I recently took down a small elm for firewood. I figured I'd let it sit for awhile until the bark falls off, because it falls off quickly, but I decided to do a test split and surprisingly it was some of the easiest splitting wood I've had this winter. Wish I had some pictures but 75% of the splits popped apart like silver maple. I think if you have good straight trees give them a shot right away and if they're stringy, let them sit till bark falls off.
I scored two PU fulls in the Fall, It was bucked to length and bark came off. Guy has given me lots of wood in the past. I gave it to Eric Schamell Its on my dont take list along with sycamore and gum. There is a pile of elm logs roadside just down the street from me. Cut down dead 16 months ago and ill probably cut it before Spring.
I've had a few cords of elm and never had an issue splitting it. Maybe it's a species of elm, maybe it's regional? I have seen pictures of some posted in here and it looks as bad as black gum but thankfully I haven't experienced that yet.
I have a bunch of siberian elm that lines my property and it's pretty much a garbage tree. Any time the wind kicks up I get a yard full of wiry branches. I've had a few taken down over the years and thinned out some smaller ones myself and I never look forward to dealing with the wood. One thing I noticed though in the stove is that because it creates so much ash, it actually seems to really insulate those coals so it does keep coals for quite a while. I've had a decent coal bed in my non-cat PE stove from a load of siberian elm after 20 hours even. I know for the cat stove users that probably isn't that impressive but I'm always surprised by it in my stove with that wood. So it has its perks, but overall I'd never go out of my way to get it.
Wow, surprising...Elm makes some nice clinkers! I get them from Oak, Ash, and Box Elder sometimes though too...no biggie, just shovel 'em out with the ashes.
I’d say 90% of the wood that was burnt when I was growing up was elm. My dad loved it. If it was standing dead it was always good to burn in a year. We hand split back then and would have a separate pile of the hard to split pieces and wait for coldest days to split. Elm Drys down good in the round. I can remember 8-9” rounds going into the stove at bedtime. So we wouldn’t split smaller rounds. I don’t have any in my stacks at the moment but that’s not because I don’t like it.
It's nice to have some time for sure! I'm backed up past my ears with work, though. We just needed some time around the holidays, had to put tree work on hold for a while....
I have a lot of dead standing elm in my woods. I get to it when I can but I am having to cut and split a lot of oak that is down to get to the elm. A number of years ago I made an attachment for my splitter that allowed me to split stringy elm . It keeps the round of elm off of the foot of the splitter to allow the wedge to go completely thru the round, strings and all. T.Jeff Veal made something similar that was permanently attached to the foot of his splitter.
I have some elm by accident, and recently grabbed some by choice because it’s straight and had been sitting in the woods for a while. Y’all said it’s a good firewood, so that’s all I needed to here. There is one big piece maybe 24-26” diameter. I will cut in halves before splitting. If that doesn’t work it will be brought to heal with saws The big chunk is from a limb that broke out of monster Am Elm.
I burn a chit ton of Elm - mostly American. I love it. It's easy to come by here. I've never had a problem splitting it with my hydro. It burns hot and clean. A couple of nice elm splits will burn all night. I feel like I'm cheating on The Wood Wolverine - Because I love Elm.
I cut a dozen or so standing dead red elms when I first started my firewood hoarding. The first trees were cut with a little handsaw and brought home in 4-ft lengths. They were all split with hand tools, and I don't recall it being too bad. These were long dead and barkless. I usually get some clinkers when burning red elm, but nothing too bad. They're always up front in my Princess insert, never in the back. Sometimes they're blue-green, which is kinda cool.
The trailer load of elm we split w/hydraulics, sat about 6-8 months, bark fell off, split pretty decent. We had some stringy hickory and pecan that was WAY worse...
Hickory Pecan https://youtube.com/shorts/NmYI5tytVpU?feature=share Small elm, bark is falling off https://youtube.com/shorts/tvbY8v9oNPk?feature=share
We just some big elm, bark is coming off. Haven't tried splitting it yet... 2 - 16-18' logs. May cut into rounds and let sit awhile longer...
I had the same experience recently I split almost the whole tree by hand the day I took it down. Siberian elm Ive never had a problem with just American. I get clinkers from all elm bark or no bark fwiw.
