# Dose sycamore make good fire wood



## mr.bear (Sep 23, 2014)

Just took down two big sycamores (38 and 46) someone told me it doesn't make good firewood I wanted to know if that was true. 


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## Fred Wright (Sep 23, 2014)

The thing with sycamore, it burns rather quickly. You can burn it, just be prepared to feed the stove more often. It doesn't burn as hot as your better hardwoods. I figure it's similar to tulip poplar in heat output.

Sycamore is great campfire wood. We'd spend a Saturday at the ol' swimming hole back in the day, rustle up a bunch of fallen sycamore limbs for the campfire. As long as it wasn't punky it burned nice.


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## DFK (Sep 23, 2014)

I agree with Fred Wright.
But will add. It is quite difficult to split.

David


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## mr.bear (Sep 23, 2014)

OK i think i'll make some benches out of the bigger stuff and camp fire the rest of it.


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## KenJax Tree (Sep 23, 2014)

And breathing the dust when cutting it will make you think you're dying. I wear a mask when removing Sycamore trees.


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## taskswap (Sep 23, 2014)

I burn plenty of it. We got about 3 cords of it in log/rounds from a takedown for about $70 (just paying the guy's gas, basically - we live pretty out of the way). No fooling, the biggest rounds were 46" across - I had to measure it to believe it. That stuff can have HUGE trunks.

Personally I like the stuff. Everybody seems to have this thing that you can burn freshly cut ash but I never had that experience - in my stack it seems to take as long to dry as anything else. But there must be something about that cross grain in sycamore... It's a cast-iron B**** to split, but it dries to like 22% in just a few months. And not the fooling-you kind where you test from the outside. I'm talking about re-splitting a piece and measuring the inside. It's DRY. I consider it my emergency wood for that reason. I burned a lot last winter.

But as others have pointed out it's not huge on the BTU scale. The Wood MBTU chart http://chimneysweeponline.com/howood.htm gives it as 17.9 - better than Black Ash or Big Leaf Maple, not as good as oak and hard maple.

Me, if it burns, it's going in the boiler. I may not process it first, but anything I can get the water out of and isn't soaked in some chemical is getting lit on fire. I'm not too proud to burn certain species, and the wife doesn't like to be cold.


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## GrassGuerilla (Sep 23, 2014)

I wouldn't buy it or sell it. But I'd definetly burn it.


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## WoodTick007 (Sep 23, 2014)

I would wait until it minus 17 degrees out and then split all your elm and sycamore.


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## woodchuck357 (Sep 23, 2014)

Sycamore splits fine if you work around the edges and knock off tangent splits, no need to wait, I think it splits easiest when fresh cut. 
Trying to split radially is a waste of time. Each seasons growth spirals in a different direction.
Sycamore is one of the most water logged woods around. Green it won't float, but it dries as fast as any wood I have found. Split it small now and you will be able to burn it in the late winter.


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## unclemoustache (Sep 23, 2014)

I'm a snob. I wouldn't burn it if you dropped it off for free, split and everything. It creates more ash than there is actual wood - you'll clean out your stove every 2 logs, and it doesn't make much heat.
But then I (usually) have other wood, so I can afford to be choosy. (I only forget how much I burn each year!)


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## TeeMan (Sep 24, 2014)

I had two Sycamore's that my neighbor had taken down and bucked. A friend of mine and I split it (made about 2 cords, pictured below is some of it as we started splitting). It does fight you, so be prepared for that. It is difficult to split and I could not imagine doing it without a splitter. It puts off heat, but as stated above, not like a traditional hardwood. It also creates a good bit of ash, so just prepare for that. It's great firepit wood though and does seam to season quickly (we split our sycamore in January and I was burning it by April).


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## pbtree (Sep 24, 2014)

I agree with the dust mask comment - I normally call these trees sick some more... the dust and the fuzz from the leaves wrecks havoc on the necessity of breathing... Other than that I do not like to burn it, but I also normally an abundant supply of other woods I like to burn!


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## wahoowad (Sep 24, 2014)

Sycamore sucks donkey balls. Stringy and dries lighter than balsa wood when dry. I would give it away for free on craigslist. Big waste of time to process and stack it. Bah!


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## anlrolfe (Sep 24, 2014)

Got some sycamore from a former student of mine. Sewer company got tired for rooting out the lines and offered to cut down 3-trees. The saw dust looked like kevlar shavings. Those wood fibers held more water in the wet wood and some of the heaviest green wood I think I've ever moved. It was on the stringy side and was glad to have access to a splitted. Heat is on par with maple. I'd season it extra long in shed cover because this stuff is like a sponge


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