Horse chestnut on the other hand is a very lightweight hardwood. It does split easily though.

I’ll caveat comments about splitting though, it’s more down to the individual tree then the species. A tree growing on its own will be short and wide to get light, so more branches than a tall thin tree, and battling wind alone can make it twisted grain. Ash is supposed to split easy, but my experience with it, from 3 or 4 trees, is the opposite!

I’ll caveat comments about splitting though, it’s more down to the individual tree then the species

The first load of wood I got from my tree surgeon mate included a lot of big (>24″) ‘pine’ trunks.
I thought it would be easy to split, and some of it was but I discovered that where the branches grew out of the trunk there would be a twisted cone of wood that formed the end of the branch that went well into the trunk. These things were really difficult to split.
Thankfully I now have a 20T splitter which will basically cut its way through the wood if it won’t split nicely.

Ah well that’s a decent sized bag but gee whizz there’s good money to be made out of this trend. As someone who grew up with burning wood in a stove just being how you heat the house this wood burner and artisan wood malarkey is highly amusing.

20 tonne splitter, that’ll do most stuff! I bought a larger chainsaw 😈

I’ve got a mix of hard and soft woods. If they are well seasoned they all burn really well.

I have a tree surgeon friend who if he has a job locally where he needs the wood uplifting, he gives me a call. It’s easy to accumulate a lot of firewood that way.

Lately I’ve picked up some Ash, Willow, Sycamore, Cedar and Eucalyptus

You likely know but for those that don’t, Willow can be absolutely impossible to split (or ever so easy). It does make a good chopping block though, light and easy to move as well as sturdy.
Cedar smells nice and splits easy but is very light. Eucalyptus has loads of types, ones I’ve had split nice and seem moderately dense, a bit like Sycamore.

Make friends with a tree surgeon, it’s the best way!

Is that the same as getting wood with a tree surgeon?

I said make friends….. If that’s what it takes I might go elsewhere…. He’s a nice guy and all…. Just not my type.

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The last one is Sycamore and Eucalyptus. It smells great

A post shared by Peter McLaren (@mcmoonter) on Nov 9, 2017 at 3:55am PST

Here is the consequence of getting wood from a tree surgeon.

so how much wood do you have at the moment mcmoo? I lke the holz, bt think your anderson shelter stores were the bees knees. I want those.

Sycamnore and euc…nice smell, I find syc smells appley. Personally you can’t beat oak for smell imv

Fwk me – I must be wasting my time going to work for a living…

I think I have twenty holzhausens now. Two big woodsheds, two smaller ones and the Anderson shelters. I did ponder getting some quotes to have them manufactured again to make wood stores but never got beyond the pondering stage.

All the wood in the pic came from the tree surgeon. I need to keep my stable yard clear, so I try and split and stack it as quickly as I can. With the hydraulic splitter I can fill a heaped nine by six trailer in an hour. It doesn’t take long to stack it.

My worry now is that some of it may rot before it gets used. It’s a bit like a sculpture park which I enjoy.

A couple of my neighbour’s supply firewood logs commercially. I was quite surprised how much they were charging for a Land Rover tipper load, somewhere around £250. I’ve just been doing it to provide our domestic, studio and workshop heating.

We’re trying a batch of hotties after a recommendation on here. Waiting to see if they work out cheaper but so far so good and burn very steadily/efficiently.

Prices vary massively, we could more than double our money if we could be bothered to tow the hour down to Cardiff. Saw what my uncle was paying the other weekend down in Cornwall, we could possibly undercut his supplier and we’re in mid Wales.

Quite like alder, easy split, fast dry, minimal ash left. Larch is pretty good too and fairly plentiful currently.
A big black poplar was a pain, couple of occasions where we had to chainsaw it off the splitter.