Quaking aspen firewood: BTU, weight and seasoning

Heat per cord

Quaking aspen is a hardwood. At 20% moisture, a full cord holds about 15.1 million BTU of heat (16.0 gigajoules). Wetter wood gives less, because part of the heat goes into boiling off the water.

That ranks quaking aspen 529th of the 558 species in our tables, from the hottest down.

Weight and density

A full cord of seasoned quaking aspen (20% moisture) weighs about 2,460 lb (1,120 kg). Freshly cut, the same cord weighs about 3,350 lb (1,520 kg): the difference is water you don't want to burn.

Its specific gravity, a measure of density, is 0.42. Denser wood packs more heat into each cord.

Seasoning time

Split and stacked off the ground, quaking aspen needs at least 11 months to dry to about 20% moisture.

Wood dries faster once it is split and stacked with air around it. A moisture meter on a fresh split face tells you when it is ready.

How it burns

• Ash: moderate
• Coals: moderate
• Burn time: moderate

We rate quaking aspen 1 out of 10 as firewood: it burns, but denser species give more heat for the same work.

Similar firewood

Other species to compare with quaking aspen:

• Bigtooth aspen: 15.9 million BTU per cord
• European aspen: 16.4 million BTU per cord
• Black willow: 15.1 million BTU per cord
• Norway spruce: 15.2 million BTU per cord

Where these numbers come from

The heat and weight figures come from our firewood tables, worked out the same way for every species at 20% moisture. See how we calculate them.

Questions