The Firewood Loggers Wouldn't Burn Even for Free. I Burned It for a Week to Find Out Why.
Harlan Sawyer
28,016 views
There's a pile of it on the shoulder of your road right now. Straight, light, free. And your
granddad wouldn't have it in the house.
In 1974 I watched forty men on Cheat Mountain split oak by hand on a Sunday while a barn-sized
pile of hemlock tops rotted forty feet from the bunkhouse stove. I asked my grandfather why. This
September, forty-five winters later, I finally tested the answer.
I'm Harlan Sawyer. Forty-two years in the timber, 1969 to 2011. Seven days of hemlock and nothing
else, with a moisture meter, a pipe thermometer, a far-bedroom thermometer, a kitchen scale, and a
white rag up the flue every morning. Fourteen rags are still on a nail in the shed.
Five things I learned: it dries in one summer (41% to 17% by Labor Day) - the pop is noise behind
glass and danger in front of it - the rag went black on day three, and why it's the hour AFTER the
fire - heat by the pound, not the cord (161 lb vs 148 lb, three degrees) - and the morning fire,
where a free pile is worth about $150 a winter.
The old men were right about half of it. The other half was about a stove that stopped existing
in 1988.
Tell me your state, what softwood grows on your road, and whether your people burned it or walked
past it.
Stack it dry, friend. It keeps.
Sources mentioned: EPA Burn Wise (20% moisture), Chimney Safety Institute of America (creosote
condenses below ~250F), NFPA (screens on open fires), USDA Forest Service heat value tables
(hemlock ~19M BTU/cord, oak ~24M). One species, one stove, one week. Not your fire marshal.
#firewood #hemlock #softwood #woodstove #woodheat #oldways
11 Comments
Had to have some dead pine trees taken down a few years ago. I burned them.
I live next to the woods. The owner lets me get wood. I'm not allowed to get anything green, but he doesn't care about the dead wood.
Most of what I get is oak and cherry. But, I have no problem adding pine if needed. And there's a lot in there that's die due to a beetle.
Right now, we have a nor'easter moving through. I'm wondering what it's going to bring down. 😂
The Firewood Loggers Wouldn't Burn Even for Free. I Burned It for a Week to Find Out Why.
Harlan Sawyer
28,016 views
There's a pile of it on the shoulder of your road right now. Straight, light, free. And your
granddad wouldn't have it in the house.
In 1974 I watched forty men on Cheat Mountain split oak by hand on a Sunday while a barn-sized
pile of hemlock tops rotted forty feet from the bunkhouse stove. I asked my grandfather why. This
September, forty-five winters later, I finally tested the answer.
I'm Harlan Sawyer. Forty-two years in the timber, 1969 to 2011. Seven days of hemlock and nothing
else, with a moisture meter, a pipe thermometer, a far-bedroom thermometer, a kitchen scale, and a
white rag up the flue every morning. Fourteen rags are still on a nail in the shed.
Five things I learned: it dries in one summer (41% to 17% by Labor Day) - the pop is noise behind
glass and danger in front of it - the rag went black on day three, and why it's the hour AFTER the
fire - heat by the pound, not the cord (161 lb vs 148 lb, three degrees) - and the morning fire,
where a free pile is worth about $150 a winter.
The old men were right about half of it. The other half was about a stove that stopped existing
in 1988.
Tell me your state, what softwood grows on your road, and whether your people burned it or walked
past it.
Stack it dry, friend. It keeps.
Sources mentioned: EPA Burn Wise (20% moisture), Chimney Safety Institute of America (creosote
condenses below ~250F), NFPA (screens on open fires), USDA Forest Service heat value tables
(hemlock ~19M BTU/cord, oak ~24M). One species, one stove, one week. Not your fire marshal.
#firewood #hemlock #softwood #woodstove #woodheat #oldways