Is spruce any good for more than firewood

[mickdundee]

I dropped a spruce for my father in law and there's a nice straight stick about 5m around 12-10" diameter. Is he likely to be able to get a drink for it as timber or should I just ring it up for logs for myself. Otherwise he'll just burn it in the garden! Thank you

[agg221]

Spruce is decent construction timber - it's the general 'whitewood' you find at builders' merchants. It doesn't absorb pressure treatment very well so there is no particular advantage in buying it from the builder's merchants, performance-wise, unless you are buying it stress graded. However, logs like yours are what big commercial mills are processing all day long, from the big forestry plantations. Yours is unlikely to be better than this and may be worse as open-grown trees tend to retain the branches longer and hence have much bigger knots. For a small miller, they can't really compete with a big mill on timber like this due to economies of scale - their niche comes in handling less common timbers, large logs etc which need a lot more expertise to get the best out of than the automated production lines handling forestry plantation material.

 

I doubt you would get anyone to come and pick it up, but if you dropped it off and it is clean, straight, no likelihood of metal, no side branches or big knots then you might get someone to give you a drink for it.

 

Alec

[Mick Dempsey]

Cup of tea....maybe.

[mickdundee]

Thanks for confirming what I thought. But I told the father in law I'd ask before logged it. I've got no qualms burning free soft wood lol. Hopefully going to get some oak as well so that won't be a bad mix for next year

[Spruce Pirate]

I think Alec has written the definitive answer to this. 

 

As you're burning it for firewood, all I would add is that spruce makes excellent kindling as is splits pretty cleanly (assuming it's not too knotty) and burns pretty hot and quick.  It doesn't make great firewood if burnt on it's own for the same reasons - burns to quick basically - but can be good if mixed in with hardwood or coal.

[Stephen Blair]

Nice for the carvers!