ELM?

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R

Rickb

Minister of Fire
Oct 24, 2012
1,291
St.Louis
Have a neighbor that has a sibling with a dead standing elm they want taken down. She knows I burn so gives me first dibs. I ussually stick with silver maple and ash. a little oak. I only have room for 2 cords or so on my property.

So 2 questions.

1. I know everyone is one the 2-3 year plan. I cant. no room. so I try to cut in the winter as I use it for the next winter. So I will start refilling my racks now for burning next year.(Hence why I stick to silver maple and ash...) So will dead standing elm be dry by next winter? Not looking for 10%. Anything under 20% burns fine for me.

2. How hard is it to hand split elm? Again I have done mostly oak, silver maple, and ash. I can say I will never get any more sycamore or hackelberry cause they were bad.....
 
Dead standing elm can be very dry - like cut it down, buck it, split it, and throw it in the stove that night. I've had numerous actually spew dust at me while splitting. Elm that falls and then lays on the ground tends to absorb more water rather then dry. Do you have a hydraulic splitter? If you're going to attempt to split it by hand I wouldn't bother. Elm is the reason I bought my splitter..
 
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If you've got some serious frustration that needs to be dealt with, hand splitting elm is for you.

Took me the better part of the summer to hand split a cord of elm, although it was only an hour or two in the morning a couple days each week. I had a few rounds with two wedges stuck in them. Had to behead a maul for a third wedge. Elm is the reason I would buy a splitter if I could afford one and had room to store it.

Burns well though.
 
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Will it be ready to burn? Probably ... a year should be ok ... maybe even less depending on how long the elm has been dead ... if the bark is falling off it's a good sign.

Splitting elm by hand can be tough ... but free wood is good wood, right?
 
Difficulty of splitting elm depends on the particular variety. little easier to do by hand when frozen. Standing dead the top third will likely be able to use this season if bark has fallen off the lower 2/3 due to wicking action will not be usable until next fall depending on your ambient conditions for drying and that it is split and stacked asap. nothing larger than 4x4. I like Elm just because most avoid it due to the stringy nature of the wood fibers ( really not much worse than some Hickories that I have split, even had a species of Ash that was just as stringy green) . here is 2.5 cord of elm from last Sept. This is split large as I will not need it for about 3 years likely ready in 2
 

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blades said:
Difficulty of splitting elm depends on the particular variety. little easier to do by hand when frozen. Standing dead the top third will likely be able to use this season if bark has fallen off the lower 2/3 due to wicking action will not be usable until next fall depending on your ambient conditions for drying and that it is split and stacked asap. nothing larger than 4x4. I like Elm just because most avoid it due to the stringy nature of the wood fibers ( really not much worse than some Hickories that I have split, even had a species of Ash that was just as stringy green) . here is 2.5 cord of elm from last Sept. This is split large as I will not need it for about 3 years likely ready in 2
Click to expand...

That doesn't look like the American Elm we have around here. I had a load of what I think they called Chinese Elm that looked very similar to that and split nicely like what you've got there dropped off once. But the American elm was nothing like that stuff... I had about 4 rounds that just blew into a big ball of hair when trying to split. They now hold tarps down on my other wood.
 
Tree service that dropped off logs called it Red Elm- could be a different type, it is not what we call Piss Elm ( Slippery Elm) there was no mucus under the bark. Chinese Elm - Siberian Elm is perhaps what you may be refering to - could be that species.
Slippery elm starts off very wet( when splitting it will on occasion actually squirt sap) yet dries out quickly and becomes fairly light in referance to green weight - I do not think this is that species. A I have that type in my stacks and this is clearly different.

At any rate it is 2.5 cords of BTU's
 
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Elm can be hard to split, but I have also split lots of elm that wasn't especially hard to split. It tends to be stringy, so when you split a round you often have to chop the strings before it completely falls apart. That is a pain, but not a major problem. I think it depends on the tree - some are twisted and nearly impossible to split, others not too bad.

Can you split it the field? If so you maybe you could simply leave the toughest pieces behind.
 
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Ok thanks guys. I thought I had read here somewhere that elm was a mother to hand split. Will pass on it for now.
 
Ive read from DEC websites that American Elm can have both straight grained trees and trees with interlocking grain.
If its extremely interlocked, the growth rings will be unevenly spaced. They will have a wavy undulating pattern to them. Straight grained will have an evenly spaced growth ring. It will look uniform.
But you will have to cut the tree to find out.
 
MTMike said:
You should see it when it's split green :oops:

I let it dry a year before I even attempt to split it, then dry another year before burning
Click to expand...

I had better luck splitting it green. Last year was my first year burning and I had mostly elm. Green or dry some of it really doesn't matter as it's just horribly intertwined.
 
claydogg84 said:
I had better luck splitting it green. Last year was my first year burning and I had mostly elm. Green or dry some of it really doesn't matter as it's just horribly intertwined.
Click to expand...

The times I've tried to split it green have proven to be less than successful.... it is so soft and stringy that I have to take an axe to the strings after running the splitter wedge through it. With the rounds dried a year at least I can break the strings by hand.
 
MTMike said:
The times I've tried to split it green have proven to be less than successful.... it is so soft and stringy that I have to take an axe to the strings after running the splitter wedge through it. With the rounds dried a year at least I can break the strings by hand.
Click to expand...

I always have my hatchet within arms reach when splitting elm ;lol
 
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I've split a good amount of elm lately... if you buck it up a little shorter than normal, it's much easier to split.

My typical splits are 18".. I buck elm up to 14ish, then go to work with a 8 lb maul. Not bad at all that way. If it's a large round, don't try to go through the middle.
 
I have probably split a couple of hundred cord of dead standing elm over the years, some by hand, most with a splitter. I usually wait until most of the bark is off and the smaller branches (3/4" and under) are gone. Occasionally one will have gone punky by that point but most are ready to burn with the exception of a few rounds at the butt. When splitting by hand I "square" the block, taking slabs off the sides first rather than trying to split through the center. Once it has been squared it will generally split through the center without much trouble. I have never used a wedge; if the 8lb maul won't do the trick I go for the hydraulics.

Jim
 
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WiscWoody said:
With stringy American Elm you get your cord wood and your kindling all in one package! A win win after you've slpit it all!
Click to expand...

My wife says the same thing about stringy elm . . . and says the same thing about white birch.
 
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firefighterjake said:
My wife says the same thing about stringy elm . . . and says the same thing about white birch.
Click to expand...
Lol, just after I wrote the post I thought I should have said just like White Birch too! I leave my Birch trees to rot but I collect the bark from all over the neighborhood for lighting the stove.
 
WiscWoody said:
Lol, just after I wrote the post I thought I should have said just like White Birch too! I leave my Birch trees to rot but I collect the bark from all over the neighborhood for lighting the stove.
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You don't burn birch? I haven't gotten any myself but thought it would be comparable to elm heat wise.
 
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claydogg84 said:
You don't burn birch? I haven't gotten any myself but thought it would be comparable to elm heat wise.
Click to expand...
I'm so busy cutting and processing all the other wood given to me by neighboring wood lot owners that it seems by the time I think I should get to cutting down a dead Birch on my lot they are already growing fungus shelves and fall fast. We had a drought up here in 2007 so the Bronze Birch Borers moved in for the kill after that and there are a lot of Birch to be had but then again there a lot of any kind of hardwood that you'd want to be had up here for free. Well, not any kind but the northern species... Red Oak, Maples galore, Elms, Black and White Ash, Birch, some Hickory and tons of Poplar if you need a fast drying shoulder wood.
 
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Take the Elm. Rent a splitter.
 
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