Wood ID

Hi all,
First time poster, lurking since Jan '08.
This site is great, I've learned much.
Bought a PE Summit Classic, 'ho' house red. Installed it in early march. It saved me $150 on gas in March and April!

And, my girlfriend loves it.

Can anyone ID this wood? A local treeman directed me to about a cord of downed trees, lots of birch and this other wood in pic, any ideas?

Thanks for all the info these last 9 months.

ash

I had some sort of maple that looked like that too (knocked over in my FIL's yard).

Yep, good burning ash......

WoodButcher

Thanks guys, nothing like free wood.

Jags I'm in Mchenry county, how about you?

ash!

I got me some ash, and it's good, you got ash there for sure.

My ash has been split for a year and a half, dryin' in the sun...

I put 4 splits in the stove last night about 9:30 PM, and today at around 5:30 PM I dug around in the ashes and there were still some glowing coals in there, amazing, not enough to fire it right back up, but still glowing.

The stuff, when good and seasoned, burns awesome!

I didn't know ash was so good. I thought I was lucky with the birch.
I better get back there and clean up what's left.

Thanks

Is Ash that white when split, almost looks like Boxelder? If there are any red streaks in that wood it's Boxelder. Do you have any leaves?

It is white with a tight grain.
I've split box elder with the red streaks, this is not.
The tree has been down a while so there are no leaves.
I'd ask the treeman but he's in Tx helping with hurricane cleanup.

I'm going to have to disagree with the consensus. I don't believe this is ash.

Although I don't have experience with white ash, I thought all ash had darker heartwood - I know black and green ash do.

Also, the bark looks similar to ash, but if you look closely, the fissures seem to run long distances with no breaks. Because of that, and the light colored heartwood, I am going with Basswood/Linden. Does it split extrememly easy, and are the splits quite light?

It's tough to split, on some rounds my maul just bounces off and it has a good weight to it.

I have never had any issue splitting white ash with more than a stern glance.

Maybe because I'm huge. ummm. Maybe not.

I've never seen stringy white ash either, Green, Texas, mountain, etc ash- more so than white. My experience is not exhaustive to be sure though.

Pants man,
You must be handy to have around on splitting day

I think he named his wedges.

Definitely white ash.

I had a white ash tree a few weeks ago that was kinda stringy and a little tougher to split than most ash. Funny thing the tree that was standing next it split easy. I guess they're like people, some are a straight and narrow, others are a little twisted

It could be that about all the white ash that I've split was used for bow making. I would split it in full 6' long sections, but it was always pretty straight grained wood (needed for bows).

Straight grained ash blows apart with a maul (I've had some close calls with me shins ).......but watch those knots, ash can have mean side....

WoodButcher

I picked up some more, there's the dark heart wood. but I tell ya, it's a B***h to split.