Oak. Overrated or incredibly overrated?

[Big J]

Curious to see what people's thoughts towards oak are.

 

I bought a standing dead oak the other day, felled it and processed the firewood for the store at home. Very dead on top, very dry.

 

After just one barrow full of exclusively oak, I'm back to mixing it with my other stuff (general sycamore, hawthorn, cherry, ash, willow and birch mix - small diameter, mostly unsplit circa 60cm lengths).

 

I found that I got little heat out of the oak, no embers, not much flame and it burnt almost twice as quickly as the normal hardwood (a very, very full barrow does us two days, but just one with oak).

 

Why on earth do customers love it? I'd rather burn sitka!

[Spruce Pirate]

Too dry J?

 

I always found oak held an ember really well.

 

Trouble with burning Sitka is you never get to sit and warm your feet by the fire - every time you sit down you need to get back up to put another log on. Good for kindling though.

[Stephen Blair]

I thought oak should burn like coal! maybe you felled a dead sweet chestnut:biggrin:

[Stubby]

Always found oak to be slow and orrible . Always mixed it with syc ash beach daadedaadedaa . Holm oak is much better .

[Woodworks]

Love a bit of dry oak as it burns hot and slow.

Some of the best firewood IMO

[scraggs]

Wish I could get hold of more turkey oak, it has burned really well once dry.

[Tanat Valley Firewood]

I have ash one end of the shed and oak at the other, both are around 15% and I instinctively go for the ash. The my oak does not give out as much heat or last as long as the ash.

[Two Acres]

Oak and beech would be my favourites - plenty of heat, nice bed of coals, very slow burn I do like to have a bit of conifer mixed with it to get it going though.

 

Are you sure that dead standing tree was an oak?

[se7enthdevil]

as long as its free i'm not bothered.

 

big j, i've heard that dead oaks can sometimes have the calorific value reduced because of early fungal development. not sure if its true or not but it could account for that specific tree.

[Big J]

 

Are you sure that dead standing tree was an oak?

 

Certain. Whilst my softwood identification can be off sometimes, I'm very good on my local hardwoods.

 

I reckon it would be OK mixed in, but on it's own it does not produce enough of an ember bed to really put out the heat. 4-5 normal hardwood logs and the fire is singing, the temperature in the room is up.