Is Mesquite Good for Firewood – Is Mesquite Good for Burning

If you choose to heat your home with wood or even supplement another heating system by burning wood, you may wonder if mesquite is a good wood choice for you.

Many factors go into determining the best firewood, including availability where you live. You want to find a wood that produces many BTUs so that you stay comfortable in your home without wanting to open the windows to cool your house down simultaneously. Secondly, you need to find a wood that will not smother you with its smoke. It should not spark easily, reducing the chances of a house fire. You also need to find wood that does not take a long time to dry so that you do not have to keep a lot of green firewood on hand while waiting for it to dry. The wood should burn without irritating your family’s eyes and lungs and without leaving an enormous mess for you to clean up.

Let’s examine the advantages and disadvantages of using mesquite as a home energy source.

Heat Output of Mesquite

The BTU output on mesquite is 28 million BTUs per cord. Therefore, it may be too hot in some smaller homes because it puts off too much heat. By comparison, ash puts off about 20 million BTUs per cord. Therefore, you will need about 25% less mesquite than you would ash to receive the same amount of heat. When you compare those woods to mesquite, it is the winner in terms of BTUs given off.

You can also look at it another way. The average U.S. home requires about 25,000 BTUs to heat throughout the winter. Therefore, you can heat the average home on a little less than one cord of mesquite wood. This is especially great news if storage space for wood is at a premium because a cord of wood is approximately 128 cubic feet.

Mesquite Smoke

Unfortunately, mesquite wood produces a lot of smoke, which is why it is often used in Texas to smoke meats. That news is not so good when you are looking at heating your home using mesquite wood. The smoke is also thicker and denser than in many other choices.

Lignin is the significant component causing wood to produce smoke, making up about 64% of mesquite wood. For comparison purposes, softwoods, like pine, cedar and redwood, have a lignin content of about 7% while hardwoods, like oak, maple and hickory, have a lignin content of about 30 percent. Therefore, it is easy to see that mesquite is a very smoky wood.

Mesquite Spark Production

Generally, the amount of resin in a wood determines how easily it sparks. Soft woods are more likely to spark than hardwoods, and each time they do, they have the potential to start a fire. The great news is that mesquite contains very little resin. Therefore, its potential to spark is much lower than many other kinds of wood.

A second reason this is important when thinking about heating your home with mesquite is that some of the sparks from wood in a fireplace come out of the front of the fireplace, where they can cause a horrible mess because of the soot that they leave behind when they land. Since mesquite sends out fewer sparks, your home stays cleaner.

Since mesquite has a low propensity to spark, leaving a fire burning overnight or for a few hours while running errands is safe if you construct the fire properly. This is especially great news if you live in an older home where heat tends to quickly escape as you will no longer be waking up or coming home to a cold house.

Seasoning Mesquite Wood

The moisture content in mesquite wood is very low compared to many firewood types. While there are some differences based on geographical and environmental factors, mesquite usually only contains about 12% moisture when it is first cut. Therefore, in a pinch, you can generally use mesquite that has only been dried for six months.

There is a second way that mesquite being a dryer wood benefits you. When you start a fire, the first thing that happens is that the fire burns the water content out of the wood. Wood with a higher water content requires more energy for this process. Therefore, there is less heating energy available in each log.

Weight of Mesquite Wood

Another significant consideration for at least two reasons is the weight of any firewood you are considering. Generally, the more wood weighs, the higher its density and the longer it will burn. The second reason you need to consider its dry weight is to store it somewhere. If you live on an upper floor of an apartment complex and plan on keeping your wood on your balcony, you need to be sure that it can support the weight.

A cord of green mesquite wood can weigh up to 5,600 pounds while dry mesquite wood weighs about 5,000 pounds. By comparison, a cord of hickory wood weighs about 5,040 when green and 3,800 pounds when cured while a cord of pine ash, one of the lightest woods, weighs about 3,530 pounds when dry.

Mesquite Wood Splitting

Mesquite wood can be challenging to split because of its twisted branches. The wood is not difficult to split, especially if you use a hydraulic splitter. Most mesquite species develop thorns only on new growth, so it is seldom an issue when dealing with firewood, but you may occasionally get poked if you are dead wood out of a growing tree.

Therefore, mesquite tells a mixed story when it comes to splitting. You will work a little harder to get the firewood cut, assuming you are splitting your own, but there is minimal chance of it splitting in the fireplace or stove, so you do not have to worry about a log splitting and rolling out of the place where you have built a fire.

What We Like About Mesquite Wood

• Mesquite produces a decent amount of BTUs when compared to other firewood
• Mesquite does not spark easily, reducing the chances of chimney or house fires.
• Mesquite has low water and resin content, so it dries quickly.
• Mesquite is available in many dry environments where other types of firewood can be difficult to obtain.
• Mesquite is hard to splinter, so there is less chance of a log rolling out of a fireplace or stove.
• Mesquite does not produce as much soot or ashes as other standard firewood.

What We Don’t Like About Mesquite Wood

• Mesquite produces denser smoke than many other firewood choices.
• Mesquite has a low water content causing it not to produce a beautiful flame.
• Mesquite may have thorns on new growth, but they are seldom present on old growth.
• Mesquite has a strong aroma that some find offensive.
• Mesquite’s smoke makes it difficult for some individuals to breathe.

The Verdict

The choice is yours if you use mesquite or leave it in the store or woods for those who love to barbecue with it. Research also shows that this wood, which may not be the best firewood choice, produces beautiful hardwood floors. Therefore, there are good reasons to grow mesquite trees, even if you choose different firewood.