Splitting Birch

[Tom Wallace]

I got some birch a few days ago cheap on Craigslist ($25 for a truck load delivered).

There's one round that isn't birch (bottom, second from the right), possibly douglas fir or hemlock, but the rest is birch.

I had never dealt with birch before. I'd read that it splits pretty easily and has high btus. It was really cheap, so I was thrilled about this. Until I started splitting it. This wood is really clingy. The fibers are really wavy in some parts and the pieces cling to each other even when split. So I have to pry the pieces apart, or lightly tap the "threads" with an axe to fully break the splits apart. Is birch always like this? Or did I get an unusual birch tree?

 

[Oldman47]

A yard tree is often stringy when the same tree grown in a wooded area is not. Exposure to the wind and all the twisting the trunk takes makes the grain grow stronger but it makes the wood harder to split. I am having one heck of a time splitting the big black ash that I got from my own yard and ash is supposed to be one of the easiest to split.

 

[4fire]

I'm assuming this is paper birch, which is common around here? I've cut several cords of it this winter. The bark on some of the bigger rounds doesn't look like birch. But they're also bigger than any birch I've cut, so maybe the bark characteristics change once the tree reaches a certain size. I've encountered some birch that's stringy and wants to stick together, but most of it splits clean. Your big rounds have a lot of oddities to them (they're not all that round) that may indicate the grain will have some twist or weirdness to it. Maybe it has to do with the tree's age, as those are really big birch rounds.

 

[English BoB]

Cant complain for $25.

bob

 

[Tom Wallace]

I'm assuming this is paper birch, which is common around here? I've cut several cords of it this winter. The bark on some of the bigger rounds doesn't look like birch. But they're also bigger than any birch I've cut, so maybe the bark characteristics change once the tree reaches a certain size. I've encountered some birch that's stringy and wants to stick together, but most of it splits clean. Your big rounds have a lot of oddities to them (they're not all that round) that may indicate the grain will have some twist or weirdness to it. Maybe it has to do with the tree's age, as those are really big birch rounds.

Yes, this is white or paper birch. The tree is indeed quite large for a birch. The guy who delivered said they estimated it was 70-90 years old. I wasn't expecting rounds this large from a birch tree either, as normally they're not this big here. The bark on the larger rounds isn't what I'd expect from a birch either. Usually it's the thin, white bark, but on an old, large birch maybe the bark thickens up like this towards the base.

This tree and a few others were taken down at the same time as part of a new home construction. The guy delivering it works for a sewer service. The trees had to come down to run the new sewer line. He didn't seem thrilled about doing wood delivery.

 

[4fire]

After getting to burn some regularly this season, birch might just be my favorite firewood. And I'll be burning a lot more now that I've been asked to take all the birch trees off of a family member's newly acquired property. I haven't seen any on his property as big as the one you got.

 

[Poindexter]

On clear cut forestry truckloads I find 1 or 2 out of five logs split real nice and straight. At least 2 and sometimes 3 are kinda twisty and a little clingy. The last one in 5 is a cold hearted monster, and you got one of those. How ever hard that one is to split, birch only gets easier to split from there, sometimes as bad and probably twice in a life time you might find a worse one.

A lot of those pictured I would just noodle into big overnight sized chunks with a chainsaw and let them season however long it takes rather than split them.

Is that pretty much the whole $25 truckload pictured? Looks like about half a cord, not a bad deal around here, I would take five or six truckloads myself, but I already got next years small and regular sized pieces already split.

Bummer the bucking was so sloppy. Will they let you buck logs on site?

 

[Tom Wallace]

On clear cut forestry truckloads I find 1 or 2 out of five logs split real nice and straight. At least 2 and sometimes 3 are kinda twisty and a little clingy. The last one in 5 is a cold hearted monster, and you got one of those. How ever hard that one is to split, birch only gets easier to split from there, sometimes as bad and probably twice in a life time you might find a worse one.

A lot of those pictured I would just noodle into big overnight sized chunks with a chainsaw and let them season however long it takes rather than split them.

Is that pretty much the whole $25 truckload pictured? Looks like about half a cord, not a bad deal around here, I would take five or six truckloads myself, but I already got next years small and regular sized pieces already split.

Bummer the bucking was so sloppy. Will they let you buck logs on site?

Yes, that's the whole truck load in the shot I believe. I think it's around 60-70% of a cord. The pickup did have boards on the sides, but wasn't loaded completely full. For $25, I wasn't going to complain. I would take more, but I'm all set for wood already. The site also had douglas fir and cedar, but I'm not big on cedar and I've got about 2.5 cords of douglas fir already split.

I doubt I could buck it on site, and I think it's all already bucked anyway. The delivery guy said the land owner doesn't want strangers coming onto his land doing anything with the wood. Which is how the sewer guy ended having to deliver wood.

I've already noodled a few of the big stumps just to get them into manageable sizes so I could try to split them with an axe, maul and wedge. Well, when I say noodle, I mean I start noodling the top of a round just enough for a wedge to bite into the cut. Then I pound the wedge through with a sledgehammer.

So birch will grow as far north as Fairbanks? I would have though it was mostly evergreens up there.

 

[Seanm]

(broken link removed to http://www.kijiji.ca/v-buy-sell-other/cranbrook/kiln-dried-birch-firewood/1049593147?enableSearchNavigationFlag=true)
(broken link removed to http://www.kijiji.ca/v-buy-sell-other/cranbrook/premium-larch-firewood/1049592407?enableSearchNavigationFlag=true)
The second one is Larch which is almost the same btus as birch and is almost the same price around here. The kiln dried stuff sounds nice but expensive, heck so does the larch. Thats why I cut my own. Just thought I would throw this in the mix to show how slammin a deal you got! Good job. I think you got one hell of a good price! You probably know this but split it all right away and keep it away from moisture so it doesnt punk on you.

 

[Seanm]

The green birch that I put through the splitter in November had a bunch that was stringy. I had the fiskars hatchet next to me for those that needed some coaxing.

 

[bag of hammers]

The yellow birch around where I am are big and knarly, unlike the white birch. On the older trees you gotta look up at the higher branches or at the leaves to call it, the bark looks nothing like the younger trees. Interesting that the white birch all seem to have gone rotten in the last few years - rot from the top down and literally fall apart. Most never got to the size in your pile. The few I have taken down green a few years back were a joy to split. The yellow birch, not so much. That's a good score, I would have grabbed it up too. It won't tolerate the ground / moisture like some other hardwoods so off the ground ASAP would be prudent....

 

[Poindexter]

I think $50 per solid generous cord, delivered as rounds would be a slamming good deal anywhere in North America this year. Split once and stored off the ground, maybe covered on top it should dry fast enough to not rot. You _sure_ you can't fit another truckload or two of that somewhere?

Yes, birch grows this far north, four or five kinds of it. White, black and paper are the most common, I am a bit too far north to see much yellow. Besides the birches I got white spruce and black spruce, and that covers it for trees. Alder can grow into a pretty big shrub if you leave it alone, everything else is bushes or smaller this side of the Alaska mountain range.

22MBTU delivered as green rounds for fifty bucks, I am drooling on my keyboard.

 

[Seanm]

delivered as green rounds for fifty bucks, I am drooling on my keyboard.

Yeah me as well. You have black birch up there? Do you ever see them of any size or are they small diameter and bush like along creeks and bogs? I have some down here but we cant harvest live birch let alone ones that are near waterways. Black birch would be welcome in my stacks for sure!

 

[Poindexter]

Sean, I honestly don't know. When I am cutting I whack birches with a base ball bat and leave the dull sounding ones standing for suspected center rot. The ones that ring real good ought to have a solid core with minimal rot, those I fell.

I dunno birch species at all, but the ones with no or minimal center rot are the ones I want. I am not allowed to cut within 100' of a waterway in state forests, but the area designated for cutting they want cleared.

 

[Seanm]

Sean, I honestly don't know. When I am cutting I whack birches with a base ball bat and leave the dull sounding ones standing for suspected center rot. The ones that ring real good ought to have a solid core with minimal rot, those I fell.

I dunno birch species at all, but the ones with no or minimal center rot are the ones I want. I am not allowed to cut within 100' of a waterway in state forests, but the area designated for cutting they want cleared.

For me I crave birch but have very little I can harvest since they are usually living trees. The ones that fall over are punk and not worth it. Ive come across a few this year that have been dropped by hydro line crews so I grab what I can. Honestly I can find larch which sometime dies because the tops break off in the wind and they end up standing dead. Almost as good as birch but not quite, birch is slightly higher in btus and I enjoy going after them. Walking the dog the other day I came across some massive fir trees that are down and way to big for me to pick up. I also came across a nice freshly dropped birch that is mine unless someone else gets to it first, I just have to wait for the ground to dry out a bit so I dont get the truck stuck.

 

[FIshing_Fool]

I'm not sure how accurate this is but I was told by a tree guy that the longer birch rounds sit the harder they are to split.

My mom had a couple trees taken down lucky for me.

 

[Knots]

I have some paper (white) birch that I'm splitting now. The straight grained pieces go good with the maul. The stuff in your picture looks prime for the splitter. Good deal for $25.00.

I like white birch for starting the fire up off of a few coals. Put the bark side near the coals and add air.

 

[Poindexter]

I am sure Sean knows this already... for other scroungers new to birch: When you find a birch trunk standing dead in the forest, do go look at the top that fell out of the tree.

If you get to it quick enough you might find a face cord of wood as small rounds under 6" in diameter that hasn't rotted yet. Cut to stove length right off the fallen top, it isn't going to get any easier in a saw buck. I keep down to 1" rounds in stove length pieces. At 1" diameter I can get rounds down to <20MC in one season off the ground with intact bark. From 1" to 3" diameter I "stripe" or "zip" them with the tip of my blade end to end before I buck them off the top, no splitting required. Rounds greater than 3" in diameter are going to need to be split if you want to burn them this fall.

 

[firefighterjake]

White birch . . . the firewood that comes with its own tinder wrapped around it.

 

[wardk]

I got some birch a few days ago cheap on Craigslist ($25 for a truck load delivered).

There's one round that isn't birch (bottom, second from the right), possibly douglas fir or hemlock, but the rest is birch.

I had never dealt with birch before. I'd read that it splits pretty easily and has high btus. It was really cheap, so I was thrilled about this. Until I started splitting it. This wood is really clingy. The fibers are really wavy in some parts and the pieces cling to each other even when split. So I have to pry the pieces apart, or lightly tap the "threads" with an axe to fully break the splits apart. Is birch always like this? Or did I get an unusual birch tree?

I found the same thing , especially the wind shock buts. Even with the hydraulic splitter I had to flip some over and split from both directions. There were many times during this job I was thankful I wasn't slitting with a maul.

 

[iron]

i've scrounged about 1.5 cords of birch in the past year. easiest wood to split for me; tied with red alder which just wants to pop apart. looking forward to finally burning it come january.

 

[peakbagger]

The stuff in the picture looks like the seller "cherry picked" the good stuff and sold you the nasty stuff. When I drop birches they are usually tall with few major crotches. The straight rounds are usually one hit splits. Of course once I get to crotches and branches it get harder to split. Generally if you can split a small slab sideways off the side the rest of the round will split.

When I cut birches I run my saw lengthwise along the trunk cutting through the inner bark, this substantially reduces the chance of the rounds rotting if they sit for any period. It also seems to make the logs a bit easier to split as the bark ring is cut.

 

[WoodyIsGoody]

Hmmm, my favorite parts are the crotches because they are loaded with BTUs and burn hotter and longer. This is true with every specie I've ever cut. A sharp Fiskars X27 will go right through them in one fast whack if it's not to big. Otherwise it's worth driving a couple wedges to split them open. Also, while I generally cut the crotched branches as flush to the main branch/trunk as practical, they are a little inconsistent in diameter which provides a air space when packing the stove full and helps everything burn better.