Growing your own firewood

webels wrote: »

This reminded me of a thread from a while back from johngalway
http://touch.boards.ie/thread/2056158562?page=1#post_72103807

clonmahon wrote: »

I've made it. Done a workshop back in 1994 in Lough Rinn, Co Leitrim on charcoal making, we made it in a big metal kiln (maybe 300 gallon volume) and then I made it at home in a 40 gallon metal barrel. According to the guys who done the workshop hazel is the best raw material, followed by birch. I was thinking of it as a business but back then the market wanted charcoal briquettes, now the market is all lump charcoal.

eatmedrinkme wrote: »

There's a couple of sites listing the BTU the thermal units per cord pf firewood (most seem to be American), which is a count of the energy contained in the wood.

There's a good one here, which could be a guide. Ash scores about the same as birch.

Eucalyptius scores quite well (higher than some oak).

We're in the planning stage for our firewood at my place, and, at the moment, harvest and coppice what's available. And in the planning process, we're considering mainly native species. And the thought process runs something like this. What will grow, what will grow well, and how long will it take. How much will it cost to protect against rabbit and deer (deer are especially a problem where we are), and what work will be involved in harvesting, transporting and processing it (this can be huge if done on a budget).

Ash coppices well, and grows straight and knot free when planted close together. It splits with little work, and seasons quickly, so it's little work, and has a relatively high BTU, so we'll need less of it, but won't grow as fast as more wet tolerant species, unless we drain. Plus, we have to pay to plant it, and do the work. It grows fairly fast in the right conditions. Deer like to bark it.

Alder grows well on our soil, and is self seeding (we'll have three well established self seeded plantations just by sitting on out hands in several years), coppices well, and seasons reasonanly quickly (two years ideally). Ot has a low BTU, but splits well, and is light, so, we'll need more of it, but it's easier work than ash and grows faster on our wet soil. It's more twiggy, so felling an limbing is more work. Plus, the deer leave it alone, so we don't need to fence it.

Eucalyptus grows fast, and the right variuety apparently tolerates wet and cold, and it has a high BTU, and should be easy to limb, but, apparently (I haven't tried it yet) is a bugger to split as the fibres twist. We'll find out if the deer like the taste of it.

Birch tolerstes wet, and can do well, but the deer love it. Good BTU, fairly easy to split ( though the wood can be hard when seasoned), and grows straight, and isn't too twiggyu, so it's an easy fall and limbing.

Spruce is everywhere, has a low BTU, and is a bugger to split due to it's knottiness ( a tough splitting wood can really add time tou your cutting and splitting chores), grows fast and straight, and needs little limbing. It's takes two years to season, and needs to be kept very dry, but burns fast an gives out it's heat quickly, so it's good for starting a fire ( five balled up newspaper pages and an open vent range and seasoned spruce logs = roaring fire in 7 minutes) but you have to reload often. The deer don't eat it.

Oak will grow incredibly slowly, and the deer love it, in our conditions, ditto beech, and on marginal land, apparently, neither coppice reliably.

Native species tend to harbour and facilitate hugely more flora and fauna than non natives, and that's a condiseration for us.

Given our conditions, needs, and what's already here, we're looking at a mix of alder and spruce with no deer proof fencing (all the spruce was planted by the previous owners) for the next while, with a growing sprinkling of ash as that crop comes in, with some birch thrown in as and when we can afford some deer proof fencing ( the deer ate about 80% of what we put in last year).

And we'll grow selected oak and beech as standards, to full height. But that's for the grandkids in 50 years time.

eatmedrinkme wrote: »

I do mean Buxus, Buxus Sempervirens, UK boxwood. Was used to make cogs for wheels, and hard tough tools. Hardest of the European hardwoods apparently.

On my land, any ash will have to be plamted carefully if I want to have fast growing healthy trees. I had tought Sweet Chesnut needed well drained soil. In the sunny South of England, it coppices well apparently. Ben Law, the coppicing guru in the UK, has a sweet chestnut forest. Splits well, worls well outdoors untreated - lasts for a long time apparently. But I think my land is unsuited to it. I did want to try some experimental planting of it however. And you may need better summers than we get in the Northwest for good sweet chesnuts...

goat2 wrote: »

which is the fastest growing tree,