right now there is  so much orange wood out there, I love to cook with it too


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## River Rambler (Oct 20, 2010)

Dogwood


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## Sterlo58 (Oct 20, 2010)

Free wood


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## Jeff1969 (Oct 21, 2010)

For heating fires, I prefer red or white oak; easy to split, burns hot. For cooking, I like to use hickory or pecan and when I can get it, apple or mesquite.

Back when I was in the service, I was stationed in Texas and me and a couple buddies had a few fokls that would pay us to get rid of the mesquite trees on their land, we'd bust it up and sell it for good $.


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## garnede (Oct 26, 2010)

http://chimneysweeponline.com/howood.htm

Check the link to see how many BTU's of heat you get from each type.  Usually the harder, more dense, the wood the more btu's.  This does not take into account popping, resin, difficulty splitting, or other problems with the wood.  But if it all cost the same delivered, split, and stacked then take the one with the highest BTU"S.

Osage Orange (Hedge)
Hickory, Shagbark
Beech, Blue (Ironwood)
Birch, Black 
Locust, Black  
Hickory, Bitternut   
Locust, Honey 
Apple 
Oak, White
Oak, Live (Southern)
Oak, Red
Ash, White
etc....


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## Twenty five ought six (Oct 26, 2010)

garnede said:


> http://chimneysweeponline.com/howood.htm
> 
> Check the link to see how many BTU's of heat you get from each type.  Usually the harder, more dense, the wood the more btu's.  This does not take into account popping, resin, difficulty splitting, or other problems with the wood.  But if it all cost the same delivered, split, and stacked then take the one with the highest BTU"S.
> 
> ...




Ummmm, I haven't done the actual testing, but I'm willing to bet a fair amount of money that white oak and especially live oak, has more BTU's per cord than apple wood.   The densities of apple to live oak aren't even close.  A lot of live oak has a density >1.00, meaning it will sink.


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## garnede (Oct 27, 2010)

Twenty five ought six said:


> Ummmm, I haven't done the actual testing, but I'm willing to bet a fair amount of money that white oak and especially live oak, has more BTU's per cord than apple wood.   The densities of apple to live oak aren't even close.  A lot of live oak has a density >1.00, meaning it will sink.



Maybe something in it like sap causes it to produce more heat?    I thought it was strange that apple was listed in the middle of the hardwoods and not the medium density woods.  If you check the link they have it broken down into hard woods, medium woods, and soft woods.


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## shakey gizzard (Oct 27, 2010)

garnede said:


> http://chimneysweeponline.com/howood.htm
> 
> Check the link to see how many BTU's of heat you get from each type.  Usually the harder, more dense, the wood the more btu's.  This does not take into account popping, resin, difficulty splitting, or other problems with the wood.  But if it all cost the same delivered, split, and stacked then take the one with the highest BTU"S.
> 
> ...



Nice link, thanks for sharing!


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## BoozerJeff (Oct 27, 2010)

Ash splits real easy and straight but I just split 4 cords of wood for this winter and it was all white oak.


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## simpleman30 (Oct 27, 2010)

cherry.  plenty of it available and it burns great.  not to mention it splits so easily, either with an axe or hydraulic splitter.


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## Redleaf (Oct 27, 2010)

According to the Georgia Forestry booklet on heating with wood,  live oak has the highest btu/cord rating.  Hickory is next then various oaks.  I have alot of hickory on my place, so thats mostly what I burn.


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## david w. (Oct 27, 2010)

We use white oak and hickory.


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## Jeff C. (Oct 27, 2010)

garnede said:


> Maybe something in it like sap causes it to produce more heat?    I thought it was strange that apple was listed in the middle of the hardwoods and not the medium density woods.  If you check the link they have it broken down into hard woods, medium woods, and soft woods.



I tell you what....I've got some aged apple that is some of the hardest/densest wood I've ever cut with a chainsaw. Can't make more than a few cuts through a 12-14" log without making me want to resharpen it. It even gave my Poulan 53A Bow-saw a hard time


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## basstrkr (Oct 27, 2010)

*Fire wood*

Another part of good fire wood is how often do you have to remove the ashes. I have lots of pecan wood to burn but when I do so the ashes have to be removed every other day. With oak is about once a week.


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## Hogtown (Oct 28, 2010)

I prefer Live oak.


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## tree cutter 08 (Nov 6, 2010)

i like mountain oak. splits like a acorn. hickory burns hot but is stringy and leaves alot of ashes


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## dbodkin (Nov 6, 2010)

Hickory for smell... Gas logs for heat and easy clean up................


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## westcobbdog (Nov 6, 2010)

garnede said:


> http://chimneysweeponline.com/howood.htm
> 
> Check the link to see how many BTU's of heat you get from each type.  Usually the harder, more dense, the wood the more btu's.  This does not take into account popping, resin, difficulty splitting, or other problems with the wood.  But if it all cost the same delivered, split, and stacked then take the one with the highest BTU"S.
> 
> ...





very informative,thanks. wouldn't have guessed red oak had less btu's per cord than white oak.


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## grim (Nov 8, 2010)

I have been burning water oak, white oaks and some sort of trash cherry/china berry tree.  The trash cherry trees split nicely if you let them season a bit first.  The oaks dont age very well, but burn fine.  The cherrys have a strong odor when you first drop them, but it goes away with time and they burn pretty good also.  None of them are my preference, but they are what I have plenty of since those are what we have cut down.  My neighbor had a big laurel oak fall in our yard.  Next year I can tell you how those do.


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## feathersnantlers (Nov 8, 2010)

*Dogwood*

I read on my fireplace manufacturer owners manual that dogwood is the densest.


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