Hello all, longtime lurker first time poster. Wonderful forum going on here, everyone is so friendly, helpful, and willing to share knowledge. I had an opportunity to get paid felling some trees to help clear some land. The land is 90% pine, 5% sweet gum and the remaining 5% other stuff. The guy said I could take whatever I wanted that they weren’t selling as logs. Long story short, I need some help ID’ing this. Super heavy, seemed very hard when cutting, difficult to split using Fiskars maul. I cut the tree down 1/4/24 and tried splitting today. Thought maybe hickory, help on Id, thanks.
I didn’t want to hear elm after reading about everyone’s experience splitting that stuff. Does elm have any noticeable smells? This wood was slightly sweet smelling.
Not much and what’s left is going fast. This land clearing was only about a mile from Shearon Harris nuclear plant
Sry to give the bad news. In my mind there's no question it's elm. Bark and grain structure plus the fact its tearing/cutting more than splitting just screams elm, imo.
Sometimes the elm I get smells a bit like cinnamon or nutmeg, other times it smells like manure or has a weird hospital bandage scent At least what you've got looks to be splitting very nicely, as elm goes. Count your lucky stars because usually green elm is horrendous to split. The good news is it will make decent firewood once fully dried. For a mid-grade BTU fuel it will hold a coal bed notably long.
For as much shade that's thrown in elms direction, imo makes great firewood. Was some of the first wood i burned in this house. There happened to be a big standing dead one on the property when i bought it. Had a buddy of a buddy come drop it cause i knew nothing about felling trees at the time. I'm pretty sure i blew up/burned down my first chainsaw processing it due to stupidity. Needless to say, I learned the importance of a sharp chain to say the least.
I guess I was just dreaming of hickory lately, oh well. It will get split and stacked anyway. I didn’t grab too much, maybe 1/4 cord
I for the most part wont take it even with a hydro splitter. I had scrounged some years back one time and it split easily with an axe. Im thinking it was well below freezing was the reason. Did all of it split like that?
I only split one round today, my kids were out of school today and they were past ready to go inside. I will get to split it up in a week or two.
Welcome Jon40. Agree with the Elm diagnosis. Sometimes you get lucky and it splits ok. Sent from my SM-S536DL using Tapatalk
I've had some hickory that split worse than some elm. Don't know what the sub species of either was. Ive only burned a bit of elm so far, but it has burned quite well.
If you let the rounds sit a while (6-12 months) to where the bark falls off when you pick it up or can easily be peeled it seems to split a bit cleaner IME.
I love elm but I have a hydro. It dries fast, lights easy, and keeps good coals. Most will also agree that BTU charts seem to under rate it a tad.
I thought of doing that but need it ready for selling in a year. If i take any in the future ill try for smaller (10-12") or less rounds
