Hornbeam as firewood

[Stubby]

5 hours ago, Rough Hewn said:

Best uk firewood.
Most calorific.
Better than oak,beech etc.
And dries pretty quickly if from coppice.

hard as a whore's arse too ?

[Mick Dempsey]

Médiéval days the iron industry in Sussex and Kent used Hornbeam for the furnaces because it was excellent for heat etc.

[cessna]

Thanks for your replies. The windblown tree I was given for the clearing,this time last  year  is taking a lot of time and effort to split into 1.2mtr lenghts even  with our Binderberger 40ton splitter,so glad to hear it should be ok for my firewood customers. The wood has a very high sap content and takes some splitting, we have yet to set about the 3ft diameter knarlly butt lengths which stop the cone splitter!!!!  

[openspaceman]

1 hour ago, Mick Dempsey said:

Médiéval days the iron industry in Sussex and Kent used Hornbeam for the furnaces because it was excellent for heat etc.

Yes much of the gill woodland we used to work was over age hornbeam coppice used for charcoal. because it is dense and hard as a wood so is the charcoal, which made it good for blacksmithing in the days before coal became prevalent.

 

It is also highly perishable but cut and split then stored for a summer makes very good firewood, left longer it gets as worm ridden as ash.

[nepia]

1 hour ago, openspaceman said:

It is also highly perishable but cut and split then stored for a summer makes very good firewood, left longer it gets as worm ridden as ash.

That's good to know.  I've only ever had any quantity of it for firewood use on one occasion.  I didn't get round to processing it for nearly a year by which time it had noticeably degraded and quite a lot went to waste.

Sorry Al if you're reading!

[openspaceman]

1 hour ago, nepia said:

That's good to know.  I've only ever had any quantity of it for firewood use on one occasion.  I didn't get round to processing it for nearly a year by which time it had noticeably degraded and quite a lot went to waste.

Sorry Al if you're reading!

I think many people fail to appreciate that loss of dry matter (energy) is occurring all the time from felling until the wood is below about 18%, even though the fungus or woodworm can survive below this they are hardly active until it increases again.

 

The volatile solids are lost first and I think these are what gives a lively flame, hence why doty wood just smoulders (think of what touchwood is and why it was used to catch a spark or carry fire).

 

I had the job of extracting some ash this season but was stopped (unnecessarily) because of lockdown, I know from previously extracting ash that had lain for a summer season that it will have deteriorated. Worse from a sale point of view it will look stained and grey, whereas freshly converted ash is dry in a season and much more presentable.

 

Thinking about it this is a definite attribute of fast, high temperature, dried timber, remember for most buyers logs are a luxury lifestyle item.

 

I'm actually short of logs for my extended log store as a result of lockdown so if you hear of anything 25 miles to your west

[spuddog0507]

3 hours ago, cessna said:

Thanks for your replies. The windblown tree I was given for the clearing,this time last  year  is taking a lot of time and effort to split into 1.2mtr lenghts even  with our Binderberger 40ton splitter,so glad to hear it should be ok for my firewood customers. The wood has a very high sap content and takes some splitting, we have yet to set about the 3ft diameter knarlly butt lengths which stop the cone splitter!!!!  

Yep it will do, from my own experiance with Hornbeam is cut it and split as early as you can as if it is left to dry out some it starts to go hard and the longer you leave it the tougher it gets, we have some at the yard that has been down about 12 months but its not big stuff only some thinings, but i did aquier some several years ago that was felled and left for 12 months before it was extracted due to ground conditions, then stacked and i then aquired about 15 tonne of it and it was rock hard, hard on saws and hard to split on the splitter, but it made fantastic firewood and had some lovely spaulting in it,

[DocMustard]

Hiya Spuddog, do you have any of this hornbeam wood you would sell for me to process myself, are you willing to sell some on unprocessed in unsplit lengths? I'm down the road in Freckleton, PR4, will pay cost & delivery for a pickup & trailer load whatever that is (guessing a couple of tonnes). Drop me a message, thanks.

Edited July 30, 2020 by DocMustard

[cessna]

Just to say I am test burning  some of the Hornbeam as mentioned in my thread  Title and it is burning really well,thank goodness.  We split a lot into 1mtr,billetts back in may and it has dried out really well.  We aim to start delivering it this week so thought I had better see if it burns ok.?

[neiln]

European Hornbeam | The Wood Database - Lumber Identification (Hardwood)

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