I'll report back in a year or so about my Siberian Elm stash. My 27 ton splitter got through it fine but I wouldn't exactly be looking forward to more.
The Didier we have does just fine on elm. It's well below a 20 ton splitter. I think otherwise have said that these didiers are only 14 Ton. Here it is after the original motor died after nearly 40 years. Help me Chonda! They work just fine. You don't need the biggest splitter, but one that works well with a single blade, no 4 way wedges or crazier, and it will do nicely. If there's a knot, you'll get those crazy shredded wheat nasty things, once in a while, but they're the rarity. The stack on the left here in this pic is pretty typical for american elm.
Just "noodle" it with your saw, that way it stays in a wedge shape, otherwise it shreds. Can y'all tell I hate elm?? lol Rant over, sorry.
Austrian pine, huh? I've been burning chunks of it in fire pits. It's dry, even only partially covered by a crappy tarp. Granted the tree i'm burning from was so dead that it fell over. It was my neighbor's yard tree that I cut up using my 029super and his new ms261.
I am burning Aspen as I write this, it burns fine. I can't say that any wood has disappointed me yet, though I don't have much variety here.
Willow would be number one. I had a few pieces in the back yard for the firepit. I'd cut it down in my yard 4 years before, and only split it into halves. It sat under the remaining stems of the same tree, somewhat shaded, but not totally. When I threw it on the fire, sap started bubbling out the ends and it took all night to burn a couple of pieces by adding other wood. FOUR YEARS and still wet !!! Next, is with out a doubt, black poplar. Doesn't burn very hot, and the ash...omg, the ash that stuff leaves behind. Birch is number 1 on my list for prize wood around here. It's the only (barely) hardwood we have this far north. Next 2 favorites are spruce and pine.
Ok its my turn to weigh in on this. Since you are asking specifically what my least favorite wood is that I get for free I have to say that I dont pay for wood at all so I pick the wood out of the bush that has the highest btus or is an easy score. Out of the wood that I burn every year which consists of larch, doug fir, lodgepole pine and spruce Id say that spruce would be my least favorite but really I love it for the times when I need a quick burn. For this reason I always have some on deck. I harvested a half cord of sub alpine fir which is lighter than spruce and is really a junk tree imo. Im ok burning it since its in my stacks but I wont be going back for more. Doug fir as some of you know makes up a large portion of my day time burning wood but its not a true fir.
same for us here but I didnt include it in my post above since I havent had much of it over the last season or two and none of it drying in my stacks currently. Our larch is 19.5 mbtus compared to birch at 20 mbtus so Im ok with not having much birch around.
I don't understand all the Elm hate. I love Elm, but I believe most of the Elm I'm cutting is Rock Elm and Red Elm. I think you guys are too hard on box elder... it's without a doubt a trash tree but it's not "bad wood". It's just not a very dense and "productive" wood. I've got some black willow growing in the creeks and springs that I thought about cutting up since one of those areas I mow and they CONSTANTLY drop branches everywhere. Whether it's junk or not it doesn't matter to me... it'll get mixed in with better stuff so I will never really know it's true burning properties. Sweet gum is without a doubt the worst wood to split and doesn't make sense to go after unless your goal is to eliminate them from your property. They over reproduce, they're a pain in the azz to split, and they're not even a good looking tree. I hate tree of heaven... I'll let it rot and provide the other trees with the nutritional benefit of receiving back the nutrients that this POS stole from the other trees.
Oh I hope it doesn't burn too quickly. I paid to have a really large Colorado Blue Spruce specimen tree cut down from my front yard and I'm hoping to get some heat out of it and get some heat out of it in return for cutting it down. It was a bear to split, especially with all the knots. I hope I don't have $$$, effort, energy and cursing invested in $!@^ wood. LOL
I would just get the wood cut and split it large. In fact the blue spruce is what I have experienced with splitting. A maul just bounced off and using grenades was a really hard experience as well. However if you think just splitting 12 inch rounds in half and just stack that out 3-4 years should be good to go. I noticed it burned fast for me but the splits I was headed for were 4inches by 4 by 12 long give or take and I got lucky splitting it that small to get it dry as quickly. It looks a lot like elm when it “splits”, stringy and looks more V shape splits. I dunno, just a typical spruce here is a landscape tree so its bred to make branches especially when its the only tree in a 1000 foot radius so no competition. Its mostly rotting now at my parents. Bug filled. Good pit wood.
Splitting it large was all I could do due to the knots. It was like trying to split rubber. 3 years and still testing 23/24% inside. I want to burn it or throw it out now because the 1/2 a cord of it is in the way of dropping some dead huge white pine trees.
I was hoping to keep the 3 or 4 half dead spruces that need to come down at my house but now I'm shying away from it. I'd have to wait and see what it looks like after it gets sawed up a bit. Also have about 6 massive white pines I wanted to get rid of and now I've been convinced by you guys I shouldn't be so quick to get rid of it....
Pine actually splits fairly easy, especially if you have a straight grain piece without knots. Only thing I've found when using a splitter is to be careful every now and then a piece "pops" and goes flying. I've only split one Blue Spruce and it may have been the Blue Spruce from Hell for all I know.
Im not sure what the btus for a blue spruce is but for an Engelmann Spruce like what I harvest in the bush is down at 12.1 mbtus. I use hydraulics for splitting most of the time but it seems to pop pretty easy. If its on your property I would still burn it unless you need the space for other better wood.
