Elm

[husky345 vermont resolute]

What everyones thoughs on burning elm? I love the nice flame it provides

 

[red oak]

It's pretty good firewood but has a reputation as being tough to split. In my limited experience I would say that reputation is well-deserved.

 

[bigbarf48]

Never had any myself, but as red points out, it has a reputation of being tough to split. Thats about all I know about it

 

[tfdchief]

Nothing wrong with elm, burned a lot of it over the years.....It isn't the best of course, but it's BTUs. As for the tough splitting, I have had some that DIDN"T split, it just ended up a fuzzy splintery mess, couldn't even stack it.......went in the Ugly pile. Then I have had some that split just fine. I don't have a woods and have scrounged for 40 years. So I pretty much take what I can get. Now that I am older, I have a lot of good places to cut and burn mostly Oak, Hickory, Ash, Cherry, Walnut. But back in the day, I would take anything. including Elm

 

[Applesister]

We mostly tried to keep the Elm trees alive as they were part of our invested landscape. The battle with the spread of Dutch Elm disease and the survival of a species has been in my psyche since I was a child. I watched the natural death of every elm tree we owned. Much as my father watched the demise of the American Chestnut.
The last 2 surviving elm trees died 2 and 3 years ago.
Cutting them up for firewood was a natural process and also part solution to help stopping the spread of the gypsy moth infestation.
How the tree burns seems perfectly fine...all the old time farmers around here say they are the trees to search for. The barkless, gray, long dead, long standing elms.
But I would never cut a live healthy Elm down, ever.
Its kinda like raising heirloom chickens or sheep.
I cant really explain.
Its heartbreaking to see the trees die, but burning the wood

 

[Applesister]

Seems a natural end. From the experience we have had, the longer the tree stands dead the easier it is to split.

 

[tfdchief]

Applesister. I feel your pain. The Ashes are starting to go here. Some of our brothers have already lost most of theirs. I never cut a live tree unless the landowner wants it down and then I cringed doing it. I respect what nature has given me for 40 years!

 

[firefighterjake]

Decent enough wood to burn ... can be tough to split ... especially by hand vs hydraulics.

 

[Paulywalnut]

Very tough to split. I have let it sit 3 years and does burn well. It gets a bad rap because burning it unseasoned is nothing but thick smelly smoke.

 

[lindnova]

Burns very well in the outdoor furnace. Most of it is the dead standing at the point of loosing bark. That splits pretty good with a hydraulic splitter. I cut some live at a clearing site a couple years ago and had pieces that were like splintery rubber and would not split. Waited a year and after drier it split better. I cut a 12" live red elm this fall on a field edge clearing we are doing. Split it wet with my 22 ton Huskee. It was very stringy, but I got thru it good. I tried splitting some by hand and almost lost a steel wedge in it. If you have a hydraulic splitter it is good stuff and burns nice and hot.

 

[Pellet_Pete]

Have split a fair amount of it - I likened it to a bunch of rubber bands all bundled together...sometimes the maul just bounces right off!

 

[Missouri Frontier]

My hyd spiltter doesn't mind it. When it does leave some strings I have to pull apart by hand, I just consider that a fair battle. Since if I win(and I always do), I get to send it to it's firey doom.

 

[blades]

slim wedge hydro splitter - no problem, burns nice, decent coals , not too ashy

 

[Backwoods Savage]

We are blessed with quite a bit of elm here. Many, many moons ago we learned that if you cut elm before it is dead, you may learn a new vocabulary but not one you would talk to mother about. However, if you let the tree die and then still wait longer, until the bark or most of it has fallen off, then cut the tree, most times it will not be stringy and most times you can split it with a splitting maul. Sometimes it will split about like white oak. However, if the tree happens to grow in the open or in a fence row, then the grain will usually be twisted and then it is not so good. But we've burned lots of elm here for many years and still like it a lot. Letting it die like we do, I think the btu rating is higher than the charts give but if you split it and it gets more like shredded, all bets are off.

 

[Paulywalnut]

Red Elm seems to be entirely different than the green or American elm
Red splits and dries better. There is a poem maybe somebody knows about Elm and its woes.
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