What about elm?
- Thread starter woodking
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jimosufan
Member
Backwoods Savage
Minister of Fire
Yeah I've cut and burned at least a tree (1-2 face cords) each of the last 3 years. Standing dead, bark totally gone and only a few limbs still on when I cut them out of the fence row. It cut and burned pretty fine, but splitting... holy moly! Unlike Dennis, I can't say elm, splits and nicely in the same sentenceI beat on it with an 8# maul and it was like hitting a rubber block!! Maul just bounced off. Well, I guess at least it wasn't getting stuck in the round! Finally threw it into a pile and waited for splitter rental day.
There's a great little hardware 3 miles away that has a few things for rent, including a nice hydraulic splitter. I can usually split all the "tougher than I am" pieces (BTW there are more of those than there used to be!) in a morning session once or twice a season. Costs me about $20 + fuel per session. I'm man enough to admit when I ain't man enough!!
Bottom line: as someone already noted, Elm = BTUs.
Elm growing in a fencerow definitely can get pretty nasty for splitting. Thankfully all of ours is in the woods.
TimJ
Minister of Fire
AJS56
Burning Hunk
Now we are on the same page Dennis, nasty-splitting-elm in the same sentence! Now I must ask - why why is that the case? Because it is out in the open, does that make it tougher due to stresses of wind, weather, etc?
Zactly. Mother nature beats up on the trees that don't have protection from other trees (forest). The lonely trees grow to accommodate this.
Backwoods Savage
Minister of Fire
AJ, one of the best examples I could give is one thing we ran into. Last winter we cut off a large portion of some of our pines. The trees that were left are very weak. The reason is they do not have the root system that a tree in the open will have. Now if we look at the trees in the open, especially fence rows, they get full wind all the time. Wind does not blow from the same direction all the time and therefore, that tree in the open gets twisted. Guess what happens to the inside of the tree? Right. It gets twisted and is much harder to split.
Another look. Trees in the woods grow a lot taller before they get limbs. Look how low the limbs are with the trees that are in the open.
AJS56
Burning Hunk
Makes total sense to me. I just hadn't given it much thought previously, but I totally get it. i guess I just always thought some trees were mean, and some not so much. Thanks for the thoughts.
TimJ
Minister of Fire
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