Plum Wood?

I'm having 2 cords of plum wood delivered today. It's not split, and I believe was cut down within the last few weeks. I'm having a hard time finding info regarding BTU content of plum wood, as well as how long it takes to season. I'm planning to burn it next winter, which may make it not quite seasoned yet. I also have 2 cords of douglas fir split and stacked already for next year, though.

The seller says that plum is similar to apple in terms of heat produced and burn time. They also say it rates higher in BTUs than most maple. I've read online that others say plum is similar to cherry in regards to BTUs.

I've attached a photo of the wood. As you can see, much of it is in branch form, so won't need to do as much splitting as my last load, which was 2 cords of douglas fir rounds, most of them around 30" diameter.

That's good news on the BTUs. What made yours hard to split? Twisted pieces? Knots? It looks like a lot of the wood I'm getting will be from branches, and may not require much splitting. The seller mentioned that they haven't picked up the trunk pieces yet, which are not part of my delivery.

Oregon Bigfoot said:

Yes, it had a very bad twisted trunk, not straight grained, and knots. I would whack, whack, whack with the maul. It was as if there were rubber bands holding it together. When I would whack, the split would start to separate, then bounce back together, even grabbing the maul. I would really have to work at getting the maul freed. I'm sure this is not true of all plum, but this one was a bear. I don't have much of it. I cut it April 2012, but will probably not burn in until 2015-2016 winter.

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I had it delivered yesterday. Looks like a lot of the pieces are very bent, which I'm sure will make it difficult to split. I'm going to have to a used tire for splitting to keep these things together.

Also, the seller did not cut them down to appropriate stove length as they said they would. Many pieces are over 20" long. I'm going to have to invest in a chainsaw. I don't see myself cutting these down to size with my reciprocating saw in a reasonable amount of time.

Thanks for the tips Applesister. I'll look into a compound miter saw. That seems a lot safer than using a chainsaw on these. Probably faster, too, and like you said less waste due to the thinner blade.