Elm for Firewood

[JCM 9,130]

Most of this property here in Maine has Oak, Beech, Birch, Pine and Hemlock. I believe the wood shown in the following pics is Elm, please correct me if it isn't. The pic with the wood splitter hooked up to the ATV shows a piece being split and boy does that stuff rip and shred while being split. This was cut down in the fall of 2019 and will be used next winter. My question is this better suited for the outdoor fire pit or use it for supplemental heat in the woodstove.

[ebinmaine 67,265]

I don't hesitate to put ANY non rotted Maine deciduous wood in the wood stove.

 

On the RARE occasion we fell or clear an evergreen, that either goes in the brush pile for wildlife usage or the pit pile.

 

Rotted or punky wood also goes in the pit pile.

 

BTUs is BTUs.

 

Chuck em in the home stove Jim.

 

[8ntruck 6,991]

Yup.  That looks like elm.  It is really 'stringy'.  Split mine with wedges and a sledge hammer.

 

I had some a long time ago.  It burned in the fireplace without any issues.

[dcrage 627]

It will burn just fine, just not a lot of BTUs and quite a bit of ashes. 
 

I learned how to split wood back in the ‘60s on the dead Dutch Elm that Dad cut for firewood that decade. I learned quickly to “peel” layers off those wood chunks versus the ‘normal’ method of splitting wood. I could ‘loose’ 3 or 4 wedges trying to split a big piece of elm thru the center. 

[pacer 3,168]

Down here (N La) they are called Wahoo Elm or - more often 'Winged Elm' and they are unbelievably hard to split!! Even when you can finally get a wedge started you gotta drive it thru to the last 3-4" to get it apart!. So NOOO way worth trying to use for fire wood - just use the small limbs as is and throw big stuff in the burn trash pile.

 

They do make a fairly decent yard tree, grow to a good size with long graceful limbs and very small leaves that are easy to clean up. I'll take them any day over the pines - which dont make decent fire wood and the needles are -----

[ebinmaine 67,265]

15 minutes ago, pacer said:

needles

That's why we don't allow pines to grow anywhere near the house.

 

 

The work of splitting certain woods is definitely a concern.

And that's why Trina bought the very powerful splitter.

 

 

We've put pieces of beech on it so big we could barely lift them.

22, 23 inch diameter.

Monster splitter hardly even hesitates.

 

[tunahead72 2,403]

13 hours ago, JCM said:

.... My question is this better suited for the outdoor fire pit or use it for supplemental heat in the woodstove...

 

Personally, I think it partly depends on your wood stove and how you use it.  We have an older Godin coal stove that we've burned wood in for years.  It's basically a vertical cylinder that won't take very long pieces of wood, I like to keep them around 12" or so max, and not too wide.  It's in a room that doesn't allow a lot of airflow into the rest of the house, so I like to burn a mix of woods (always dry well-seasoned hardwoods) so the room doesn't get too hot.  I'd probably be happy including some elm in my mix if it were available around here.

 

For what it's worth, I have a couple of charts that rate firewood for heat value and other wood-burning characteristics.  There's a bunch of these on the internet, and I haven't taken the time to research where they get their numbers from, but here's what they say...

 

The first chart I just got from the PA Farm Show last week, it was a handout at the state's Hardwoods Development Council exhibit.  It rates elm as "fair" overall, and breaks it down like so:

Heat yield -- medium

Burn difficulty -- medium

Split difficulty -- easy (doesn't match your experience, or the other guys here)

Smoke -- medium

Sparks -- no

BTU's per cord -- 23.8 million

 

Here's a reference for that chart:

www.offroaders.com/tech/firewood-BTU.htm

 

The other chart I have includes white elm, and only gives its heat value as 17.7 million BTU's per cord.

 

[Ed Kennell 38,021]

http://www.offroaders.com/tech/firewood-BTU.htm     

[Darb1964 1,042]

I think it splits easier the drier it is, only had one when I did wood. I used it in the fall or spring when it was warmer and I didn't want to get the house to hot. I did the same with poplar trees. They were planted in our area in the fifties for shad and in wet spots. The grew fast but the winter was hard on them and they would mess up your septic if planted to close to the field, most of them are gone now.