What kind of firewood do i have

This type of wood best suits cabinetry and kitchen furniture. Beech Wood is a popular wood for furniture because of its shock and abrasion resistance properties. This type of wood is well-loved by carpenters because it is flexible and it has an elegant wood finish.

Pine Wood is one of the cheapest and lightweight wood that is very common to household finishes because it is great for staining. But since it is a softwood it is prone to scratches. Wood identification can be deciding factor whether you would nourish or throw a wood. Cut The Wood. Hardness and Weight B. Wood Grain and Color Popular Wood types a.

Mahogany b. Maple wood c. Ash d. Red Oak e. Beech f. Facebook 0. Twitter 0. Pinterest 2. Mail 0. Previous Article.

As a quick note, the below ranking gives preference to fuel woods that work great in fireplaces or wood stoves. Some types of wood like Pine , are poor fuel woods, but still nice for recreational campfires.

Also, keep in mind that the below information is based on a combination of the data from the university extension offices links under the chart above and my own personal experience. Black Locust is arguably THE best type of firewood you can burn for heating. It has an exceptional heat output.

In addition, Black Locust produces minimal smoke and high-quality coals capable of burning through the night. Black Locust is more difficult to split compared with some of the other top-level firewoods like Oak and Ash.

Osage-Orange is not included, because it is not as common in this region. Hickory is one of the very best types of firewood, especially for heating. In addition, Hickory produces minimal smoke and high-quality coals that can burn through the night.

Hickory firewood is also a popular choice for BBQ and smoking meats. Oak firewood is absolutely one of the best types of firewood you can burn. It has a high heat output. In addition, Oak produces minimal smoke, does not spark significantly, creates excellent coals, and is easy to split when dry. Note that the above ratings are based on White Oak. For other varieties of Oak, these qualities would vary.

And in some cases, the heat output of Oak can be even higher than Black Locust. Oak is also commonly used for woodworking and is one of the best all-around woods. Beech firewood is another top-tier firewood. It has a high heat output, very close to that of Oak. In addition, Beech produces minimal smoke, does not spark significantly, and creates excellent coals.

However, Beech is one of the most difficult types of firewood to split. Beech is extremely difficult to split, harder than Black Locust, Hickory or Oak. But otherwise, Beech is great in pretty much every category. Ash firewood is among the best types of firewood you can burn. In addition, Ash produces minimal smoke, good quality coals, and is not too difficult to split when dry. Compared to other top firewood choices, Ash can be easier to start fires with, and it produces fewer sparks than Black Locust, Hickory and Mulberry.

Mulberry is excellent firewood with a high heat output. In addition, Mulberry smells nice and produces great coals. The biggest issue with Mulberry firewood is that it produces heavy sparks. The biggest downside of Mulberry is that it produces heavy sparks.

This is the main reason why it ranks below Ash, which has a lower heat output than Mulberry. If sparks are not an issue for you for example, if you will only burn it in a sealed wood stove , then Mulberry is an excellent choice. Cherry is moderately good firewood. Cherry firewood is best known for the pleasant aroma it produces when burned. However, Cherry has a relatively low heat output and is not as good for heating compared to heavier woods like Hickory and Oak.

Most people will agree that Cherry firewood has one of if not the 1 best smells. Hard Maple is moderately good firewood, with a moderate heat output, a nice smell, and high-quality coals. However, Hard Maple also produces a lot of smoke. An example of Hard Maple, would be Sugar Maple. Black Walnut firewood is middle-tier firewood. It has moderate heat output, a nice smell, and it produces decent coals.

In such cases, a very thin layer of real wood is peeled from a tree and attached to a substrate; sometimes the veneer can be one continuous repeating piece because it is rotary-sliced to shave off the veneer layer as the tree trunk is spun by machines. Assuming it is a real wood veneer with a distinct grain and texture—and not merely a piece of printed plastic—you may still be able to identify the outer veneer wood in question, but you should still realize that is it only a veneer and not a solid piece of wood.

Many times, especially on medium to large-sized flat panels for furniture, a piece of particleboard or MDF is either laminated with a piece of wood-colored plastic, or simply painted to look like wood grain. Many woods, when left outside in the elements, tend to turn a bland gray color. Also, even interior wood also takes on a patina as it ages: some woods get darker, or redder, and some even get lighter or lose their color; but for the most part, wood tends to darken with age.

The most predictable baseline to use when identifying wood is in a freshly sanded state. This eliminates the chances of a stain or natural aging skewing the color diagnosis of the wood. Most softwoods will be almost perfectly smooth with no grain indentations, while many common hardwoods have an open pore structure, such as oak or mahogany ; though there are some hardwoods that are also smooth to the touch, such as maple. By observing the grain patterns, many times you can tell how the board was cut from the tree.

Some wood species have dramatically different grain patterns from plainsawn to quartersawn surfaces. Some species of wood have figure that is much more common than in other species: for example, curly figure is fairly common in soft maple , and the curls are usually well-pronounced and close together.

Yet when birch or cherry has a curly grain, it is more often much less pronounced, and the curls are spaced farther apart.

Try gouging the edge with your fingernail to get a sense of its hardness. If you have a scale, you can take measurements of the length, width, and thickness of the wood, and combine them to find the density of the wood. This can be helpful to compare to other density readings found in the database. When examining the wood in question, compare it to other known wood species, and ask yourself these questions:. Wood from freshly felled trees, or wood that has been stored in an extremely humid environment will have very high moisture contents.

Taking into account the size of the board, how does its weight compare to other benchmark woods? Is it heavier than oak? Is it lighter than pine? Look at the weight numbers for a few wood species that are close to yours, and get a ballpark estimate of its weight.

Obviously softwoods will tend to be softer than hardwoods, but try to get a sense of how it compares to other known woods. Density and hardness are closely related, so if the wood is heavy, it will most likely be hard too.

A tabletop made of pine will have much deeper dents than a tabletop made of Oak. Many times we forget common sense and logic when attempting to identify wood.

Some common-sense questions to ask yourself when trying to identify a piece of wood:. Knowing as much as you can about the source of the wood—even the smallest details—can be helpful.

If the wood came from a wood pile or a lumber mill where all the pieces were from trees processed locally, then the potential species are immediately limited. If the wood came from a builder of antique furniture, or a boat-builder, or a trim carpenter: each of these occupations will tend to use certain species of woods much more often than others, making a logical guess much simpler.

Not only will it help to determine if the wood should have developed a natural patina, but it will also suggest certain species which were more prevalent at different times in history. And this is a continuing shift as newer replacements are sought for rosewoods altogether. Some species of trees are typically very small—some are even considered shrubs—while others get quite large.

Simply knowing what the wood was intended for—when considered in conjunction with where it came from and how old it is—can give you many clues to help identify it.

In some applications, certain wood species are used much more frequently than others, so that you can make an educated guess as to the species of the wood based upon the application where it was used. For instance, in the United States: many older houses with solid hardwood floors have commonly used either red oak or hard maple ; many antique furniture pieces have featured quartersawn white oak ; many violins have spruce tops; many closet items used aromatic red cedar , and so forth.

Sometimes, after all the normal characteristics of a sample have been considered, the identity of the wood in question is still not apparent. Believe it or not, freshly machined wood can have a very identifiable scent. Assuming there is no stain, finish, or preservative on or in the wood, quickly sand, saw, or otherwise machine a section of the wood in question, and take a whiff of the aroma.

Although new scents can be very difficult to express in words, many times the scent of an unknown wood may be similar to other known scents. For instance, rosewoods Dalbergia spp. Although difficult to directly communicate, with enough firsthand experience scents can become a memorable and powerful means of wood identification.

While certain woods can appear basically identical to one another under normal lighting conditions, when exposed to certain wavelengths—such as those found in blacklights—the wood will absorb and emit light in a different visible wavelength.

This phenomenon is known as fluorescence , and certain woods can be distinguished by the presence or absence of their fluorescent qualities. There are only a small number of chemical tests regularly used on wood, most of which are very specialized and were developed to help distinguish easily confused species with one another. They work by detecting differences in the composition of heartwood extractives. A chemical substance called a reagent is usually dissolved in water and applied to the wood surface: the surface is then observed for any type of chemical reaction and accompanying color change that may occur.

Sometimes a wood species will have heartwood extractives that will be readily leachable in water and capable of conspicuously tinting a solution of water a specific color. For instance, the heartwood extractives contained in osage orange Maclura pomifera contain a yellowish-brown dye that is soluble in water. In a simple water extract color test, wood shavings are mixed with water in a vial, test tube, or other suitably small container, and the color of the water is observed after a few minutes.

If the heartwood extractives are leachable by water, then a corresponding color change should quickly occur. In addition to osage orange Maclura pomifera , merbau Intsia spp. Because this property is quite uncommon, it can serve to quickly differentiate these woods from other lookalikes.