So a buddy of mine scored a pretty good load of green elm on sunday. He wants to burn it next winter, i told him to to go 2 summers for it to burn good. He dont think it takes longer to season than pine or fir. I figure if i show him the answers from fellow members on here. Meebe he will be a beleiver. And this was a good sized elm the main trunk pieces will take some time to dty out.
Can't really say much here but I'll watch this. Is this in Oregon? Tell him if he wants it to burn, cut it all into chopsticks....cover his lawn haha!
The rate that wood dries depends a whole lot on the sun, temp, humidity and rainfall. Hot sunny days with l0w RH are key. You appear to live in the high desert of central Oregon. You get about 14 inches of rain per year, almost none in the summer. RH runs an average of 40%. You have some of the best drying conditions going. Split and stacked in the sun my guess is that you can get wood dry twice as fast or better than the conventional wisdom dictates here. So your friend's wood will probably be dry come next winter provided he gets it split and stacked out in the sun now.
I would let it season for at least two years. Of course when on the 3 year plan that is a non issue. You can always do the moisture meter check on it.
No experience with Elm, but everything I burn benefits from MORE drying time, rather than less. Doing the minimum isn't ideal.
Elm can be a very strange wood. I hate cutting it green and hate it worse when it comes to splitting it green because it splits hard and you rarely get a clean split. Below is a picture (not mine) which shows what can happen when you try to split elm when it is green and this is the very reason we always wait until elm is dead and most of the bark is off before we cut it. If you do this, most of the time the wood splits cleanly and much, much easier. I will add that since we purchased our 20 ton log splitter over 20 years ago, there was only one log I did not split. I tried but the wedge did not go through so I turned it end for end and it still did not go through. Yes, had I played with it I could have gotten it split but at the time it just was not worth it for one log and I threw it out. I do not know about the elm you have out there but wish you luck. As for drying times, in your climate I would not be afraid to say if the wood is needed and if he gets it split and stacked within the next couple of weeks it will be dry come next winter. One of the reasons for this is that when you split that elm it will tend to tear the grain apart which will allow for even faster drying. In the meantime, you might suggest to your friend that he waits on elm until the tree is dead and most of the bark has fallen from it. At that time, you could burn the top half if the tree immediately but the bottom half would need one more year to dry good.
I might even suggest that you download a file from here: Primer on Woodburning by Backwoods Savage then print it out and give to your friend.
Couldn't agree more! Totally sums up my experience with Elm..... both American and Slippery(Red Elm). Sent from my Z832 using Tapatalk
I've burned lots of Elm, the way Dennis said to let the logs lie to the bark falls off is the only way to process the stuff effectively.
Thanks for the replies everyone. I have a video of the arborist cutting the trunk off at fence height but my fone isnt cooperating on that. If i split green wood of any specie it gets noodled into nothing larger than about 10x10 inches, not sure what variety of elm we have here but its a bi&%tch to split with a maul or ax.
