Need help with Tree ID...before I labor!

[ray benson]

Leaf looks like cottonwood, the wood pictures like Red Oak or Red Oak family.

 

[Toddppm]

Red or Chestnut Oak. Leaf looks like a Bradford Pear.

Don't know why you couldn't burn it next winter??

 

[TreePointer]

Red or Chestnut Oak....

+1

It does look like the chestnut oak I see in MD/NOVA.

 

[zogger]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chestnut_Oak

 

[Raintree]

Oak - wood grain, color, bark & tannic stain all say Oak. The leaf is an erratic.

 

[ReggieT]

Looks like Oak to me as well. You can see part of the tree was starting to decay. The brown/black line around 5:00 marks the line where good and bad wood meet. Decaying Oak IME is very consistent. It usually starts to rot from the outside, just under the bark, and very slowly works toward the center of the tree. If the bark comes off standing dead Oak the wood will season and often stop decaying or slow down to the point where it takes years to rot away. Where it's decayed the wood has a lighter colored, sponge-like appearance. When splitting green, Oak can be somewhat stringy but tends to stay together fairly well. Small pieces that break off are fewer and less likely to pile up around where you're splitting.

Maple and Elm decay differently. Maple tends to decay much faster than Oak and rot can be found almost anywhere in the wood when a round is cut or split. When splitting dead or dying wood, the discoloration you can see in the logs above could be distributed throughout a split and often good and bad wood are hard to separate into usable pieces. When Maple dies and remains standing it often rots in place very fast with the bark still intact and when you cut it there's little usable wood left. When splitting good Maple you often get "potato chips" that break off and litter the splitting area.

Elm IME usually loses its bark in large sheets. If Elm has been attacked by beetles carrying Dutch Elm disease then you'll see the results of their work on the outside of the tree. When green, Elm species tend to be stringy. There are plenty of manly men that have been humbled trying to split a piece of green American Elm by hand as the stringiness of the wood holds it together like few other species. Once the tree starts to rot it happens fairly quickly. Stringiness disappears and the wood breaks down fairly quickly in large areas.

Finally, the ends of a round of Elm, Maple, and Oak all look different when cut. Oak will tend to have small lines that radiate out from the center of the wood and will appear "coarse" when cut. Maple will have a much smoother appearance and if it starts to decay you'll see the indications at seemingly random places in the wood. Oak tends to have the smallest growth rings with Maple being next and Elm often having the largest rings. I just searched Google images for "maple logs" and "elm logs" and both searches produced pictures that are fairly typical for what I see when cutting these species up here.

Wow...good stuff, very detailed. Extremely useful as has been all the post...you guys are incredible!

 

[haveawoody]

Toddppm,

Red Oak is one of the slowest things of all wood to dry properly.
Northern red for me at least is a 2 or 3 year wait for it to burn properly, it will burn after 1 year drying but much better at 2 years and better again at 3.
Can't speak for red oak in the south but I suspect it's pretty similar.
The white oak family seems pretty good to go at the 1 year drying length but at 2 it's better also.

 

[Toddppm]

Toddppm,

Red Oak is one of the slowest things of all wood to dry properly.
Northern red for me at least is a 2 or 3 year wait for it to burn properly, it will burn after 1 year drying but much better at 2 years and better again at 3.
Can't speak for red oak in the south but I suspect it's pretty similar.
The white oak family seems pretty good to go at the 1 year drying length but at 2 it's better also.

I keep reading people on here proclaiming that you need to season your oak 2 years minimum!!!! Or , or , or.. I'm not sure what'll happen but it doesn't sound like it'll be good! All wood is better the longer it seasons. If you split and stack it or at least get it some sun and air it will be fine to burn after a year. May not be *% or whatever but it will put out some good heat and you won't have to wait another year.
This could be as good a debate as standing or sitting while you split your wood, ok maybe not

 

[TreePointer]

Northern red oak and pin oak need at least two years around there. After a year it will look black/charcoal colored and have lots of checking but it will not burn well. Put it in an outdoor fire pit for observation and it will smoke, hiss, and struggle to keep its flame. The smaller branches that were dead standing will burn but not the rest of it.

 

[Toddppm]

Northern red oak and pin oak need at least two years around there. After a year it will look black/charcoal colored and have lots of checking but it will not burn well. Put it in an outdoor fire pit for observation and it will smoke, hiss, and struggle to keep its flame. The smaller branches that were dead standing will burn but not the rest of it.

Split it smaller it will season faster and burn. There are no absolutes! especially on the internet.

 

[TreePointer]

No absolutes, but we can make relative comparisons. When a certain size of ash or maple split will be seasoned in a year, red oak of the same size splits will take 2+ years.

True, smaller splits will season faster, but it's a tradeoff. Combustion of wood is a chemical reaction which takes place only on the surface. When you make smaller splits, you increase the surface area (surface-to-volume ratio) for drying, but this is at the cost of a more rapid reaction rate when it comes time to burn. Personally, I don't want to increase the speed at which my oak burns.

With that being stated, I have no problem with whatever a firewood burner finds to work well for him or her.

 

[haveawoody]

No absolutes for sure, splitting smaller will take less time to fully dry but then that defeats the reason to have a long hot burning firewood in the first place.
Sure red oak takes a long time, black locust, apple, hickory and a few others like to be 2 years or more to be best.
Black locust is quite happy to sit in a stack for 10 years and other than trying it on a fire it's quite difficult to tell the weight difference from green black locust cut a few months ago.
Most people like to have at least 3 years of firewood so having something take 3 years to be it's best isn't really an issue, and the joy of having the tropics move to your house that winter the red oak is ready makes the wait well worth it.

Millage will vary for drying times also, my latitude is about the same as NY so 4 months of summer is about it.
Naturally if you live in a dry location or a location getting 6 months of summer the math is different on dry times.
Then the how much wind did it get and how was it stacked all have big differences in your millage.

 

[flotek]

Split it smaller it will season faster and burn. There are no absolutes! especially on the internet.

Agreed split it small ..stack in a single row and in the direct sun it will be ready in one year as long as it's not an unusually wet year with a lot of rain and overcast

 

[ReggieT]

Hey guys,
I have permission to dispatch the rest of this tree which can be referenced in my other thread entitled, " How do I maximize this downed tree?"
After doing a little more research I'm not thoroughly convinced that it is a Red Oak...several pics online show that it favors Box Elder, Maple or Elm...I really need your help before I commence making it into firewood.

BTW, is Box Elder and the above mentioned bad firewood, so to speak??
Hope you all had a blessed & safe Thanksgiving holiday.

What is this tree???
The leaf wound up in the my P/u bed...hope its from ze tree! lol View attachment 320775

Thanks
Reg
View attachment 320770View attachment 320771View attachment 320772View attachment 320773View attachment 320774

These are now fresh in...about 60 pieces of what ever kinda wood this is...the owner says he wants gone as part of the "FREE DEAL!"
Any Idea???....thanks Owner says its some kinda locust...

 

[brewmonster]

The bark says black locust.

 

[ReggieT]

The bark says black locust.

Thanks Brewmonster...if it turns out so...may have "airlift" u a few brews!

 

[1project2many]

Looks like BL alright. Look for yellow/green coloring with very distinct grain when split. Has a unique odor unless it's been seasoning for a few years. Growth rings tend to be very inconsistent in size and roundness. Grain likes to twist and turn and splits frequently don't end up in nice, neat shapes. Rots very slowly. If you've got a bunch of it, it's good wood to stack and save for mixing with lighter species year after year. Do an image search for "black locust grain" and you'll get a bunch of pictures of the wood in conditions from cut to split to finished.

 

[ReggieT]

Looks like BL alright. Look for yellow/green coloring with very distinct grain when split. Has a unique odor unless it's been seasoning for a few years. Growth rings tend to be very inconsistent in size and roundness. Grain likes to twist and turn and splits frequently don't end up in nice, neat shapes. Rots very slowly. If you've got a bunch of it, it's good wood to stack and save for mixing with lighter species year after year. Do an image search for "black locust grain" and you'll get a bunch of pictures of the wood in conditions from cut to split to finished.

Excellent pic...wow! Great info as well & much appreciated!