lesson learned: i will never never burn black walnut again

[Sawyer Rob]

Walnut, not worth anything more than any other tree until it is processed into boards and dried. Market price goes up and down like anything else,

I guess you haven't sold many logs before? Of equal quality, walnut tree's/logs bring quite a bit more money every time, compared to many other species..

I'd much rather see my walnut go to lumber,

Than burning it up!

SR

 

[Dogsout]

Black Walnut is lousy firewood.

Hey Spidey I am not that far away from you so feel free to send all that lousy black walnut my way. My OWB just loves it and it seems to throw enough heat on the moderate days to keep my big old house warm. Will concede the ash reference though but not a deal breaker for me IMO.

 

[BillNole]

I guess you haven't sold many logs before? Of equal quality, walnut tree's/logs bring quite a bit more money every time, compared to many other species..

I'd much rather see my walnut go to lumber,

Than burning it up!

SR

Those sure are some beautiful boards Rob!

 

[blades]

I do not have a mill so to me it is just another tree, certanily not something I am going to reach in my pocket for on speculation because so & so told xyz owner it is valuable.

 

[pennsywoodburnr]

I had walnuts growing in the sheep pastures at the ex's place, and we heard that the leaves were poisonous to them, but the sheep ate the leaves and never had any problems with them (wet or dry). Nor did the goats. We had Icelandic, Soay and Shetland cross sheep. I have never been able to find a reliable source that said that walnut leaves were poisonous to sheep. They used to eat the cambium off the walnut trees as well, and I had to wrap them in woven fence wire.

I have cut and burned a lot of black and white walnut. Good wood. Never had bad issues. For me sycamore has the most ashes of any wood I have burned, and it is on my no collect list. Walnut is not the hottest of woods, especially for its weight. However, I would fetch, cut and burn it. I will take all y'all have out there. 'Specially if its free.

My no collect list of wood species: Tree of Heaven Hell, Black Cottonwood, Willow (any type), Sycamore, Ginko (bark is poisonous), White Pine, and I may be allergic to Black Locust.

The only problem I ever had with white pine is that it burns fast, but I try offsetting that by making my splits extra chunky so I get a little more burn time out of it. Being that your out of the PNW and all you guys have out there are pretty much evergreens I thought you would be all over that . I'm allergic to black locust too, up until the point I remove all the poison ivy vines growing on the thing . I swear, I don't know what it is with that species of tree, but I've never seen the trunk on one of them not covered in some sort of vine.

 

[Sawyer Rob]

Those sure are some beautiful boards Rob!

And it was another one robbed right off the firewood pile!!

SR

 

[windthrown]

The only problem I ever had with white pine is that it burns fast, but I try offsetting that by making my splits extra chunky so I get a little more burn time out of it. Being that your out of the PNW and all you guys have out there are pretty much evergreens I thought you would be all over that . I'm allergic to black locust too, up until the point I remove all the poison ivy vines growing on the thing . I swear, I don't know what it is with that species of tree, but I've never seen the trunk on one of them not covered in some sort of vine.

Yes, the typical 'the PNW is all evergreen' myth. We have plenty of hardwoods here, including white and black oaks, Madrone (which I will put up against any eastern hardwood species), eucs and live oaks to the south, Bay, golden chinkapin, birch, alder, black locust (invasive here), vine and big leaf maples, and lots of fruit and nut trees, as well as eastern tree species in the burbs. I list white pine because both eastern and western white pines have really low BTU value and they burn fast. Its like burning pith. Not worth the effort to collect and process for me. I burn a lot of lodgepole and shore pine, as I have them growing on my property. I much prefer larch and Douglas fir, which have good heat value (better than many hardwoods). If I burn black locust, my sinuses clog up. Its the smoke. Ginko has urushiol in it, the same toxin as poison oak/ivy. Breathing the smoke you can get it in your lungs. No thanks.

I should have added birch to my do not collect list. I have it growing here as well, but unless you split that stuff fast, it just rots. The bark is virtually waterproof. I would also add grand fir to the no collect list as it is full of sap and has fairly low heat value. Grand fir fetches a good price at the sash mills though, no point in burning that stuff. There is a stand of black locust near my house here. No vines growing in it. It is all that is left of a town that was here 100 years ago, but is long gone now. They were typically planted for fence post material by the PNW pioneers.

 

[windthrown]

I'd much rather see my walnut go to lumber,

Those are pretty boards. Nice mill job there.

 

[pennsywoodburnr]

Yes, the typical 'the PNW is all evergreen' myth. We have plenty of hardwoods here, including white and black oaks, Madrone (which I will put up against any eastern hardwood species), eucs and live oaks to the south, Bay, golden chinkapin, birch, alder, black locust (invasive here), vine and big leaf maples, and lots of fruit and nut trees, as well as eastern tree species in the burbs. I list white pine because both eastern and western white pines have really low BTU value and they burn fast. Its like burning pith. Not worth the effort to collect and process for me. I burn a lot of lodgepole and shore pine, as I have them growing on my property. I much prefer larch and Douglas fir, which have good heat value (better than many hardwoods). If I burn black locust, my sinuses clog up. Its the smoke. Ginko has urushiol in it, the same toxin as poison oak/ivy. Breathing the smoke you can get it in your lungs. No thanks.

I should have added birch to my do not collect list. I have it growing here as well, but unless you split that stuff fast, it just rots. The bark is virtually waterproof. I would also add grand fir to the no collect list as it is full of sap and has fairly low heat value. Grand fir fetches a good price at the sash mills though, no point in burning that stuff. There is a stand of black locust near my house here. No vines growing in it. It is all that is left of a town that was here 100 years ago, but is long gone now. They were typically planted for fence post material by the PNW pioneers.

Relax my man, I was busting your chops. Did you miss my sarcasm wink? I know you guys got a ton of different species out there. The main hardwoods out by me are the oaks (white, chestnut, red and some scarlet here and there) got a ton of hickory that I've seen driving plus a lot of black locust with a smattering of honey around too. We still have a decent amount of white ash out here too considering we got EAB. Maples are all over the place too. Plus we got a ton of your dreaded white birch. My wife used to call them rubber band trees before she knew what they were. We used to have one on our property that was about 35 feet tall that could literally touch the ground from freezing rain weighing it down. That one had to go. Ill use it for firewood, but only if I get to it on time. Not splitting it is asking for trouble. One time me and a buddy cut down a big white birch that was standing dead next to his friends house. Once we dropped it and started piecing it up, every round we cut through was punky. The stuff that I do manage to catch in time flares up like crazy one the bark catches fire. It's like there was oil embedded in it or something.

 

[windthrown]

Not getting excited, its just noobs read these threads and think its true that we only grow soft conifers. Hard and soft conifers are the money trees here, for sure. The rest are pretty much considered trash trees (even madrone).

Yah, my white/paper birches typically break a lot of branches under any snow loading. We had an ice storm here about a week ago and there were birch branches all over the property to clean up. I felled a few of them 2 years ago that the previous owner planted next to the house (only a foot away!) and I left some smaller unsplit rounds. Mistake, as they just grew fungus and turned to pith. They make better mushroom media.

 

[pennsywoodburnr]

Not getting excited, its just noobs read these threads and think its true that we only grow soft conifers. Hard and soft conifers are the money trees here, for sure. The rest are pretty much considered trash trees (even madrone).

Yah, my white/paper birches typically break a lot of branches under any snow loading. We had an ice storm here about a week ago and there were birch branches all over the property to clean up. I felled a few of them 2 years ago that the previous owner planted next to the house (only a foot away!) and I left some smaller unsplit rounds. Mistake, as they just grew fungus and turned to pith. They make better mushroom media.

I'm glad I don't have anymore on my property. I know they're a pioneering tree and all, but they're just a pain in the ass to deal with. Everything I've got now is either oak, maple, white pine, white ash, and one lone American beech sitting there with no others around it. I got no idea where it came from. Maybe seeds were washed down as I'm on the side of a mountain?

 

[woodchuck357]

I burned just walnut, cut and split last spring, all this week. At first sight, when the stove door is opened, there appears to be a lot of ash. But, when touched with the poker, it collapses into almost nothing. Actually there is less ash both by weight and volume from the walnut than most woods. There have been times when I reloaded the stove and had no coals but some of the finer walnut splits made excellent kindling!