Identifying downed wood?

[dalspot]

What is the best resource for learning to identify downed wood - especially lacking leaves? We've been heating with a fireplace insert for about 6 years now and previously have taken advantage of our state forest downed wood cutting program - we were always directed to the downed tree and it was identified to us as to the type of tree. Price of the wood just doubled - still dirt cheap, but we've discovered a gold mine of free wood at our newly created Yard Waste landfill site only a couple of miles from home.

We've taken several things over there - grass clippings, etc. and have recycled in the true sense by bringing home wood others have dumped.

First time my son came home with a bunch of pine, not knowing what to look for. I've looked online a bit but not come up with a really good site that tells us how to identify wood by the bark. This past weekend we took over the debris from 8 hours of splitting wood and came home with almost of pickup load of wood. Luckily we ran into someone there who knew that the wood was probably Ash. Also grabbed some holly - that we knew as practically the entire tree had been dumped.


I'm thinking there used to be a paperback book out on trees - similar to one of those backyard birding books...

Anyone have any ideas or wisdom to share?

Thanks!
Karen

 

[Adios Pantalones]

National Audubon Society and Peterson's guide are the 2 refs that people look at.

You don't need to know what it is to burn it. Let it sit a year or 2 split and stacked- it will burn.

If you're worried about how much heat it will give- you can tell how hard it is when you cut into it with a chainsaw.
If you just want to be sure and grab the best stuff- use the Audubon or Peterson's guide (available at any bookstore), and do some nature walks to get acquainted with the trees in your area.

It's pretty easy to tell a conifer from a nonifer (deciduous) by smell.

 

[myzamboni]

The best way to identify downed wood is the main trunk is typically in the horizontal position. ;-)

 

[trailblaze]

The best way to identify downed wood is the main trunk is typically in the horizontal position. ;-)

spot on with that one

 

[savageactor7]

No disrespect intended but if your scrounging who really cares what it is? If you get enough wood, let it season you'll soon figure out that it will all burn satisfactory...but some will burn better than others...through trial and era you figure it out pretty quickly. If the wood is seasoned there's nothing that can go wrong except that certain soft woods like willow, poplar etc won't last the night. You'll soon learn the difference and it's no big deal. So you get cold, wake up, and throw some more wood in.

Any wood you can get for free is a good deal. Even willow, a crap wood, if you're home all day sat and sun and avail to throw in some seasoned willow how much coin will you think you save keeping the oil burner off in that 48hr period. But as a general rule when you leave the house or load up for the night....that's the time to use your hardwood cause it will burn longer. Any seasoned wood....it's all good.

 

[JBinKC]

I think it might be prudent to learn what a gum and and elm log looks like if you are in the position to split the wood by hand and pine is fine if you are burning it in the secondaries. Otherwise, I agree it really doesn't matter.

 

[dalspot]

True, if it's free we really don't care... long as it burns well.

But if we're limited on how much we can throw in the truck on any one trip, I'd rather make sure I'm picking up a good burning wood as opposed to something that will be stringy or hard to split too... Next time it all might be gone.

Guess what we really need to learn is how to screen out all the types of pine. Luckily most folks dump the top of the tree as well as the trunk, but once they get in there with the bulldozer and make one huge pile out of a weeks worth of dumping, things are not so easy to identify.

 

[dalspot]

The best way to identify downed wood is the main trunk is typically in the horizontal position. ;-)

Horizontal?? Us or the tree??

 

[the_dude]

First off, distinguishing pine (conifer) versus decidious trees should be relatively easy. Every pine I can think of smell like, well, a pine. As far as guessing which hardwood is the best, I would go by a combination of weight and heartwood color. If you pick up a good size chunk and it has light colored heartwood and fairly light, I would pass if you don't have room in the truck. All of the 'not so good' or 'soft' hardwoods I can think of have light colored heartwood (cottonwood, willow, basswood, poplar, aspen, etc.). If it has dark heartwood, my guess is it would be something good. Like I said, I can't think of any less desireables with dark heartwood. Be careful though, there are very good woods with light heartwood, like hickory!

As far as getting good at identifying trees based on bark / wood grain, I think the only way to get somewhat proficient is by getting very good at identifying live trees. Once you learn what you can about live trees, identifying bits and pieces of them becomes more probable.

 

[glacialhills]

ok now I see what you are looking for. just a down and dirty id to get the best wood in the pile. Pine usually has branches in whorls around the trunk. then a space then another group of branches. also pine has lots of sap, is very sticky and will be leaking from cuts if fresh cut. also smell is a good tell. a good hard wood new cut will be heavy to pick up compared to pine. like double the weight. and smell funky either bitter or sickly sweet. these are just a few samples of ways to tell. usually the harder the wood is to cut with your saw the better (more btu's its got).if you have been lifting that pine for a while you will KNOW when you lift a oak or hickory round of the same size...believe me. Hey, in the end, any wood will burn once ya season it so get all you can.

 

[glacialhills]

Oh and let me say that easy to split AND good burning dont always end up in the same tree. Pine is pretty darn easy to split and hickory is pretty hard campared to pine but is the best burning wood around. Also a lot of the wood that ends up in those piles are gonna be knotty and therefore harder to split. The less branches on any log will =easyier splitting. Now Elm is just a bear either way.

 

[dalspot]

ok now I see what you are looking for. just a down and dirty id to get the best wood in the pile. Pine usually has branches in whorls around the trunk.

You've got it. What we're finding is that the logs are already pretty much cut into nice pieces. Folks tend to cut them so they can lift them into their truck to take to the yard waste site - nice of them huh? We're running across maybe 12-16" rounds of who knows what - and while I do know that pine branches grow around the trunk, we're finding trunk pieces with no branches. Again, how nice of the folks . Some have been down a while too, and we've not noticed the piney smell or sap on what I suspected was pine. I want to refine that knowledge .

I've attached a picture of our current stash for the winter - the two racks on the right cost us $20 the rest was free, and the round wood on the right is what we found recently. That's what we think might be ash.

 

[glacialhills]

cool, some nice wood ya got there. Even arborist's would have a hard time identifying a piece of wood from the dump with dirt all over it and no leaves a just some bark to go by. Heck, even differing age trees have totally different bark patterns. your best bet is to go by smell, weight, color of heartwood as others have said. Good luck and if no one has already welcome to the forum

 

[glacialhills]

oh another thought....if you are gonna need the wood to burn this winter, pine that is already seasoned would burn better than good hardwood that is still wet. Grab all the dry seasoned wood you can get no matter the type for this winter. And then get the wet stuff for next season. The guys in Canada and outwest mostly only have pine and do just fine as long as it is seasoned well.

 

[savageactor7]

Dalspot the round wood on the right you think is ash may not be, our ash is white when cut. Anyway split it when you can ...nice stash your building up there in the first state. That looks like a poplar tree by that 'maybe ash'...if I was you I'd cut it while it's manageable...or the day will come when you wish you had.

 

[dalspot]

...if I was you I'd cut it while it's manageable...or the day will come when you wish you had.

We intend to do just that... after the rental fee doubled this year on log splitters, we decided to purchase one. It'll be here next week... now all we have to do is get the shed built this weekend to put it in. This is going to turn out to be an expensive wood-heating year, but we'd been talking about the shed for a while now and need it for other things. Thanks for the advice

 

[JBinKC]

Ash (as long as you don't have to tell the exact species) is actually one of the easiest woods to identify just from a stump. It has an obvious diamond pattern bark with a white heartwood.

 

[Adios Pantalones]

Large ash trees do not have white heartwood- at last not white ash. It's pretty dark, but small in relation to sapwood.

 

[Jags]

Large ash trees do not have white heartwood- at last not white ash. It's pretty dark, but small in relation to sapwood.

Hmmm...what are you calling "large"? I've got some 26-28" logs right now that when split, are pretty darn white.

I agree with Savage - the rounds on the right do not appear to be ash (at least not what I am used to seeing, maybe this is what Adios is referring to?)

 

[Adios Pantalones]

Jags- I may be mixing white ash with another ash in my head here- there are several varieties (white, green, Texas, black)

 

[the_dude]

Large ash trees do not have white heartwood- at last not white ash. It's pretty dark, but small in relation to sapwood.

This is been my experience as well. The ash I have experience with, which would be white, black and green typically have a light to dark brown heartwood, but small in relation to the sapwood. The rounds pictured in this thread do not look like ash to me. The heartwood looks very large.