About like Box Elder, Red Maple, Sweet Gum, and Willow: Energy Values - Hardwoods - Firewood These BTU charts can vary from chart to chart.
Sorry to resurrect this thread from the dead but I just couldn't help myself. A past outing that left me scratching my head on identifying some trees brought me to wonder out back a bit into the woods and to try and learn and ID some trees on my property. One that I learned to identify pretty easily was the sassafras and after reading this thread I swear light bulbs went off all around my head and I just had one of those moments. Going back a few years to when I very 1st started out cutting and hoarding wood many of the trees I cut down and stacked had this distinct smell and I can ID that smell easily. At the time I hadn't a clue, thought it was rock oak or chestnut oak because the bark kinda looked similar. But going over all this in mind none of it made sense. The rounds were so easy to split, wood was softer, lighter, didn't last as long as I thought it should and thinking even more I recall in our fireplace (pre-insert) I had a lot of splits that sparked. It all makes sense now, it was sassafras. I do have some rock oak, but that is night and day when trying to split compared to sassafras.
Around here it grows tall and spindly and doesn't often get very big. You guys ever heard of sassafras tea? We used to make it as kids, thought we were cool, kinda like getting free root beer. Maybe we learned it in cub scouts or maybe it was just folk wisdom, but you'd take the root and cut it into pieces, I dunno, maybe 1/2 inch wide and a few inches long and you'd put several in a pot of boiling water and make the tea. My mother knew how to do it. I figure they put sugar in it to sweeten it but I can't say for sure. Sugar went into everything, lol, so, probably yeah.
Burns fast, smells really neat but is good for the off-season. Straight pieces split really easy. Good for free exercise. Also good kindling just needs to be bone dry for that
Just cut one up that was over 24” in diameter. Biggest one I’ve ever dealt with. Love how it crackles and pops when burning.
My mom likes it. I’ll burn it, why not? Have about three cords of it ready to go for this year if needed. If not next year. Stuff seasons real fast IMO and sometimes that’s a good thing. Neighbor hired a tree guy to clean all the stonewall perimeters around his house. All sass, a few black birch. He kept the Birch. All I had to do was drive the trailer around and he and his son tossed it in. Take it home, dump it and go back for another. Not my best score but certainly the easiest.
I burnt a lot of sassafras my first year or two burning wood. There were a lot of dead trees laying at the back of the property I owned at the time. I loved cutting and splitting it. Here's a pic of my old pallet woodshed (circa 2009) with all sassafras in it.
There are a couple sassafras trees around our house. Seems they get defoliated about every year. Maybe some Japanese Beatles getting them. The leaves look like a skeleton. I've never cut one, or burned any but the few I've trimmed sure smelled good!
I think there is something to this for sure. Just about every dead or dying tree on my property was a sassafras. Every one of them have been bored out in the middle and damaged heavily in some way by bugs. I have another one standing, decent size and I just noticed some saw dust all around the base of it, something inside of it boring the hec out of it. Its right next to the trampoline too, it's added to the list of trees to go. I have 4 pretty darn big oaks that are just way too close to the house, everytime there is a storm I hold my breath. They need to be dealt with by the pro's.
