smelly wood

[deerefan]

Maybe its because I'm still a youg 'un (27) and haven't split my share of firewood to know the difference, but here goes: I spent a couple hours yesterday splitting oak for my heatilator. Nothing like getting out in the crisp air, just you and the Mrs., a chainsaw and your trusty splittin' axe! I noticed the wood had a pretty strong odor to it, not an offensive odor but almost "pickly". Is this normal? It smells nice, almost fresh. Just never really smelled it before. Any input?

 

[scott_vt]

Deerefan,
Split alot of oak over the years, much of it smelling like piss. Hence piss oak /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif Humidity conditions need to be right for it to be really noticed.

scotty

 

[deerefan]

You hit the nail on the head w/ the odor. Smelled a little nicer though! The wood will not be dry and cured enough till next year, just trying to get a head start.

 

[tawilson]

I sawed, stickered and stacked some next to my work area at my campsite last summer. I'll put it a little further away next time.

 

[JimR]

Yup, You be splitting piss oak for sure. It does burn great once it is dry.

 

[beenthere]

If you are splitting oak, that is bacterially-infected oak (no such thing as 'piss' oak but you get the picture of how some name it that). Usually the infection is caused by root injury or logging injuries when careless 'barking' against a tree or tearing up of the surface roots. This wood tends to hold water, and takes longer to dry so the smell can be used as an indicator to 'set it back further' so it will have a couple years to get dry enough to burn efficiently. The 'infection' is not contagious or dangerous other than to the tree. When the wood is dry, it won't smell.
There are other woods (elm and sycamore come to mind) that can have that 'stewed' or 'pickled' smell to it.

 

[deerefan]

Yes, this wood was very wet. The tree had fallen in one of the hurricanes due mainly to the rot out of its massive trunk. It was hollow on the inside.

 

[Newblue]

Try smelling split black locust. I almost think twice about putting it in the stove. On the other hand, honey locust almost has perfume qualities.

Mike

 

[silo36]

Some wood's do smell less than pleasant to say the least. I have split a lot of oak over the years, and even a healthy oak resembles the smell of dog-stuff when it is green. When it's dry and burning though, it smells good in my opinion.

 

[Bird]

</font><font color="blue" class="small">( think twice about putting it in the stove )</font>

I've never had occasion to try it myself, but one of my brothers said when he got his first place with a fireplace, he acquired a large quantity of free cottonwood fire wood. But he said when he smelled it burning, it was so bad that he had a big job of hauling it off to get rid of it.

 

[waynokakid]

I've been burning wood for 20+ years now. The two worse smelling, when burning are cottonwood and maple. Almost like burning a pile of sweaty socks. Gum is about the sweetest smelling when it is burning. That and some fruit trees. Wild cherry makes a pretty blue flame when it is burning in a fireplace. As for the oak smelling when cut each one has a distinct odor. White oak is probably the strongest.

 

[Bird]

We lived in a house with a fireplace for nearly 17 years (two different houses), and back then I was always able to find a place to cut my own firewood that didn't cost anything, but the last couple of years we seldom lit a fire. Then for almost another 17 years we had no fireplace. Now we bought our current home in September, it has a fireplace, and I bought a box of those artificial logs just so I could have a little fire in the event of a power outage in cold weather; don't know whether we'll ever use it or not. /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif The toughest wood I ever split was a big sycamore with that twist grain. The hottest buring wood I used was mesquite. And the worst for popping and spraying sparks was old dry pecan. Overall, of course, I preferred oak and hickory.

 

[scott_vt]

I preferred oak and hickory

Mornin Bird,
Ill second that /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

scotty

 

[Farmwithjunk]

Partial to Ash, Hickory, and then white oak myself. There's a couple old apple trees needing to disappear from the yard. It makes good firewood too.

 

[deerefan]

I try to burn mainly oak. I stay away from "sappy" woods for fear of creosote build up resulting in chimney fires. Just last night I used a CSL (chimney sweep log) from wal-mart. Anyone use these before and have you had good results? This is the first season I've used my heatilator. We've owned the house for about 3 yrs and I finally got around to replacing the blower motors on it and rewiring it to make it a little safer. It heats the whole house. Granted, my house is only 1400 ft2 but it does great. We used a small heater in the bedroom but w/ the heatilator working we do not use it as much. From using it, we also cut our electric bill in about 1/3. Hetilators are a great investment, especially w/ the ridiculous cost of natural gas today.

 

[arthr31]

hi there deerefan,
those cleaning logs don't do much... not much more than like burning $money$ /forums/images/graemlins/blush.gif The logs don't treat the conditions which cause the creosote in the first place... and I doubt they get hot enough to burn off the gunk either...

i burn pine, fir, and other softwoods. Almost every day in fact ( burn anything which will catch fire and provide heat /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif ). Any wood can cause creosote, since it is caused by cool temperatures in the chimney and moisture in the wood. Sap is, more or less, more moisture in the wood. A good way to prevent creosote is to burn hot and try to stay away from low temperature smoldering fires.

I'm happy that you are keeping your heating bills down by heating with wood. Me too. I"ve only used about 400.00 of heating oil this winter and I think that is a very good thing... Next year, maybe even less!

Can you point me in the direction of more information on heatilators?

 

[jinman]

I have lots of hog plums (creek plums) or something similar. This tree has the worst smell of all trees I've ever cut with a chainsaw. I always think it was called "hog" plum because it smells just like a hog pen when cutting it. I've never had the urge to burn it though. /forums/images/graemlins/smirk.gif

 

[deerefan]

When I was trying to find parts, I googled "heatilator" and was led to several good informative sites. Living in Louisiana, I do not get to use it much. There is a place here called Woodburners that is pretty good for fireplace and heatilator supplies. I bought Dayton replacement blowers for mine. They are rated at 3amps a piece and turn 3100 rpms. They really put out some air. I let it burn for about 30 minutes and get the box good and hot then cut the blowers on. I've tested it and got my den to a tad over 80 degrees, a little uncomfortable but wanted to see what it would do. I'll see if I can take some pics of my unit and post it here for you.

 

[billbill1]

I had a chimney sweep (now deceased) that told me to throw a tablespoon of tri-sodium-phosphate on a hot fire daily. It is a cleaning agent and I bought it from Payless Cashways before they went out of business. I believe it came in a 5# carton and was not expensive. In the other home we had, there were 3-90 degree turns from the stove to the roof and the chimney was hard to keep clean. I now have only the 90 out of the furnace and I no longer have a problem keeping the chimney clean. I do believe the stuff helped, try it and see what you think. Running a very hot fire morning and night is a good practice, it keeps things dry and loose in the chimney w/o buildup.