English Beech

Hello from Blightly.

Fuel prices are huge over here so many of us are reverting to multi-fuel stoves with the clean burn system (most of the UK is covered by The Clean Air Act which outlaws non approved stoves and open fires).

We are in the process of having a Franco Belge 'Monaco' installed and it should go some considerable way to reduce our use of natural gas to run the central heating boiler and heat the house.

We don't have huge woodlands over here any longer but a friend of a friend who's a tree surgeon will sell me a tonne of Beech for not very much. It'll need to be seasoned until next winter but I wondered what I can expect from Beech, I really wanted to stick to Ash and have read that Beech spits cinders but the guy is almost giving the Beech away so it's not to be turned down.

Cheers

Hello Mate,

Over here American Beech, also called Blue Beech is great. I would go for it.

Edit: See the link at https://www.msu.edu/user/walkert7/te402.htm

also at https://www.dnr.state.oh.us/trees/beech_amr/tabid/5336/Default.aspx

Yes, season it for next year. Burn wisely and enjoy your new stove. Please keep us in the loop with photos about it. The Franco Belge ‘Monaco’ is a good looking stove. I'll read up on it. Keep in touch.

Cheers and Merry Christmas!

Thanks for the speedy reply Valhalla, I'll post a few photos when the stove is fitted in the next few days. I've an axe and grenade to buy in the morning, the logs arrive at luchtime so the afternoon will be spent chopping them to size and stacking. We should have a cosy holiday season playing tennis on my daughters Wii infront of the fire.

Merry Christmas

Hello Saprolith,

Thanks. It sounds great. All that splitting and stacking is fine winter exercise. Warming you at least twice! I'm also reviewing the web page on your new stove.

Wii tennis is a real challenge for me, but I'm learning. So we tend to stay with golf or baseball. All are fine family fun.
Enjoy this special time.

Once again, a very Merry Christmas, now from a snow covered New York.

Yep it will throw out some btu!

Here is a link for American beech both blue and high versions with btu output and weight. At a cheap price I would end the advertisement as soon as possible.
http://www.chimneysweeponline.com/howood.htm a.k.a. envy may shed the veneer of civilization.

Oh goodness do I ache now ! Four hours chopping wood can only do you the world of good though and it warms you twice as they say.

In a nutshell I had the sliced trunk of a 60yr old Beech tree dropped onto the drive at lunchtime and by 4:30 I'd worked my way through 1/4 of it. Cut into stove sized slices and stacked onto pallets down the side of the house all the offcuts went onto a fire I started to keep warm (it's still going).

It came from an already dead tree so was on it's way to being dry when cut down, smells great when burning and my daughter said the smell reminds her of holidays in Austria.

Just need a big wind turbine and I'll be some way to achieving 'off grid'.

It'd be nice to mix the old tech of burning wood with a VAWT turbine and solar, very post apocalypse.

saprolith, welcome to the forum.

With that beech, remember that it doesn't like being split through the heart. Split that stuff on the sides rather than like most folks do by splitting in half, then halving that, etc., and you'll save yourself a lot of work. Good luck.

It's actually commonly called "European Beech" not English Beech. It's latin name is Fagus sylvatica, while the American Beech is called Fagus grandifolia.

I love that species of tree. Over here in the US, it is more commonly seen as named cultivars/varieties for ornamental purposes (landscaping). The purple/copper forms, purple weeping forms, collumnar green and purple form, and weeping green forms are the most popular. Both the European and American beech are beautiful trees. I believe they both have a decent BTU value for burning.

Brian