It looks like Hackberry. I've cut up a few of those trees and the bark is a dead giveaway. Rough as hell.
Scrounging Firewood (and other stuff)
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woodchip rookie
Addicted to ArboristSite
I see grass in those photos...
looks like some mulberry and what my dad always called sugar nellie.(aka hackberry)
I was going to say that if you could call that bark "warty", hackberry and sweet gum come to mind, and it doesn't look like sweet gum.
Australians have a tendency to turn their noses up at anything that is not a eucalypt and would never burn stuff like pine or softwood or any sort of fruit or yard tree unless their lives depended on it. Mainly I think it's just an impression that they're no good or will make your flue catch fire. I recognise that this is not necessarily the case. I suppose the eucalypt in all it's multitude of species is the dominant large tree in this country so it's the obvious go-to choice.
It's interesting for me then to read about you blokes burning all sorts of different types of wood. How does hackberry go?
It's interesting for me then to read about you blokes burning all sorts of different types of wood. How does hackberry go?
woodchip rookie
Addicted to ArboristSite
I have heated with torn apart pallets. Fire's fire.
"Sure beats tryin to heat the house with snowballs"
"Sure beats tryin to heat the house with snowballs"
Tenderfoot
ArboristSite Guru
Looking damn good.
Since I gots no oak or eucalyptus and have been known to bust up pallets I went and picked up some of the spruce I cut yesterday .
I only had a bit of time so small load it was .
I figured I try the "Shear" ...
Works great and it's fast
I only had a bit of time so small load it was .
I figured I try the "Shear" ...
Works great and it's fast
Hackberry, maybe some Siberian elm, and box elder?
Cowboy if you haven't tried it softwood is awesome stuff for getting the fire going. Big chunks of bone dry softwood followed by hardwood to slow things down. I've been heating the house with wood for about seven years now during that time here's a list of what I've burnt.
Year 1
Building off cuts from a mates Reno, mainly hardwood and Oregon.
Year 2
Jacaranda (creates an obscene amount of ash), various other scrounged off cuts from neighbors suburban trees.
Year 3
Pretty much exclusively hardwood fence paillings posts and rails, from a mates old fence. Also had a trailer load of blood wood eucalyptus for overnighters.
Year 4
First and last time I bought firewood. Trailer load of stringy bark eucalyptus. Plus 3 trailer loads of big rounds of radiata pine scrounged.
Year 5
Turpentine eucalyptus ( reputedly non flammable but I found it to be a nice slow burning wood). A load of liquid amber absolute nightmare to split.
Year 6
Spotted gum and iron bark..... now we're talking.
Year 7
Iron bark and yellow box plus A big dead pittoporum undulatum from my backyard. It was dead and easy to stack out the back yard rather than drag out to the front and pay to get rid of it. Much easier to send it up my chimney as C02.
My lesson learnt all wood will burn well if it seasoned for two years or more.
Now if I have the option I will go for eucalyptus, which I can do now as a mate has 15 acres of wooded iron bark near by.
Year 1
Building off cuts from a mates Reno, mainly hardwood and Oregon.
Year 2
Jacaranda (creates an obscene amount of ash), various other scrounged off cuts from neighbors suburban trees.
Year 3
Pretty much exclusively hardwood fence paillings posts and rails, from a mates old fence. Also had a trailer load of blood wood eucalyptus for overnighters.
Year 4
First and last time I bought firewood. Trailer load of stringy bark eucalyptus. Plus 3 trailer loads of big rounds of radiata pine scrounged.
Year 5
Turpentine eucalyptus ( reputedly non flammable but I found it to be a nice slow burning wood). A load of liquid amber absolute nightmare to split.
Year 6
Spotted gum and iron bark..... now we're talking.
Year 7
Iron bark and yellow box plus A big dead pittoporum undulatum from my backyard. It was dead and easy to stack out the back yard rather than drag out to the front and pay to get rid of it. Much easier to send it up my chimney as C02.
My lesson learnt all wood will burn well if it seasoned for two years or more.
Now if I have the option I will go for eucalyptus, which I can do now as a mate has 15 acres of wooded iron bark near by.
Did some unsuccessful morel scrounging yesterday. Too early and too cold. But I do have some good spots to check in another week or two.
Buck was busy last fall.
Lots of big cottonwoods
More buck rubs
Several deer although only one is visible.
Buck was busy last fall.
Lots of big cottonwoods
More buck rubs
Several deer although only one is visible.
Dieseldash
ArboristSite Operative
I hear you there!
My old man heated our house for a winter with pallets and skids from his work when I was a kid. Money was tight back then for them and couldn't afford the electric bill from the base board heat. It was my job to clean out the ash and thousands of nails. Funny how I still remember how much heat those dried out oak pallets put out.
We also used cottonwood from 3 giant trees he took down (48"dbh) took like 5 years to burn all that crap. Russian olive too. Me and my bro were assigned the summer job of splitting and stacking all that when I was 14. Freshman year football practice was cake after doing forced labor for dad all summer. My kids don't know how good they got it!
Drag a speaker magnet through the ash to collect the nails and recycle them.
Philbert
Philbert
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Well the crappy 3oth arms on the chipper didn't last long. My 3 pth would only lift it about 3" off the ground and when I backed up the rear end dug in and bent the crap out of them. They won't bend next time and now it will fit any size tractor. And a sneak preview of my newest loader attachment.
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A better pic of the business end.
Agree with all that, Jeff. I suppose you do what you have to do. When I first started heating with wood there was a logging/thinning operation nearby and I'd go and scrounge the off cuts and daggy bits with a bow saw and that kept us warm for the three years we lived down near Wilson's Prom. Not sure what the eucalypt species was down there and didn't care - it kept us warm and because our place was small and with just the two of us we didn't need to heat through the day, my right arm could keep up. When I first moved to where I am I didn't know anyone in the first winter I scrounged some willow from a local caravan park that knocked a whole lot over - poof wood we called it because you'd chuck it in and "Poof", it was gone. That and some roadside scrounge worked.
Then for several years I'd go up into the local forests which had a lot of mountain and alpine ash - they are relatively lightweight eucalypts - killed after the 2003 bushfires and that kept us warm for several years but that is now running out as local scroungers have been after that for more than a decade.
Since I've had farm access for the last few years, I've been burning three common local valley eucalypt species and it has been great. They are medium density so they get going ok while the really heavy hardwoods probably don't - hence the softwood starter would be suitable. On our 2 acres we have a number of wattles that die frequently and they make great kindling. Since I have a large supply, I can put a lot of that in with a couple of big bits of blue gum, peppermint or candlebark, light and leave the fire to its own devices. I reckon I'm four years ahead now with mainly peppermint and blue gum. What happens after that, well...who knows, I might be burning fruit trees, yard trees and the kitchen table.
