everybodies thoughts on burnin black walnut

I don't burn much of it, although if there's a dead one, I'll cut up the knarlies and put it in the drying stacks. I have some boards from the sawmill that I'm planning on making some serving trays out of for gifts and trade to buddies for stuff. The old timers around here always said to not have Black Walnut around any of the livestock and pastures, especially horses. I'm not sure why exactly, but toxicity comes to mind.

We do have a lot of it in our woods, and we planted a bunch last spring. Most aren't big enough yet, but the plan is for commercially harvesting them once they get to decent size. Most of them won't be ready till the next guy takes over... That's OK, we're trying to look out for the future as much as we know how to. I don't know all the numbers, but we're hoping our woods uses more CO2 than we produce in heating our home with wood.

 

Walnut is ok. A lot like cherry or maple.

Stinks when burning and burns your eyes if used in a fire pit. Yuck

 

It's definitely not 20 mbtu a cord in my experience.
Pretty much all of the charts I've seen have elm as 19-20 mbtu a cord, some show BW around 16 mbtu. I can definitely say that BW has quite a bit less heat per stove load when I've compared the two directly. BW has definitely less than box elder as well and most charts agree that BE is aroun 17-18 mbtu a cord.

 

Ive only cut a small amount of BW and scored precut logs. 3" poison ivy vines i cut last month on my bare arms werent good though. Mild rash luckily.

 

Rare scrounge for me. Okay as firewood IMO. Ill take it if easy score.

 

Yes, even dry in a fire pit, it's lousy wood for that. The burning walnut wood stinks and irritates your eyes. I've known of people having reactions to it as well, so it's never in my campfire wood pile.

 

Using highly valuable black walnut for firewood?! ... thats craziness

 

Shoulder season wood at best. It does leave a lot of ash and I don’t remember it putting out the heat of cherry ash or maple.

 

Man, you're not lying about that. I always reply "find me a buyer and I will sell it right now and buy some seasoned wood". No one takes me up on it.
It apparently doesn't occur to people that not all wood is good for furniture and sculptures. On the other hand, I am a wood carver, so if i find a gem I will put it aside for that.

I do like how nice it splits. I usually end up with someones farm Ash trees that get gnarly grain and I spend more time than I should splitting it.

 

I just burned a few pieces last night and this morning. It is two years seasoned. It seems to really darken the stove glass. Not one of my favorites for burning.

 

Purdy wood though.

 

not me ive never had a bad reaction to it nor have i heard any 1 in my area havin a bad reaction

 

my last encounter with poison ivy was when i was cuttin up a white ash tree and it just got nailed by the ivy luckily i had some tecnu poison ivy wash as well as spray luckily i didnt get hit too bad

 

I have some gems if you are interested. Been sitting on them a couple years hoping somebody had an interest. To good for firewood, but I'm too cheap to have lumber sawn and no place to store it if I did. PM me if interested.

 

Dang, you're not that far from me. I may just have to take you up on that. I like carving Walnut. Maybe we can work out a deal.

 

Hey, that looks just like the wood I got from a neighbor. Dark brown inner core with lighter outer ring. Whoa!........

 

Maybe if you burn it with another good wood , like ash or maple, it wouldn't do that.

 

Since you mentioned the value of this wood I'm obligated.