Holy heating bill!

[8thTon]

Any of you know how ash trees do as firewood? They sure suck to cut.... but I've got 20 acres of them.

It is the best firewood bar none. No, it isn't the densest or most btu's, but it's still very good. However, it's easy to split, will just about burn green (not that this is a good idea) and dries fast. It lights easy and burns hot with low ash. If you've got dead trees that have not rotted they'll be burnable in a short time after stacking.

I'm gonna miss the ashes when they are gone.

 

[Josh B]

It is the best firewood bar none. No, it isn't the densest or most btu's, but it's still very good. However, it's easy to split, will just about burn green (not that this is a good idea) and dries fast. It lights easy and burns hot with low ash. If you've got dead trees that have not rotted they'll be burnable in a short time after stacking.

I'm gonna miss the ashes when they are gone.

It's a fine looking wood as well, also good for making furniture, tool handles too.
Use the ashes in your garden

 

[4.0blue98]

Ash = baseball bats too.

 

[Dirtman]

Baseball bats should be made of solid cast aluminum and wired to a 600 volt electrical charge at all times.

 

[4.0blue98]

Apparently the Astros are working on such a prototype.

 

[Shran]

Not much ash out here in western SD. Lots of pine... and oak, if you know where to look. I only burn wood in the fire pit and occasionally for other outdoor heating purposes... I do have a wood stockpile for that, and my favorite is oak and box elder - the latter will damn near burn soaking wet and splits nice.

If you want to have some real fun splitting wood, try hand splitting some dry elm. Or burn up some cottonwood, if you feel like staying cold and smoking out the whole neighborhood.

 

[Dirtman]

I've got osage orange all over too, I was told by some old timer that osage is awesome wood. They aren't very big trees though so wouldn't be practical to cut them for firewood.

 

[racsan]

I didnt realize how old this posting was, I saw Jim posted it and im like, just how much would you need to run a furnace in texas? im sure every once in a while, but not nearly as much as here in ohio

 

[alwaysFlOoReD]

I didnt realize how old this posting was, I saw Jim posted it and im like, just how much would you need to run a furnace in texas? im sure every once in a while, but not nearly as much as here in ohio

IMO bringing up old posts is fine. I see info I would never see otherwise. This one is timely too.

P.S. I realize you are not complaining.

 

[8thTon]

I've got osage orange all over too, I was told by some old timer that osage is awesome wood. They aren't very big trees though so wouldn't be practical to cut them for firewood.

It is supposedly the very highest btu output, even better than hickory, though I've never had any to try. I save the hickory for the coldest nights.

 

[Dirtman]

Its strong too right? Good for tools and what not?

I think my biggest osage tree is only like 10" in diameter and they are very bush like. It would be impossible to use them for anything but tool handles and such.

 

[85_Ranger4x4]

Jealous of you guys with gas/propane hooked up! Out here electricity is 5.7 cents per kW thanks to a bunch of paid-off WW2 era dams & the trash furnace on the other side of the valley. Yet we still chewed up $350/mo last winter heating a split level 4-bed house with original '80s baseboard heaters. We had zoning down and everything. It'll be a cold day in hell before I fork that much over again so I got a couple bbq tanks and those Mr Heater radiant propane heaters off Amazon.

If it is any consolation propane isn't much cheaper during a hard winter (like last year)

I have a big tank in the yard the local co-op fills when they get hard up for money, not really a line to the house.

 

[Josh B]

Osage Orange = boise d arc = bois d'arc = Bodark = Hedge = = =
It was named by early French explorers. It literally means bow wood, the Indians used it for making bows but I believe they called it more or less some kind of iron wood. An old man near here used to take the cured roots from the ground(it seldom ever rots) and carve awesome pistol grips handles. It's also been used here a couple centuries for fence posts, many of which are still there, many of which got bulldozed in the name of progress.
Also talking on a yahoo chat years ago a fella in KS kept referring to Hedge when we'd discuss firewood, which I also came to learn was Bordark(the way I say it). They'd plant it for cheap fences. There's some on our farm that have trunks in them that go fairly straight(well, straight enough to build a cool gateway) 30 feet or more, and some that are almost 3 ft thick at the base.
Some early 1800s surveyors through here used it to protect their steel stakes, drove 4 Bodark stakes around each one. In the mid 1900s more surveyors came looking for those stakes, but only found the 4 bodark ones around some reddish looking dust.

Dry and cured it makes great firewood, but sparks a great deal(almost like shooting stars). I have stacks of old bodark posts around here, being the woodworker I was, that I cannot bring myself to cut up after seeing that beutiful wood in the first fresh cut of an old bodark limb

 

[Shran]

Osage orange is/was commonly used for making bows and arrows. I have a book on making wooden bows and it was #1 on the list of wood for that.

This is an old thread for sure but brings back some memories - there was a propane shortage for a couple years which really put a hurt on people's wallets, probably around the time that this was posted. Heard that there's another shortage in my area of the country because of the wet growing season and early fall. Farmers are using a shit ton of it for drying crops and prices/availability have been affected.

 

[Josh B]

This thread began just before the crash of 2008