More questions on firewood

[anothertrekker]

Bought firewood from a sawmill. The first load - kiln dried pine. Burns very well but doesn't last long. The second load - dry macrocarpa & rimu. Surface of some pieces of wood look like it has silver paint. Will be calling the seller after this long weekend to ask him about this but appreciate any explanation w.r.t this "silver paint" on the wood.

Thanks in advance.

[Moorf]

A silvering/grey coloured log can be a good sign that it has been well dried/seasoned. Sometimes it can have a slight shimmer to the grey. It shouldn't look painted on though, more of a sheen.

[willsken]

A new one on me this year is the pine we have chosen contains sap (costs more ). This apparently makes it burn hotter...... we'll see.

[Wooly_Cow]

A new one on me this year is the pine we have chosen contains sap (costs more ). This apparently makes it burn hotter...... we'll see.

Doesn't sap just tar up the chimney?....or can wood burners get hot enough to burn the tar compounds?

[anothertrekker]

A silvering/grey coloured log can be a good sign that it has been well dried/seasoned. Sometimes it can have a slight shimmer to the grey. It shouldn't look painted on though, more of a sheen.

Thanks for your explanation. Understand what you mean by the "sheen" look. It looks too even, only one surface is silver & it looks solid silver...almost like the fence...the rest just look brownish. When I burnt one piece over the weekend, it emitted smoke with strong chemical smell instead of wood burning smell. Will try to chop away the silver surface & check the smell while burning. The last thing I want is poisoning.

[Tesall]

They are selling Rimu for firewood? Thats seems unusual.

[Moorf]

I was surprised to see rimu on the list of his firewoods too. Never seen it advertised for burning, too valuable.

Sensible not to burn painted wood.

Re sappy wood - it's depends on the heat you're burning. If you've got a hot hot fire then you can get away with slightly sappy wood however I wouldn't burn it in an open fire (spits everywhere) and make sure fire VERY hot before putting it on. It's more the temp you burn at that will cause creosote coating rather than what you burn, although a chimney used when burning pine continuously and almost exclusively should be inspected for tar build up a couple of times during the burning season.

Also, sometimes wood that burns hotter can be a false economy if it also burns faster... pine burns faster than a gum or macra - but gum burns for longer.

The biggest rip off we see round here is people selling obviously NOT dry wood - if you're dependent on wood for heating it's best to buy "dry" wood now for next year - get ahead by buying 2 loads now and putting one load under cover until summer, put out in summer to dry more and then use... you'll get a far, far better burn and more value from your wood. Good, seasoned dry wood sounds hollow and often has fissures in the cut ends. If the bark doesn't come away easily, it's too wet to burn. Remember, wet doesn't mean wet to touch - "wet" also means wet at a cellular level.

Just my thoughts - we run two very different woodburners so I've been doing quite a bit of research over the last few months!!

[Sam B]

Good advice Moorf. We bought some of that so called 'dry' wood in our first year here and we had a very cold winter that year. We are also obsessed with wood now.

[shakyle2906]

We had a cord delivered a few weeks ago of macrocarpa and pine, it was called 'super split'......... much smaller pieces than what we are used to.

We have found its not so good having this super split as we are going through twice as much as we would have with bigger pieces ......... lesson learned!

Its lovely and warm though!

Sharon
x

[anothertrekker]

They are selling Rimu for firewood? Thats seems unusual.

I ordered Mac but the seller said there's some rimu in there too. Must admit I don't know how to differentiate it. I am getting used to differentiating pine & mac but not rimu. Am aware that rimu is a.k.a red pine.