burning poplar?

[gerry100]

cut down a big poplar as part of a landscaping project.

White outer layer with pea soup colored heartwood, light even when wet and basically weak wood.

They grow like giant weeds around my property , I've ignored them and always left them when I had to cut them.

Has anybody found a use for this stuff?

 

[Jan Pijpelink]

I am burning it right now. If it is dry it is a great wood to burn in the shoulder season.

 

[bholler]

It is one of the few woods I will not bother to cut and split for firewood. It does make good camp fire wood and works great for paint grade trim or cabinetry.

 

[Chimney Smoke]

I like poplar, it seasons and burns just like pine but without the pitch and knots. Great shoulder season wood. This is typically all I cut and burn at my hunting camp.

 

[Hasufel]

I've split and burned poplar before but generally avoid it if I have anything else available. It can be a challenge to split and burns fast with relatively little heat, so it hardly seems worth the effort. It does have the advantage of drying faster than something like oak.

 

[firefighterjake]

Not my favorite wood by any stretch . . . but as mentioned it works OK enough this time of year for shoulder season burning.

 

[Poindexter]

Works great for boats. machines easily and cleanly, hand tool edges can be maintained at 320-400 grit for museum quality joinery. takes epoxy and paint beautifully. fairly good rot resistance when bare wood is accidentally exposed below the waterline.

Off cuts make great kindling.

 

[sen166]

I most certainly wouldn't just throw the stuff away. In my experience, it splits very easily, dries very quickly, makes great shoulder season wood, and makes even better kindling.

 

[Kelster]

We have tons of it around here as well. Makes excellent blonde colored tongue and groove, takes stain or varathane really well. Burns fast and hot.

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[Kelster]

Very easy to split - pops open on the splitter.

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[JabaduGarfunkle]

BTUs are better than no BTUs but I would take another wood first.

 

[Easy Livin’ 3000]

I have more poplar than anything else by far. Have had varying experience with splitting. A recent one fought me to the last inch, and when I went to work noodling the unsplittables, found a pipe buried within that destroyed the new $30 Stihl chain that I had just splurged on to try them out. I think the key is to let them dry in the round before trying to split, then they pop right apart.

It burns fine, just not long lasting, so. much more work to reload frequently.

If you google poplar bark siding or shingles, you'll find that some enterprising folks are making a cool premium building product out of the bark. I try to strip the bark off and after a couple of years in the rot pile, put it through the chipper shredder. No better potting soil.

 

[sportbikerider78]

Easy to cut..easy to split. Bark stays on and is clean wood. Moderate BTU but you can't have it all.

I have a wet property and the poplar I have is very heavy. But it drives quickly.

 

[gerry100]

I'll just leave it on the ground where I cut it up until next fall when I need a "shoulder fire"

 

[JRHAWK9]

I split some Poplar last year sometime and have it stacked in my stash of pine to be used during future shoulder seasons. I'm currently burning a bunch of cut up pallets along with some 1-3" rounds at night.

 

[iamlucky13]

It's easy to split, it dries fast, and and it's on your property. Unless you've got a source for more free wood that will be less total labor (hauling and more difficult splitting vs. extra feeding), process it and burn it.

If it's in your way where you dropped it, definitely process it and burn it. You'll have done a decent chunk of the labor already just bucking it and hauling it somewhere else to rot.

 

[CentralVAWoodHeat]

BTUs are better than no BTUs but I would take another wood first.

Yes and yes. It's easy to work with, very quick to season and burns fine.

 

[FaithfulWoodsman]

After using some true poplar for the first time this year I won't get rid of the couple left to fell on my prop. Bone dry in one year and lights super fast. Wouldn't go after it, but wouldn't turn easy stuff away. Three splits on the bottom is working awesome.

 

[bfitz3]

Faithful woodsman nailed it. Not something to seek, but if it's staring you in the face, grab it. A little over one year of seasoning and my poplar is at 12-14% mc. Lights like a dream, burns quick, but it's heat. I can't see it getting the job done when it's 20 below, but right now, it's more than enough.

Temps about to hit 30's for a week. We'll see how things go then. For now, one fire a day with the stove 1/2 to 2/3 loaded, the house stays at 65-75 degrees. (Outside temps 35-55 degrees)

 

[zig]

It splits fine for me green and drys very fast. Got a pickup load of logs in May. Cut , split and stacked in full sun and wind over the summer. 38 outside and 77 in the house on a load of popular. Time to open a window.

 

[begreen]

Had a truckload offered by an arborist several years ago and I passed on it. He called it $hitwood. Then a few years ago we had one come down on our property and I cut it up to burn. It surprised me, burned great and put out decent heat. Not locust or even doug fir heat, but not bad at all. Makes a good shoulder season firewood.

 

[snavematt]

we have a ton of poplar here, easy to CSS, dries really fast. I burn it, why not, if I let it all rot thats a waste

 

[Kelster]

Burning a few pieces of Poplar right now along with the occasional piece of Birch. It's been sitting in a old trailer all summer under a piece of tarp so it's bone dry.

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[Bmore]

Looks cool when freshly split.

 

[BoiledOver]

cut down a big poplar as part of a landscaping project.

White outer layer with pea soup colored heartwood, light even when wet and basically weak wood.

They grow like giant weeds around my property , I've ignored them and always left them when I had to cut them.

Has anybody found a use for this stuff?

Each pound of firewood at equal moisture content has as many btu's as the next pound, regardless of species. I have just downed and processed 2 full cords of aspen (just another poplar), while already having 18 full cords of hardwoods split and stacked. Will use these at any time of the heating season, just takes an additional firebox load is all.

They were getting pretty large, which means the heartwood is going soft. Better to drop them on my terms than an errant wind storm. Free firewood is free ya know.