Alternative Wood Heating Ideas

Pallets

Burning the wood from salvaged pallets is a good alternative wood fuel source. In many places, discarded wooden pallets are free for the taking. Many are constructed from hardwoods such as red oak, maple or ash, all of which are excellent heat sources. Bring the pallets home, and cut the slats free from the stringers. The resulting pieces will be about 16 inches in length, the same length as a piece of cordwood. Then remove the nails or staples from the stringers, and cut them up for even more free fuel.

Pallet wood is bark free, dirt free, dry and rock hard. It's easy to stack, and the pieces are of a manageable size.

Wood pellets are another attractive alternative to burning cordwood. Made of highly compressed wood chips and sawdust, wood pellets burn both hot and evenly. As the pellets begin to disintegrate in the stove, they break up into smaller pieces. This increases their burnable surface area and leads to more complete combustion, meaning less ash and less waste.

Pellets may be purchased by the pallet load, or, if your heating needs are sporadic; in individual sacks. Tractor Supply stores carry wood pellets.

A relatively new alternative "wood" heat source is cherry pits. Savvy wood burners have begun mixing cherry pits in with their wood pellets. Cherry pits produce more than 9,500 BTU/pound, as opposed to roughly 8,000 BTU/pound for wood pellets. Many Tractor Supply stores also sell sacks of cherry pits. However, the available supply of dried cherry pits is tiny versus the vast quantity of wood available to produce pellets. By mixing cherry pits in with their wood pellets, wood burners can stretch their limited pit supply while simultaneously raising their stove's BTU output.

But perhaps the greatest advantage to burning cherry pits is their price. Based on pricing information obtained at the Tractor Supply store in Fulton, New York, on October 16, 2009, 40-lb. bags of dried cherry pits were selling for 50 cents less than an equivalent weight of wood pellets, yet they produce approximately 19 percent more heat per pound.

Another recent innovation in wood-burning stoves is the multi-stove. These appliances are capable of burning shelled corn, wood pellets, cherry pits and olive pits. Depending on the availability of any of the aforementioned fuel sources, a multi-stove might provide the compatibility a smart wood burner could embrace.