A score? Or not?

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keninmich

keninmich

Member
Dec 26, 2010
55
south-central michigan
Just thought i would get the opinion of all the learned folks on here....

My neighbor is moving away and the house is up for sale as he got transferred.
He was not a wood burner, he had a pellet stove. He did however have a huge pile of rounds that he says is elm and i will have to take his word for it as i have no idea what elm looks like.

He told me i could have it all if i wanted it so i went over today and loaded up the truck with it. What puzzles me is that the rounds are huge...but not all that heavy. Even though i am in fairly good shape for 54 and no weakling...i really had no problems at all loading them up. He said its been there 3 years.
Looks to be about 5 full truck-loads of wood here.

My questions are:

Is elm very good burning? Should it really be that light for as big as these are? Was this a score or just some exercise for me?

I did split a few rounds and brought them in to burn right away. They seemed very very dry and burned well. Not great...but pretty good.

Thanks for any comments and info you can give me about this.

Ken
 
What color was the split wood? The elm we have you just don't split like you said . I have some in rounds that was cut 3 years ago takes 2 wedges and a maul to split.
 
Tiger...the wood was a sort of blonde color. Almost white inside. It did not split all that hard either.

But...its very very dry too.
All the bark falls off when you pick up a round.

Are you saying it might not be elm after all?
 
The elm we have here is brown in side and stringy, hard to split by hand. Did I say it was hard to split by hand. I would say it is maple, burns kinda hot but don't last long. Heck I am burning maple tonight and house is right at 74. NEVER seen elm split easy.
 
I would call Elm medium weight when dry. It's very heavy when fresh. Really it depends on what you're comparing it to. Lighter than Oak, heavier than Poplar.
Also the wood goes from brown when fresh to very pale color when dry, but not sure if the rounds would do the same. Red elm can split okay, American elm, not so much.

You aren't going to get a useful answer without a picture. Then we can all argue about what it is & maybe even figure it out ;)
 
I guess the more you guys talk the less inclined i am to think its elm.

It really is not at all stringy. It splits pretty much like ash and i know its not ash as i have burned lots of that.
its nowhere near as dense as oak and its not the color of walnut.

I just cannot get over how i was able to lift and throw rounds as huge as those are into my truck.
 
Real light, easy to split, almost white inside.. I would say poplar, but where I am that stuff grows like weeds. Maybe describe the bark. Smooth at all and I'd be even more inclined to think poplar.
 
I will check it again tomorrow bmblank.....but if i recall correctly....it was kind of "ridgy" if you know what i mean.
 
Sounds a lot like soft maple
 
ELm is good firewood and the wood has a brown color, not white. White, lightweight wood sounds like Cottonwood or some other type of poplar.

I think it is a score regardless of the type of wood you got. Free rounds next door? What is not to like about that?
 
Any chance this could be basswood? Basswood is quite light.
 
I think all of you are right that say this is not Elm.

I split some more today and its really dry inside and not hard to split at all (i split with a 22-ton Husky).

I am surprised he does not know the real species of wood (my neighbor that is) since he works for the Nature Conservancy.


There sure is a lot it. Some of these rounds are pushing 35 inches!
 
Some species of the elm from over seas can be very light weight wise as light as Silver maple The stuff I have we call piss elm, heavy as heck when green very light when fully dry. Very light tan interior color when seasoned and stringy as hell when splitting green or dry. Once the mucus membrane ( very slimy and smells like piss.) just under the bark dries out the bark literately falls off. Burns hot and kinda quick in comparison to red Elm but produces reasonable coals. Similar type ( maybe the same) called Chinese elm grows like a weed actually is an invasive species.
 
My Vote: Score (hard to knock free BTU's no matter what it is.)


-pics or it didn't happen
 
Free wood is free wood. Sounds like a score to me. Sure doesn't sound like elm though Can you post a picture?
 
Once again it's the best kind of firewood there is FREE!!;lol Get it!
 
Here are some picture of elm. I just happened to take these pictures to show the powder post beetle dust on them.

PPB-1.JPG PPB-2.JPG PPB-3.JPG

On the weight and splitting: Elm can indeed become very light in weight. The splits shown above were very light weight. As for the splitting, elm can split really easy at times. Yes, as easy as splitting white ash. The key is to let the tree dry and leave it standing until all or most of the bark has fallen. Then leaving it an extra year won't harm anything. If that tree was growing in the woods, it should split really easy. If it grew out in the open, all bets are off because it can really be twisted stuff.
 
all of the red elm that I have had has split easy. All were a little different .............. the last one split easy as pie and the one before was a bit stringy but it got done easy enough
 
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