Anybody burn hackberry

[ETpilot]

Well, I checked my woodpile but unfortunately the Hackberry was not there. I must have used it up a while back and have forgotten. Sorry. I have a tall Hackberry tree close to the house. I plan to trim it down or cut it down. Not sure which.

 

[fixit1960]

I am kind of an snob as the worst wood I'll sell is red oak followed by white oak and hickory.
The problem is a landowner who has given me access to cut ANY OAK that is not marketable timber has a large hackberry in his yard and wants it gone. I told him I would gladly cut it up and dispose of the brush but am not wild about the wood.

Anybody with experience burning hackberry. I see in the BTU charts it's not bad.
How does it split?

I have burnt a lot of hackberry over the years. I would rate it just as good BTU wise as elm, and it splits a whole lost easier. In fact tree row/edge of field hackberry up to 30 to 36 inch splits as well as anything, 24 " and less are what I call one hit wonders. Better than elm, oak, mulberry. I'll take all you don't want do you want my address?

 

[Sagetown]

Hackberry burns a-okay, but I think it leaves more ashes than the other wood.

 

[Woody912]

Split hackberry around the perimeter, not thru the middle. Life will be much easier

 

[Woody912]

The truth is, if American Elm is good 'n' dry it won't stink either... but... we're not talking about elm.
*[/QUOTE]


I drilled a hole in what I thought was a red oak board the other day, had been in a shed at least 50 yrs. My nose immediately told me it was red elm. Although I should have had a clue from the warp and twist

 

[Deleted member 83629]

hackberry is a breeze to split here in KY we have lots of it and i burn it but i burn black locust mostly.

 

[pweber]

I'll burn hackberry quick as a wink. I've never had any trouble splitting it. Burns better than cherry or walnut for sure.

 

[LogSawyer74]

I burnt quite a bit of hackberry early this winter. Really happy with it. It was c/s/s about 8 months earlier. Had dried down really well, was pretty easy to hand-split and burnt really hot! It absolutely dried much faster than some post oak and hickory I had cut that same weekend which is still too wet to burn. Hope I run across some more...

 

[Wolfcsm]

I have some that is 24 or so inches across. Noodled it down to fire sized pieces (mostly because I wanted to run the 066 for a while),. Burns well. Does make more ash that oak.

Hal

 

[wat648]

If it's losing it's limbs, be careful of the trunk being rotten. Seen many around here where the core is completely rotten. They usually come down in a wind storm.

 

[TeeMan]

I have burnt a lot of hackberry over the years. I would rate it just as good BTU wise as elm, and it splits a whole lost easier. In fact tree row/edge of field hackberry up to 30 to 36 inch splits as well as anything, 24 " and less are what I call one hit wonders. Better than elm, oak, mulberry. I'll take all you don't want do you want my address?

I agree, down here in the south hackberry (or sugarberry) is very easy to split. It must be different than the ones I have read about in this thread. It does get punky fast...but I burn it. In fact we are about to go work some land this weekend with red and white oak and hackberry. I find it puts off good heat.

 

[zogger]

I agree, down here in the south hackberry (or sugarberry) is very easy to split. It must be different than the ones I have read about in this thread. It does get punky fast...but I burn it. In fact we are about to go work some land this weekend with red and white oak and hackberry. I find it puts off good heat.

I have only taken a couple larger ones here, and my memory is hazy, other than I DO recall , in a general basis, real difficult species (and individual trees), and I concur, I don't have a memory of the sugarberry being all that hard to split, meaning it must have been easy. I don't get much in between, wood either splits OK or it sucks.

Edit: which must mean the true hackberry must be more difficult to split than the sugarberry down here.

 

[fixit1960]

I have only taken a couple larger ones here, and my memory is hazy, other than I DO recall , in a general basis, real difficult species (and individual trees), and I concur, I don't have a memory of the sugarberry being all that hard to split, meaning it must have been easy. I don't get much in between, wood either splits OK or it sucks.

Edit: which must mean the true hackberry must be more difficult to split than the sugarberry down here.

So you refer to it as sugarberry. Is it the same species, just southern folks call it something different or is it a truly different species? I don't find sugarberry on any wood BTU lists.

 

[coog]

Old timers here call Hackberry Sugarberry.

 

[zogger]

So you refer to it as sugarberry. Is it the same species, just southern folks call it something different or is it a truly different species? I don't find sugarberry on any wood BTU lists.

I believe it is a similar but different species. All in the same genus ( I just looked ), over 60 different species called that around the world....OK, here are the two we are discussing, US versions

Sugarberry

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celtis_laevigata

Hackberry

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celtis_occidentalis

As you can see, not a huge difference, so it could be commonly called one or the other based on anyone's area.

 

[fixit1960]

I believe it is a similar but different species. All in the same genus ( I just looked ), over 60 different species called that around the world....OK, here are the two we are discussing, US versions

Sugarberry

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celtis_laevigata

Hackberry

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celtis_occidentalis

As you can see, not a huge difference, so it could be commonly called one or the other based on anyone's area.

Thanks for the research zogger. Looks like the same tree to me. I would not hesitate to burn sugarberry. As I said above I like hackberry and prefer it to elm or the silver maples we have here.

 

[woodchuck357]

Hackberry does not leave more ashes than most other woods.
Not thru with my experiments yet, but so far most wood (when burned dry) leaves about the same ratio of dry weight to ash weight.
Some, like walnut and basswood, appear to leave alot because the undisturbed ash is almost a grey replica of the wood but when poked the ash falls apart and in volume and weight is equal to most other woods.
The glaring exception is the aptly named Ash. It leaves a lot more ashes in both weight and volune than any wood tested so far.

 

[Kevin in Ohio]

Hackberry does not leave more ashes than most other woods.
Not thru with my experiments yet, but so far most wood (when burned dry) leaves about the same ratio of dry weight to ash weight.
Some, like walnut and basswood, appear to leave alot because the undisturbed ash is almost a grey replica of the wood but when poked the ash falls apart and in volume and weight is equal to most other woods.
The glaring exception is the aptly named Ash. It leaves a lot more ashes in both weight and volune than any wood tested so far.

Try your experiment with catalpa. When it burns the ashes are like sand and pack the most of any tree I have burned. Had a close to 3 footer and burned the whole tree one winter(POOR heat value burning the stuff) and the whole trees ashes basically fit into ONE 30 gallon trash can.

 

[UnforsakenGhost]

I've got quite a bit around here, not bad burning wood either, I cleaned up a split off branch for a guy at a funeral home, carpenter ants seem to love them around here same with ash and mullberry

 

[woodchuck357]

Haven't been packing ashes down, just stiring them with a poker and measuring them as shoveled out. Bottle necks are getting the wood dry and finding the time and weather conditions to allow the complete burn of a load of wood. Don't have catalpa in the wood pile, I haven't taken one down in quite awhile.