locust firewood

[amp]

i typically always burn oak, cherry, or maple it seems, but i took down a huge locust tree last year. i've heard this wood nicknamed "iron wood"....i think. i'm familiar with the tree.......just haven't burned it as firewood before. does this require anymore time to season compared to oak, cherry....etc? just curious. this particular wood i'm talking about has seasoned for exactly a year now. it seems to still be holding onto it's bark pretty well though. thanks for the insight.....whomever it may come from!

[amp]

any thoughts folks?

[suemarkp]

Locust should be a good wood to burn, a little better than oak (see http://chimneysweeponline.com/howood.htm ). I don't think it is the same thing as ironwood which is really hop hornbeam. I would expect a year of seasoning to be enough if oak will season in that same time period where you live.

Here's a link that shows some other pros and cons of various firewood:
http://thelograck.com/firewood_rating_chart.html

and of the wood itself:
http://www.woodweb.com/knowledge_base/Black_locust_uses.html

[Sano]

Locust and, maybe, osage orange are two woods you can cut and burn the same day. Both of them make excellent fence posts too. Afaik they'll last 20+ years, often longer.

I've picked up locust that's been cut by road crews and burned it that night. ;)

[lwalper]

Sure, you can burn anything, but some of the "green" locust I've cut DRIPS sap when I split it. You're better off splitting stacking, and covering anything you plan to burn and let it dry for at least a few months.

Splitting is the single most important thing to enhance drying times. Very little water actually moves directly through the many rings of a log - that's by design. Water moves UP and DOWN in the tree. With that in mind, 99% of the evaporation occurs at the end of the log. When the log is split all those many layers are now open and evaporation can occur via a much shorter path - through the split instead of having to travel all the way to end of the log.

I split everything down to about 3 or 4 inches. It's easier to handle; you can stuff the stove just as well with just as many (or more) pounds of wood; burn characteristics are more consistent. In a "modern" air restricting stove burn times are about the same as when using larger wood, but the advantages far outweigh the additional time for splitting to that smaller size. It's sort of like using a pellet stove that uses a bunch of little bitty pieces to achieve the same end - consistent, steady heat output.