At least for overnight burns. I hand split, so it isn't exactly my favorite firewood to make. But this is the second time I've come home 17 hours after the last reload and had enough coals to get a good relight. It makes an awful lot of ash, which I think is the key. It seems to bury the coals and preserve them a long time. Stove was still warm, but not too hot. After the initial burn, we are talking about a fairly modest amount of heat for an extended period of time. Just about perfect for the temperatures we are having just now: came home to a 72 degree house. There is definitely a place in my woodpile for this wood.
Elm is awesome firewood. American and Chinese Elm are a bitch to split.......................stringly, won't break open etc....................but Red/Slippery Elm splits easily when green by hand.
I haven’t seen elm in my area since I was a kid. They all died from the Dutch elm disease, if I recall. We cut some dead ones down and I remember trying to split them- by hand ,of course, in those days. It was like trying to split a truck tire with an axe.
I really like elm also. The best thing about it is it drys down so easy without splitting. I my self don’t split any elm that 8-9” or smaller. You might save yourself some swings and leave some in rounds. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
I don’t mind elm. I just hate splitting it. Bent my splitter tray with elm . Glad you get the long burns though.
I hate the way American Elm splits.....it shreds rather than splits clean like most of your oaks do. I have to wear leather gloves when handling it to keep from getting a million splinters! But I do agree it burns good and hot.
Ralphie, we don’t have many left. Dutch elm got ours too. When I was about 10 there were many BIG ones around. The bark fell off and they rotted in place. It is a bastage to split as mentioned above and I remember trying to burn it green in a smoke dragon. Better off burnin’ A wet mule.
I came across red elm a few years ago and at first mistook it for black locust because it had already lost its bark and was similar in color to locust that has been down a while. I noticed it was not locust when I split it by hand not, because of difficulty, wasn’t bad at all, it had a much different smell and was a little more stringy. At the time I was annoyed that I didn’t identify it correctly when I cut it. I figured it to be some kind of shoulder wood, not worth a second thought, until the first time I burned it only to find that I was totally wrong and loved the way it burns. I am curious to see how the cord of American elm I have will burn next year as it is coming up on the three year mark, it had better be good because that stuff was possibly worse than splitting gum. It was not getting done by hand. 20” rounds were turning into balls of spaghetti until the log splitter finally cut them in half.
I’ll burn it if it’s the right size but I won’t split it. There is enough quality BTUs to gather than to take a gamble on straight or twisted grain Elm. I’m going to side with The Wood Wolverine on this one.
I think I might bring these 3 down. I'm sick of the mess they make. I'll try to split by hand. If not I'll barrow my friends splitter.
I love red elm you can’t beat a fresh pile of split red elm. The smell is amazing. The burn is nice also. Will never pass up any elm white ,red ,american,Chinese. Yes takes a good splitter to get through it.
I love standing dead Elm, especially in the boiler. Good & dry even in the rounds & makes good heat. I just loaded 3 14" rounds for overnight. Don't have to split much of it as they die before they get to0 big around here.
I had one tree that wasn't too bad to split, but most puts gum to shame in the splitting department. I cut to 8 inches and it is easier to split. Double up for a NS load or just pitch it in. Can't stack it to dry so it gets thrown in a bin made of goat panels. At 8 inches long, it dries OK even in a 10x5x5 bin.
My yard's full of recently dead Elm. Some's easy to split, but a good noodling saw like my 5105 does the rest. It is great for overnight burns.
