Is "hard" firewood worth the extra $$?

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shaun16, Oct 2, 4:08am
usually pine is the cheapest and manuka etc are dearer. are the harder woods worth the extra money though? yes they burn longer and hotter but you pay more for it
maclad, Oct 2, 4:22am
I think you answered your own question. Hard wood is more economical due to slower burning and more heat. Once your room has reached the temperature you require, provided you have a wood burner, you only need to add a log or two all night to maintain that temp. I have a tiny house and a wood burner, once the fire burns down after the initial burn I only add one log as a rule otherwise I end up opening windows and doors as it gets too hot. I burn mostly wattle but mixed with exotics, no pine, poplar or willow. Perhaps pine maybe good as kindling.
nukhelenc, Oct 2, 4:25am
Well ya will be loading the pine in all night long, oldman pine is better. Blue gum is great if dry and not the young stuff.
Ive been burning Blue all this year coz it was cheaper than macro. I like dry macro.
Would never buy pine myself
zak410, Oct 2, 4:33am
Both are good to have together,
I start my fire with Macro, (plus it can split like matches) , but pine could do too, until a hot fire then put Blue Gum and/or Manuka to last just about over night.
shaun16, Oct 2, 4:43am
Well I burnt mostly pine this winter. Had to load it heaps but I got the pine really cheap so it was worth it. The year before I had some Manuka and that was good. I'm looking at getting Douglas fir this year. Supposedly it's quite a good all round wood. And then maybe some Manuka or similar if I can find a good deal.
shaun16, Oct 2, 4:52am
Does anyone know what eucalyptus/blue gum burns like ? It's meant to be good. the Mrs. Hates any wood that's sparks or crackles
reb53, Oct 2, 5:19am
Cheap wood, ( unless actually free. ), is not worth the trouble. You just have more to store, stack, and load onto your fire. If I could buy one piece of wood that would burn all winter, but cost me $700, ( which is what I pay for my 7.2 metres of kanuka), then I would. Plus you're not going to get a piece of pine to burn over night like a piece of kanuka.
2 cord, (7.2 cubic meters), of kanuka lasts us the entire winter, and the fire basically runs continuously. And this is a poorly insulated villa with a 3 meter stud.
The only dense, heavy wood that I found to not burn as well as I expected was some jarra but there's not a lot of that about !
nukhelenc, Oct 2, 7:26am
Im going to buy one of those new nuclear powered fireplaces. 15grams of fuel for the rest of my life.
Dont like next door much anyway :) and it will still run with the power out.
zak410, Oct 2, 7:28am
Glow in the dark, no need for lighting, gr8 savings.
nukhelenc, Oct 2, 7:32am
No green house gas, clean till the end :)
15K is worth it
smallwoods, Oct 2, 9:51am
I start the fire with pine to get a good bed of coals, then load up with either manuka or fruit wood.
Usually one basket a night, middle of winter maybe two, but that's two fireplaces going.
urbanrefugee54, Oct 2, 4:29pm
we usually burn pine, because we have been thinning out a 30+yr old pine shelter belt, but due to high winds over a year ago & getting a LOT of fallen blue gum from a friend nearby - blue gum is way better than the pine, but it's not ready over the summer, has a much longer drying time to get the best from it.
pinnochio1, Oct 2, 5:12pm
Sheoak is nearly as good as manuka but without the price tag.
Poplar makes excellent kindling, if well dried,It burns too quick for firewood so unless it's free forget it. Old man pine is good as it has lots of resin in it, young pine is rubbish, burns too quick. Use large blocks of wood to slow down it's burning, less air equals slower burning. Most fruit trees are good firewood and most native trees. I didn't say that but sometimes they do become available legally.
gsimpson, Oct 2, 5:21pm
It will be "Green glow" house.
lythande1, Oct 2, 6:30pm
Pine burns like paper.
You can go in between - macrocarpa for instance.
cantabman1, Oct 2, 6:46pm
My favourite is either Manuka or Macro for BTU output {British thermal units of heat].Pine dry slab wood is great to start with, but logs of pine give off a lot of sap that blocks up the chimney.
smallwoods, Oct 2, 7:00pm
Round wood is the most economic, try not to split any that will fit in.
If young pine is dried properly, the sap won't be a problem.
A fire burning properly with good draft, no soot should clog the chimney.
A lot of people stoke up the fire then shut it down straight away. Generally this is wrong, should be left for about 10-15 minutes to clear the chimney before dampening down.
Most soot build up is lack of air flow or non-seasoned wood.
bluefrog2, Oct 3, 7:25am
I think Manuka is almost always overpriced, even if it burns really hot. Go for blue gum or macro, with about a quarter of pine to keep the hard wood burning.
In Dunedin, Pine can be about $50-55 per cu M, and unseasoned blue gum can be $60 per cu m. So if you have room to stack and store six months before next winter, blue gum is definitely worth the price. You'll still need some pine, because gum is hellish get going - it's either burning full on hot as, or it's on the verge of smouldering.
gwimweeper, Oct 4, 2:05am
OP, the answer to which wood is most economical to burn for you will depend on the prices of different woods in your area and on the heat output ( eg BTUs ) per unit volume of each available wood.

Just look up prices per cubic metre of the different woods in your area then google a table showing the BTUs per unit volume of each wood.

Then do the math.

Last time I did it for the woods available in the Wellington area the humble pine was the winner.
rojill, Oct 4, 8:23am
Gum generally takes at least 18 months or more to dry. Check if dry by banging two blocks together, if dry they will have a ring to them rather than a "thud"
rojill, Oct 4, 8:34am
If the blue gum is smouldering then it is still not dry and will burn poorly and create smoke.
When dry the gum will burn hot so much so that you have to reduce the air flow, which will ony increase the amount of heat produced. This is because a large anount of cold air will cool the firebox and the wood will just burn faster without creating any more heat due to the cooling as described earlier. Get it right, buy and use DRY wood, not wood cut and stored for the last 6 months . Buy wood from a "Good Wood " approved supplier, get the fire going, and, as the firebox heats up reduce the air flow gradually until the wood is is being cooked and turning to gas and the only flames visible are just quietly "floating" around above the wood which by now will be completely blackened .Biggest mistake is to buy wood from just any old wood merchant then expect to burn it in 2 or 3 months time.
bluefrog2, Oct 4, 10:28am
I stack out of the rain, in sun, and with great air flow, and the bluegum is dry enough to see the cracks and colour change. The problem is without pine, it tends to burn so hot that it damages the top plate of my burner, and if I throttle the air so it doesn't get that hot, the bluegum doesn't burn well. Granted, this could be a problem with my burner, but either way, I find bluegum burns best with some pine or other lighter wood mixed in - even when it's dry.
Also, the only way to get cheaper wood is to buy it unseasoned. Ready seasoned wood is easily $90-100 per m instead of $60-65 for unseasoned bluegum.
cleggyboy, Oct 4, 7:52pm
Blue gum is great firewood, but it needs cutting while green and then dried for burning. It will ruin your gear trying to cut it after it has dried.

Some of the best firewood I have had is mangrove, but it needs mixing with other wood due to the heat, it will burn out a grate in one winter unless mixed.
Old puriri is another that gives off huge amount of heat and needs mixing.
rojill, Oct 5, 7:13am
Yep, dried mangrove is murder on grates.
ira78, Oct 5, 7:28pm
No doubt, if I could get something like RTG to run my house I'd do it. Did the math once converting the energy content of nuclear fuel to gasoline and calculating the MPG of my car would get. (Ignoring the difficulties of a car sized nuclear reactor) 1.5 million miles per gallon. :)