[Closed] It's not too late in the year for one last log pile installment, is it?

Bit further north.

Timber - Ok, I don't have any heavy lifting gear but am a highly motivated midlads based wood salvager, care to tell more.?

Is it true poplar is not an ideal firewood as it can rot if you store it too long and produces a weak flame?

I cut a 50 foot poplar down into a dried up lake last month, not had a chance to log it yet as most of Worcester is under water including this so called dried up lake! 😉

largest tree I have ever felled, was hoping it might be good for making bowls?

80'x6' of river wet poplar will require an extremely motivated scavenger, a saw with a 3' bar just to ring it up and a heavy duty trailer. I wish you luck (each ring will be the size of a tractor back wheel). It will be savage amusement!
I'd do it as well(if it was nearby) but have access to some fairly big machinary.
It won't be 6' all 80' but its still massive

Hmm... I've got all your names. If one of you even comments on anyone else's 'nerdy' thread, you've had it, right!

Some nice logs though.

No pictures, but we've got a rapidly thinning 12'Lx4'Wx8'H indoor logstore, probably 1/4 full, and with enough to fill it almost twice over outside. Not great airflow for the covered one, had planned to bring the stuff outside indoors over the summer but summer didn't happen so neither did the logs. Also use coal, but only as a base in the log burner, so get through that very slowly. Impressed by anyone who uses a solid fuel range for cooking, does fuelling one just become routine?

We have a solid fuel AGA, we fill it once in the morning and once at night, it's not that time consuming, as you say just routine.

When I lived in Orkney I ran a Rayburn Nouvelle exclusively on peat. That was a bit more time consuming, but I worked from home, and refilling the firebox always coincided with putting the kettle on for tea.

Cheers. We've got an oil Again, which is fantastic in winter, but gets turned off in summer because we can't justify opening windows whilst burning money.

We have a solid fuel furnace for the boiler sambob. Im just sitting down to a coffee having just started the burn. Between September and April I light it every morning and if really cold, keep it in all day, if not I then usually light it again in the evening. As mcmoonter says, its a matter of routine. Its not for cooking but for all the heating and ho****er in the house. It doesnt suit most lifestyles but I love living with it.

Lot more tree to the right that isn't in the picture.
Those humps in the grass are where the tractors have been dragged back before they've had any bite.

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Poplar I've burnt has gone nicely and down to a fine ash. Bit of a pain to slpit, as like beech, it doesn't really have a grain. One of the few woods to break the blade on the splitter.

Grew up with a Warmsler, less faffy ovens than an Aga, hot water and cooking. Solid fuel cookers are so much better than any other cooker for making cheese sauce, you have all temperatures at once, just move the pan to the right bit of hot plate

Ok that is a lot of tree. Give us a shout if any of it needs re homing!

Is it true poplar is not an ideal firewood as it can rot if you store it too long and produces a weak flame?

mcmoonter - love your snowdrops. Will ask for advice about splitting in 2 years time. Half of ours are in the lawn, so I'm guessing I'll have to dig chunks of turf up again.

Poplar weighs next to nothing when dry, burns quickly without giving out as much heat as denser wood good enough for when the weather is not too cold,early autumn/late spring. When it is dry you have to keep dry as it soaks up water like a sponge and seems to be wetter than when it is green If its for free and you can keep it dry then its fine in my mind.

Love the smell of burning Peat. Criminally hard work getting it fron the bog to home what the stacking/drying process. Messy pre and post burning as well. Still the smell is like nothing else on earth. The smell of the Hebrides/rural Eire to me.

Love the smell of burning Peat. Criminally hard work getting it fron the bog to home what the stacking/drying process

I'd give my folks a bag or two to burn in their townhouse in the centre of Kirwall. Tourists would stand and sniff like a peat flavoured Bisto ad.

You need to choose your peat bank with care. I was lucky, mine had a fair road up to it, but we did have to try to maintain the road. When I last cut, there was only one other guy cutting with me, so the responsibility for the road fell to us. We'd hire a JCB and driver for a morning and try to divert the water that had collected and that that was eroding the road. Gordon my co cutter only used it to get to cut his bank. It was really satisfying work.

Gordon cut more than me, my bank was a hundred yards long and an average of four feet deep. We'd cut a swathe around eighteen inches into it. That was a significant volume. Gordon's bank was nearer six feet deet and longer. The road he used to transport his dried peat home was like something from a Camel Trophy stage. He only had a Grey Fergie and a trailer made from a cut down Transit. Wild stuff but happy days.

Aye, sounds better than the commuting to London by train thread! I know where I'd rather be. It's one of the things I love about having a stove, is getting to work in the fresh air. Canny beat being out on a fresh autumn morning, mist in the air, liberating some fuel. Happy days.

itstig - its worth remembering that for a given moisture level all wood has the same net calorific value by mass. I burn a lot of willow (and soon, poplar) and like a fast burning light wood as it takes less TLC in the furnace. Denser woods can burn a bit too slowly to maintain the flue temps that keep the flue clean.

I know what you mean , oak is often said to be good firewood, it takes years to season and can still sit in the fire grate and smoulder charring on the outside giving off little heat needing lots of other wood and attention to keep it alight. I'll burn anything and have no "rules" about what to burn. Recently we've been burning a windblown larch that was standing dead for ages its about 16% and gives a superb fire.

never tried a coniferous wood yet. Not much of it around the leafy shires.

Ive managed to get a 15% out of some willow, kept under cover. People say willow is "wet", but those big pores holding the water are also great pipes for getting it out again in a windy store.

It will be interesting to see how my poplar splits though (although not needing to do more than one or two cleaves with mine). I wasnt aware of the "grain" thing although deadlydarcy of this 'ere parish did mention that it makes a good skirting board for some reason to do with grain, and it takes paint well apparently.

I don't Know if there is any thing in this but have been told that willow and poplar can dry faster if stacked vertically so moisture can evaporate upwards thorugh the big pores or down by gravity seem plausable

The variation I heard was to stack it in cords on an incline. But same principle I guess.

This is quite a big tree we walk past with the dog.

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(Dog in picture for scale, he's also quite a big dog)