Fast growing trees for the wood stove

[rbhollabaugh]

I'm on a 10 acre lot with not a single tree to my name. My backup heat is a wood stove. You might ask - What are you doing with a wood stove and no trees? Well, I've been burning wood I find on the side of the road from the trimming cews.
But I'd like to have my own supply of wood. Is there such a thing as a fast growing tree that is suitable for burning?

Rich

[robertn]

Most fast growing trees are light fast burning wood, some being pitchy, and not good for the flue.

[Hakim]

Robert is right. Most any truly fast growing trees aren't going to be of much use for heating. And those that would be good, will likely take ten years or more before they would even be minimally hefty for burning. Trees take decades to mature.

So, I suggest you look in the PennyWaster (or related paper for your area) and just buy your wood. A LOT easier than cutting and dragging it out, believe me. The time/cost factor means you really won't be saving much by doing it yourself anyway. Besides, it is actually very, very dangerous work too.

If you REALLY want to do it yourself, find someone with a good-sized woodlot, who for a small fee would allow you to go in and cut your wood. You're probably going to need between 10 and 16 face cords, depending on how cold it gets where you are. We heated a 2,200 sq. ft. house exclusively with wood, and it took about 16 face cords per winter.

Have fun. [img]/forums/images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

[rbhollabaugh]

Thanks for your replies.
You confirmed what I suspected. There is no such thing as a fast growing hardwood tree!
We live in northern New Jersey. If the winter is a cold one then we use 3 face cords per season. Since our primary heat source is solar with the basement slab as our heat sink/source, we do not need a whole lot more heat. It's those cold, windy and cloudy days that really burn up the wood fast.
I've been gathering roadside wood from trimmers for about 10 years now. It's easy to pick up and bring home. I've got chaps and a peltor loggers helmet with hearing protection and face shield.
I guess I should plant those oak trees. They'll be ready for cutting in about 40 years

Rich

[egon]

Somewhere I recall reading that about 6 acres of poplar would produce enough wood to heat a home on a permanent basis. Chipping it and using the appropiate stove will also help.

There are many areas where poplar, spruce or pine are the only firewood available. Having used all three I have never had a chimney problem.

Also remember that pound for pound all wood has almost the same heating value.

Egon

[robertn]

Around here, there are some outfits that are a "cut your own" kind of things. Sometimes they get rights to wood in large construction areas, or in orchards when thinning or replanting is done.

A few years back, I got some of it for my parents. The land was cleared, and cuttable wood was in a pile. I payed like $25/cd to cut. Since then, the same group has sent ad's for wood in orchards, some almond, apple ect. The farmer was replacing trees or doing heavy trimming and had lots of wood.

I get some wood from construction sites. If you ask the forman, sometimes they'll let you take scrap wood. Some 4x4, 4x6, 4x8 wood works fine in the stove. It also makes for great kindling.

[Pat]

Dimensional lumber scraps are best for fast short duration fires or kindling.

It has been a few decades so I don't recall the species but an engineer friend of mine extensively researched renewable resources for home heating and found a brushy tree from Austrailia that was drought tollerant and produced the most bio mass for unit of input and useful quality output that he found in his search. It grew fast and was useful within a few years. The scheme was to plant several acres and begin to prune/harvest after a couple years. As it grows and matures you cut more heavily in rotation and essentially once established you have a perpetual supply.

I consulted with him a bit regarding better means of simplifying utilization. One of the better methods was chipping and drying. Properly sized chips can be fed through an auger driven feed system like a pellet stove. You have the backup capability of using pellets and can enrichen the mixture a bit by mixing in pellets to allow for less than optimum fuel condition.

As I recall he wanted to modify a larger pellet stove's auger to feed larger chips due to already having a chipper that produced course chips. As best I recall he made it work OK but don't have the details as to how much pellets to how much chips or whether or not he always used pellets mixed in. I believe his final version if he ever quit improving it didn't require pellets. It worked for him but he was a mechanical engineer with a masters degree and some mechanical patents for level wind mechanisms on winches. I believe his final version was thermostatically controlled like the better pellet stoves but don't recall if he got his automatic electric ignition working without pellets. One sure fire version he had used a propane pilot to ensure reliable starting with course chips but as a sort of purist he wanted to do it without propane. I think the propane was a simple fix that wouldn't have bothered my sensibilties at all given that it was just a pilot/starter system and the main fuel was essentially chipped brush.

I don't know the croesote factor but he was aware of the potential and being quite thorough must have believed it to be under control. Maybe with forced air fan assisted combustion, creosote buildup is minimized.

Unfortunately he has retired from the lab where we worked and my attempts to contact him failed.

[img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img] Pat [img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

[beenthere]

Several good bits of information have been stated. One to remember is that pound for pound, essentially all woods are equal. The lighter woods just require more trips to the wood stove than the heavier ones.

Close friend of mine (now passed away) researched a wood lot, and he too found that about 6 full cords a year could be produced on a sustainable basis on 6 acres. Also, that soft maple was a pretty fast growing tree that would provide the most "heat" per acre. He had a ten acre plantation on an 8 x 10 spacing that he planned to harvest beginning in about 15 years. The trees were small then but there was no splitting required. Unfortunately, he started this at age 65 and passed away at 84, so only managed to get in on the first few years of the production of this plantation. But it grew well. Not sure that it continues to be used in the way it was intended. In the meantime, he would cut and split 10 -30 full cords of oak, hickory, elm, and other hardwoods each year to keep his wood burner supplied (6 cords a year) and to fill a drying shed with 60 cords so that he "could burn wood 10 years after he couldn't cut and split wood anymore". He used about one year supply of that wood, as he only lived one year after he couldn't split wood anymore.

In his last year, he told me he was instructing his wife how she could manage to get that supply of wood into the house and into the wood stove after he was gone. I suggested that she should put the wood up for sale after he was gone, and burn gas. At his funeral service, she told me those were his last instructions "sell the wood, and burn gas". [img]/forums/images/icons/smirk.gif[/img]