Is poplar worth the time?

[DonTee]

I’m cutting up some trees that the town cut down on the easement along my property. There is a mix of ash, red oak, maple, cherry, and some poplar. It’s been quite a few years since I’ve burned poplar, but I remember it being kind of crappy firewood. There’s probably about a facecord on the ground. Is it worth cutting and splitting? Maybe for shoulder season?

 

[JRHAWK9]

I burn it during shoulder season. I actually have some in my wood rack waiting to be burned right now. I also have a small pile of it I have to split after I get done splitting my "good wood" that I got from my neighbor last fall as he didn't want it.

 

[Woodsplitter67]

Grab it.. . Its not a wood that you want to burn in the dead of winter. Its a great shoulder season wood. Poplar is a great wood for taking the chill out of the house without overheating it. It seasons super fast and will even season over the winter. I wouldn't sit on a ton of it.. half cord to .75 cord.. Im burning a lot of cherry right now for this very reason..

 

[DonTee]

Ok you guys talked me into it. Thanks for the quick reply’s.

Getting firewood is never this easy for me. Usually it involves me dragging logs out of the woods with the tractor.
In this case the wood is right next to the road. I can just pull up with a trailer and start blocking it up.

 

[JRHAWK9]

Ok you guys talked me into it. Thanks for the quick reply’s.

Getting firewood is never this easy for me. Usually it involves me dragging logs out of the woods with the tractor.
In this case the wood is right next to the road. I can just pull up with a trailer and start blocking it up.

even more reason to grab it.

 

[ohlongarm]

I’m cutting up some trees that the town cut down on the easement along my property. There is a mix of ash, red oak, maple, cherry, and some poplar. It’s been quite a few years since I’ve burned poplar, but I remember it being kind of crappy firewood. There’s probably about a facecord on the ground. Is it worth cutting and splitting? Maybe for shoulder season?

Poplar in my BK burns with a great flame and a full load will keep a decent temperature for 8 hours, temps from 25 to 40 degrees outside.
Burns very clean, leaves no coals and little ash. While I won't actively seek it out sometimes a tree falls and I'll use it. dries quick , make sure you burn it bark less. Bark peels off easily when it dries.

 

[Corey]

Here's a handy-dandy chart! Though I suppose there could be great debate if the "get it" curve should be linear, logrithmic, exponential, offset or some other relationship entirely.

 

[stoveliker]

Poplar in my BK burns with a great flame and a full load will keep a decent temperature for 8 hours, temps from 25 to 40 degrees outside.
Burns very clean, leaves no coals and little ash. While I won't actively seek it out sometimes a tree falls and I'll use it. dries quick , make sure you burn it bark less. Bark peels off easily when it dries.

why burn barkless?

 

[qwee]

This poplar could be of use. On startups, you could split the poplar small/kindling sized to assist the hardwoods to get burning. Pines and poplars are good starters. Even on reloads you could throw some small poplar pieces under the ash and oak.

 

[CincyBurner]

why burn barkless?

Some don't like to burn bark because more ash is produced, clinkers generated, and overall mess of bark debris.
While bark burns it also produces proportionately more ash than wood.

 

[stoveliker]

Some don't like to burn bark because more ash is produced, clinkers generated, and overall mess of bark debris.
While bark burns it also produces proportionately more ash than wood.

ok.
I thought it was related to some specific properties of poplar bark that I was not familiar with. (I don't expend any effort to take bark off; if it comes off, I'll leave it off as its density (BTU per volume) is rather low, but if it's on the splits, I'll burn it as is.)

 

[CincyBurner]

BTW, what type of poplar are we all talking about, Liriodendron (tulip-poplar) - 16MBTU, or Populus (cottonwood) - 13-16 MBTUs ?

 

[DonTee]

I’ll have to take a pic of one of the trees. They have grey bark towards the bottom, with stripes kind of like red oak. Then towards the top of the tree it turns lighter grey and then almost white.

Here are some pics of the wood I’ve picked up so far. And some I've already split from the haul. I haven’t split any of the poplar yet, but it cut like butter with the chainsaw.

 

[DonTee]

Here is one of the poplars on the ground. And a couple pics of a live one in my backyard.
It’s surprisingly hard to take pics of trees. The lighting is bad.

 

[Simonkenton]

Is poplar worth the time?

No.

 

[EbS-P]

Yes. Only if it’s easy.

Is this poplar worth the time or risk?

Hi, I am trying to decide if it’s worth my time and the associated risk to get any more firewood out of this mess that hurricane Florence left in my back yard. I have a 16” saw and wear all my PPE when cutting. It’s tulip poplar. I have been able to get about a cord so far. I have to carry it...

www.hearth.com

Makes nice things too.

 

[DonTee]

My wife really likes poplar lumber. I’d like to cut some of our poplar and have it sawn up. I have a probably a hundred poplar on a part of our property. Usually I don’t do anything with it. I’ve been avoiding it for firewood. It would just be another tree to cut and drag out with the tractor.

This recent poplar was right along the road, and already partially cut up for me. Easy pickins.

 

[Simonkenton]

You got me there ebsp, it is good for furniture. Pretty.

 

[DonTee]

Have you seen how much they want for poplar boards at Home Depot? The 1x6 boards are 4.80$ per linear foot. So a 1x6x8 is over 38$ per board. Crazy.

 

[DonTee]

I’ll get some better pics tomorrow of a few different trees.
After looking at lots of trees online I’m thinking maybe it’s eastern cottonwood

 

[patrickk222]

to me its a so so type of pick i predominatly bust them down to stifk size to be used as kindlin

 

[DonTee]

Here’s another pic of some of these trees. Eastern cottonwood?

 

[zmender]

Some poor bloke in Canada is getting arrested for stealing poplar firewood...

Alleged N.S. firewood theft raises question of fairness as heating oil prices spike | SaltWire

Musquodoboit area conservation officer Brian Mailman was driving towards Antrim on the McMullin Road from Lake Egmont when he noticed fresh activity on an ...

www.saltwire.com

 

[stoveliker]

That sucks. While I understand the need to enforce rules (and vote differently if you don't want those rules), I find confiscating the wood they had (how to prove it came from that forest?), and even worse, the chainsaw, to be inappropriate. Now they even took away the means for this person to find ways to heat his home by finding legal wood to cut elsewhere.

(On another note, I don't want to see his chimney, burning fresh wood...)

 

[DonTee]

Lol. Poor guy.

I agree about not taking the wood back. He’s getting punished for it, might as well let the rest of his family stay warm.

What’s the Canadian government gonna do with a bunch of fresh cut poplar anyways? Probably let it rot somewhere.