This week I have mostly been burning...

[Stereo]

Sycamore. A big, multi stem tree which got felled to make way for a phone cable last winter has been split small and stacked out under a tarp for a year and I'm very impressed. It burns as hot as anything and lasts for ages.

 

I'm seriously thinking of adding this to our coppice plans alongside Alder. It grows like a weed down here in Devon. I know the forestry lot want it irradicated from the UK but it seems like a good, fast growing fuel to me.

 

I would compare the burn performance to well seasoned beech or ash.

[Dave Martin]

Sycamore is very good firewood but goes mouldy very easily, Best barn dried.

[treedave]

Cuts like butter, split easy when fresh and dries reasonably easily. Not only grows like a weed but coppice's nicely, puts good straight growth on and if grown tight enough has no fluff to speak of on a 20m pole. Great stuff for firewood, but will try to take over - I mow a sycamore lawn under one of mine, there's that much seedling growth some years.

Burning some tonight that came off a job today, dead tops out of some syca's in a car park - from site to fire in 6 hrs!

[Stereo]

Best thing is that the shoots on the tree we felled are already 4ft high and will be firewood in a couple years.

[gensetsteve]

Sycamore grows well round here best to grow species that thrive. I cut a sycamore back to stump 4 years later its 20 feet high again. They are sproating out the side of the foundation on my workshop.

[Big J]

One of my favourite timbers certainly. On any given day thinning, you'll knock out 2-3 tonnes more in sycamore than beech or oak because it's generally so clean and straight.

 

Burns hot and slowly, dries quickly and splits easily - what more do you need?

[rowan lee]

This week I have mostly been burning...

The title of this reminded me of an old = Paul Whitehouse sketch from the fast show years ago. 'This week I have been mostly eating larch'

[Peter]

This week I have mostly been burning....

 

Nothing, because I'm not a girl and I don't need the house heating in September.

[Stereo]

Peter, that is an outrageous comment and I hope you can find the new man in you and take it all back.

 

We are burning every night at the mo in our Esse which heats up our heatstore for domestic hot water and we get to cook stuff on it as well. Saves us a packet on gas and is very eco thingy. I only light the other fire when it gets to -60c and then I still walk around in just my pants and have the windows and doors open.

[corylus]

Its a very interesting argument reagarding sycamore. It does make wonderful firewood (for stoves) but is invasive. It coppices well up int' North Pennines ere, if the squiggs, bunns and deer dont get there first.

 

Web are now actively coppicing for (personal) firewood production, whilst planting 'local' natives wherever possible. Hopefully the best of both worlds.

 

BTW I am a girl....... Rayburns been on a week now!