Been burning some Red and Siberian elm these last few days and I swear it hits alot harder and longer than other similarly rated woods. Honestly it seemed on par with Red Oak at minimum. I need to add more to the stacks.
In my experience elm is darn fine firewood. It can be difficult to split but worth the effort especially with a mechanical splitter.
I love it. It burns awesome. I cut it when the bark is off, so it's super clean since there's no bark to fall off inside the house.
I think elm is highly underrated on the BTU chart, I love it. I agree, I think it is right there with oak.
In my opinion yes! On our chart most all the ash are ranked above most all of the elm, but my experience says otherwise. Of the limited varieties of hardwood trees available to me elm is the top performer.
I am burning Elm this year for the first time, and it has been really nice to burn. Most of it bark-less so no mess when I bring it in, lights easy and burns clean and ......well; it was free. I was surprised how light and fluffy the ashes are in the stove after it is burned. Yeah, some of it was a little tough splitting but the Hydro-Hatchet didn't care what kind of wood it was eating. I wouldn't pass it up if I had the chance to get more of it.
Horkn said it very well as did several others. For years I seemed to be all alone with my love for elm, but I cut some of it every year, thanks to Ditch elm disease. Almost all of what we cut is barkless so yes, less mess but burns to rival oak. No doubt the reason it is always given poor scores on the btu scale is whoever started it (most scales are just copied with maybe some slight changes) based their findings on green wood and not like we do it. That is, when an elm tree dies, let it stand until most or all the bark has fallen off. Now is the time to cut it but even then I would still give it some time in the stack to further dry; especially that bottom half which will still have plenty of moisture.
90% of my firewood is Elm. It's easy to work with a hydro and a very clean, barkless wood. It stands barkless/drying for several years and typically falls on it's own with the upper limbs still intact. Once it falls (root rot), it needs very little time in the stacks to dry down. I'll put it up against oak all day long. Like any wood, a person learns what to buck and not to buck. The truly gnarly pieces go for pit wood. It's gotten a bad reputation over the years from those that try to split by hand, the pieces that should've been left in the woods in the first place.
There's a big difference between red and white elm, I personally prefer the red. I was reading somewhere, (I could probably find it if I needed to) that in some parts of Canada it is illegal to keep elm for firewood, or to even cut it down in places. That is to try to prevent the spread of Dutch Elm Disease, which is literally a fungal disease that is spread by the elm bark beetle.
Problem is, I've never seen a dead elm here, lol. But I have two that were pushed over with a bunch of other trees on a scrounge I am working. So, I will take home.
