Neighbor had a Big branch fall, Called me and I went and cut it up and hauled it home. Apparently it's hardly worth the fuel to drive next door to get it (about 1000') I swung at it about 20 times with the Fiskars.. Nada!! good thing I have a Hyd splitter, even hear that's a bear, I'll try this weekend....
I hear you! I've got a bunch of black gum that needs to be thinned out of my woods. Forester says it burns fine as long as you have a hydraulic splitter. I'm hopeful that it is typical fast drying/fast burning - type wood like pine and poplar. If so, I'm fine with that. It's all BTU's, some better than others, but BTU's all the same.
My dad burns it. His stacks are at least 40% sweet gum... He splits it with a 5 ton electric. I do believe he secretly hates it!!! His stacks are nothing like we used to have up on Long Island!
The few btu charts I've seen for gum site it between 18-20 mbtu's per cord. Now, I guess it splits for crap, so it's good you have hydros.
I've got plenty of dead or dying oaks in my woods to harvest for firewood. I can't be a wood snob yet, but pretty soon, I'm going to cut the gum and leave it on the forest floor. For now, I''m going to take it all down to 3" diameter and throw it on my stacks. Ask me how it burns a couple of years down the road...
If you have hydros it is splittable. I know that the gum I have picked up holds water very well so it is vital to split it as soon as possible stack it and top cover it so it doesn't start rotting from the inside out.
It is not easy to split. I do all my splitting by hand, so I cut it short for EW loading. Burns fine. Easier to split if dried for a while first, but it still sucks to split. I have no desire to harvest the best wood now. I'd rather cut and use the less desirable species so that my forest is improving rather than the opposite. The next sweet gum I cut is getting inoculated with shiitake spawn and going to the mushroom growing area rather than the wood stacks. I think it is a better use of the wood, but I won't know for sure for a year or two.
I got a big load of sweetgum a couple years back, split 90 percent by hand, never again . I finally got a splitter, so if it falls in my lap I'll take some.. It's good for the outside pit and October
