Burning Wood

It's not liking burning the midnight oil. To me, this is far more gratifying.
Let me give you an idea...
This is what it looked like this spring...
The trailer was my brother's idea. He bought it at an auction, got it road-worthy, filled it with wood from his property and brought it down for us to take wood out of rather than multiple small loads and stacking.
I prefer the latter way of doing it than having it parked by our garage. It's like we had the gypsies living with us.

Then there's the Leaning Tower of Maple that needed to be brought down:












This has been leaning more and more every year since the butternut it started growing by was taken down. Gorgeous red maple, but sadly, it came down this spring, leaving a pile of logs:


Thankfully, my brother came down with his big chain saws, cut it up and then split it!




I just got it stacked, along with the wood that was in the trailer - which was done back in May...









So this weekend, my sister came into town. She loves power tools as much as I! Together, we cut up some smaller logs that have been curing for a year, and then cut down 3 small trees that were leaning worse than the red maple, and in the same spot as the red maple. A couple of hickory and a birch. This is her, working with some pruners my grandfather made, lopping off the smaller branches:












I'm actually quite excited about it since this area of the property hasn't been looking like anything more than trailer trash central for about a year. It's actually starting to get far neater! It's a miracle!

And, from a heating perspective, I'm excited because I'm starting to recognize the different woods by their leaves/bark and just read an article in an old Organic Gardening magazine. This is from March 1973 and was written by Jeff Cox.

Determining How Much Wood You'll Need To Heat For One Heating Season
He gives the formula for determining the amount of wood you will need for your house per heating season.
You have to know your insulation - poor, average, excellent. For a poorly insulated house, you'd choose a higher number - 45 being the highest (the number of btu's per house needed to heat 1 square foot). For a well-insulated home, you'd choose the lowest number 28. So, if you have an average insulation level, go for a middle number 35.
You have to know the square feet of heated space for your home. Obviously, you're not counting crawl spaces or attic or garage - unless you plan on heating them directly.
You also have to know your "degree days". This is a bit out there for me, so I'll quote him directly:
"Degree days are the average number of degrees of temperature below 70. For instance, if the average temperature on Jan. 15 is 38, you subtract 38 from 70 to get the degree days - 32 degree days in this instance." (But rather than calculating per day like that, look at your utility bill for the average temperature of each month you wish to be heating. NYSEG puts it on the bill so you can average the number of therms per day to compare to last year's volume to temperature use)
He gives his total as 5800.
Now you have to know what kind of wood you will be burning. He gives the coolest table to help figure that out.
These are all BTU's per full cord:
Hickory - 24.6 million
White Oak - 22.7 million
Beech - 21.8 million
Sugar Maple - 21.3 million
Red Oak - ditto
Birch - ditto
Ash - 20 million
Red Maple - 18.6 million
Elm - 17.2 million
Yellow Pine - 18.5 million
White Pine - 13.3 million
Aspen - 12.5 million
(The definition of a cord - 4'x4'x8')

Now that you know all of the factors, it's time to know the formula

square feet of house X your heating factor X degree days
divided by
number of btu's per cord
equals
number of cords you will need per heating season

What I've learned over the years is never use green wood - you get a big build-up of soot in your chimney and it won't burn nearly as hot. Don't burn evergreens as the sap will cause a big build-up of soot in your chimney as well, and generally don't burn very hot for the work put into cutting it down and splitting it.

A gent named Sam Ogden is quoted in the article:

"Elm - Not desirable - the wood's too soft and is hard to split" (also mostly dead now)
"Apple - One of the best - it burns clean and hot, and gives off a delightful fragrance
Pear - similar to apple
White Birch - is ok but it's oily bark burns with explosive violence
Yellow or Black Birch - a superior fuel
Hard Maple - Good all-round burning characteristics
Red or Soft Maple - Not as BTU-packed as hard maple
Black Cherry - burns hot but pops and sparks
Ash - same as black cherry
Beech - one of the very best firewoods
Oak - if you're burning white oak, your burning the best
Willow - avoid this softwood. BTU content is low, it erupts and sparks as it burns.
This holds for other softwoods such as pine, poplar, hemlock, etc."

Our House
1000X37X6000 (not well insulated yet)
divided by
19 million (some is better, some is worse)
equals
12 cords
Thankfully, we only use the wood to augment our heating system, and don't rely on it exclusively! We'd be very cold this winter if we didn't have another heat source...