# Forum Home Renovation Heating & Cooling  is gumtree ever any good as firewood?

## toooldforthis

have a little wood heater, a Warmray, that works a treat.
been burning dead stuff from my block - probably Wandoo I think - works a treat. 
tried some Gumtree - was dead and dried, at least a year or more - had come down in a storm.
burnt ok, not much residue, but didn't put out any real heat and since the heater is small and doesn't take much wood it was a waste of time.
ps: the Wandoo felt much much heavier than the gum, like hardwood versus softwood. 
would the gum get any better as it gets more aged? or am I wasting my time storing and cutting it up? 
thanks.

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## johnc

The heat you get from native gums varies a lot according to species, however most of it burns very well with good heat output. Perhaps it was still slightly green and the moisture level impacted on the burning.

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## toooldforthis

> The heat you get from native gums varies a lot according to species, however most of it burns very well with good heat output. Perhaps it was still slightly green and the moisture level impacted on the burning.

   thanks johnc.
is a year old still regarded as slightly green? maybe. so maybe store for 2 years?
still, not sure it is worth the effort - tho cutting it up keeps me warm  :Smilie: 
not sure about species, but the timber was definitely light weight so might use that as my guide in future.

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## Moondog55

Yeah the best is 2YO or longer, it can take that long for the bound water to dissipate, I notice the same thing here with the Ironbark and it is over a year old and stored split, needs another year in the shed, same for the yellow box

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## David.Elliott

Especially as it was probably still live when it came down.
Best idea as the others say is to cut to final size for use and store. The more surface area you can expose the sooner it will dry.
When you stack, don't obsess over getting it too neat/tight and make sure it's off the ground. I found the best is the plastic pallets you can get for nix of Gumtree (see what I did there!) put one on the ground on some bricks in the wood shed, stack to about a metre and then put the next pallet on...and do again...star pickets on the sides stop it spilling all over... 
David

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## toooldforthis

> Especially as it was probably still live when it came down.
> Best idea as the others say is to cut to final size for use and store. The more surface area you can expose the sooner it will dry.
> When you stack, don't obsess over getting it too neat/tight and make sure it's off the ground. I found the best is the plastic pallets you can get *for nix of Gumtree* (see what I did there!) put one on the ground on some bricks in the wood shed, stack to about a metre and then put the next pallet on...and do again...star pickets on the sides stop it spilling all over... 
> David

  yeah saw that, inc the spelling mistake  :Smilie: 
at least I said: _"would the gum get any better as it gets more aged?_  as opposed to: _wood the gum get any better as it gets more aged?_ which is what I inadvertently wrote the first time  :Biggrin:  
show some restraint next time David.

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## johnc

It is best to split wet timber before stacking as it helps speed up the drying process. Timber dries at about 1" (thickness) per year if you want a guide, so if you have a six inch log (150mm) with bark still on it will still be holding a lot of water the following year. Generally split in half and when burning mix it with some old dry stuff to get better combustion.

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## Marc

Gumtree is good firewood. Any wood harvested "live" needs 3 (Sydney) Summers to be perfect. You can get away with 2 if you split it just after cutting it.  
If you have dry old firewood and a half backed one like one year or so, You can get a hot fire by mixing it one dry one not so dry. I get most of my firewood from old electricity poles and cross members, that are 30 year old who-knows-what very hard stuff and no they are not treated above the ground, only telstra poles are treated all the wy so no good for firewood. 
I have burned successfully and very hot fire mixing old hard wood with one year old bottle brush and pencil tree rubbish not even split.
Burning low quality firewood is different from burning dry hardwood. If you have the perfect hardwood log you can bur it on its own slow and nice. If you want to burn unseasoned wood, you need to stack a lot of it in the fire. Just pile it up a lot of it and eventually you get a hot fire going. Don't be miser just shovel it in. 
If you want to heat with wood, it pays to hoard stacks of wood if you have the space. Get yourself some old roof sheets to pile it on top to stop the termites. 
Splitting is the best you can do to accelerate the drying process, short of making yourself a solar kiln.  Seasoning Firewood With The KilnCover Solar Firewood Kiln 
Below is something more permanent. Go to 4:40 to skip the bla, and see inside. Designed for timber, it is just as good for firewood. I would use clear policarbonate for the roof Solar Kiln Basics - YouTube

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## Moondog55

Also check your flue, it may need scrubbing out

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## toooldforthis

thanks for the follow up posts people. appreciated. 
more gums down in the storm a few days ago. interesting they snap about 3 to 4 metres off the ground and take out the top 3 or 4 metres. they are only about 100mm dia where they snap. must get top heavy in the storm?
will cut them up and keep the thicker bits for a few years. rest can go to the recycler at the tip. later when I get organised I might chip/mulch them.  *Marc:*
my current pot belly is too small to take a mix of wood. only takes a few pieces at a time.  *Moondog:*
flu is new/clean secondhand. ran it up thru the existing brick firepace.
as said it is a little ripper with the right firewood. just wondering about the gum, but will persevere with storing it for a few years. might end up with a bigger pot belly in the reno.

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## Smurf

> my current pot belly is too small to take a mix of wood. only takes a few pieces at a time.

   Had this problem 20 years ago, indeed we couldn't get anyone to deliver wood that would actually fit in the stove. 
Got around that problem by ordering a truck load of coal which arrived in 40kg bags. Not very "green" but it sure did put the heat out once it got going. Fill it up, open all the air vents and the thing would end up glowing red hot (literally). That said, wood is a lot better for the planet I think.

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## Marc

> thanks for the follow up posts people. appreciated. 
> flu is new/clean secondhand. ran it up thru the existing brick fireplace.
> as said it is a little ripper with the right firewood. just wondering about the gum, but will persevere with storing it for a few years. might end up with a bigger pot belly in the reno.

  Hm, pot belly are harder to feed than slow combustion because they don seal properly. Hope your flue is 6". As for scrubbing, you'll be surprised how quickly it gets dirty particularly if you use unseasoned wood. In fact it can be a fire hazard if you don't clean it regularly.
If you only have a few sticks of wood, split them and pile them up under cover. If they are only 100mm they will dry up good for next year.

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## Ken Linder

> Gumtree is good firewood. Any wood harvested "live" needs 3 (Sydney) Summers to be perfect. ...
> If you want to heat with wood, it pays to hoard stacks of wood if you have the space. Get yourself some old roof sheets to pile it on top to stop the termites. 
> Splitting is the best you can do to accelerate the drying process, short of making yourself a solar kiln.  Seasoning Firewood With The KilnCover Solar Firewood Kiln 
> Below is something more permanent. Go to 4:40 to skip the bla, and see inside. Designed for timber, it is just as good for firewood. I would use clear policarbonate for the roof Solar Kiln Basics - YouTube

  Use caution with dead fall wood, especially if it has sat around at all. Baby snakes like to hibernate under it. I've seen a few deadly brawn shoe laces under them and they have no sense not to evenomate things they cannot eat. 
I'm here in SA (north east of Manum these days) and I don't have access to anything but wood bought by the ton. It is all gum (various varieties, a lot of it redish wood).
As it is, my disability issues limit my splitting capacity (what I do, I pay for) these days.  
However, I do know that smaller pieces well seasoned (about 10cm across is perfect) will burn far hotter and with a whole lot less smoke than big pieces or green ones can (even though big ones last through the night). That means that I want  smaller pieces than I can create. 
Back when I had muscle to spare (I was a weight lifter once...now I have very little muscle by comparison, sickness bites) ... anyway...I grew up in a timber town with a few timber scrap yards, out on the west coast of the USA in Washington. A fee of $5.00 bought you a pass for the day (weekend if it was Friday) to the scrap yard of the mill,  It had all of the logs that were too poor quality to be fit for ,making timbers out of and that included the occasional cedar that was too filled with holes to even makes shakes from.  Pine, Hemlock. Spruce and Cedar. You could have all of the the wood you could chain saw & split and load and take away - for one day (or the weekend)  and get help from your friends and their pickups. We got used to that fast. Given that the government was stopping all federal school funding (against the actual laws...thanks to Reagan) The High schools took up raising money (so they could have money to teach with) by selling firewood (split by students and their parents on the weekends). everyone over about 12 knew how to split and stack firewood properly, as well as how to use a chainsaw...and most of them also knew how to hunt and butcher a deer.  
We usually had several cords of wood curing under cover, and we rotated them and re-stacked them every year...always burning ONLY well seasoned wood (you cant burn pine safely otherwise - too much pitch & therefor creosote output). 
But here it is wood bought by the ton. 
And that wood bought by the ton has nasty prices. and ALSO from time to time they mix in a bit of green stuff with the semi-seasoned stuff. I normally get mine in my 2 to 3 tons loads. I just hate buring green wood (often the pieces are too big for the firebox and cannot be split until they are far more seasoned). 
As I was used to pine forests from where I grew up (not hardwoods) I had to learn about splitting varieties of gum hardwood. Pine & hemlock, blue spruce and and young alder (not yet a hardwood when small & young) split very easily when wet/green, but they don't burn that long even when fully seasoned or put out much heat. Gum on the other hand puts out nice heat - but - some varieties just don;t split when wet. The grain is all wrong to split easily, until it is drier. You just get the splitter (we called them SPLITTING MALLS in the states) just bouncing off of the wood no matter how hard the swing...no matter what your strength or experience is. That is...unless you have a hydraulic splitting machine (petrol driven - not electric - and I don't). Gum is also very hard on the chainsaw. Don't bother trying to saw gum with a low cost $100 chainsaw that has plastic bushings - only get ones with real steel bearings (some electric GOOD models have them, not just petrol ones) or you will kill off your chainsaw right quick. As it is you will need to have more than one chain and keep them sharpened so you can swap when they get dull. 
I just hate it when they mix in green stuff with drier wood. When they put in green stuff in loads with the dry it changes how much real wood you get. I get reasonably dry wood (mostly) and then every so often there is a patch of stuff too green to split at all (and far heavier). It gets tossed aside and waits until the end of summer to be split (hot summers here in SA help in that regard as does low humidity) 
I had the same experience down in Victor when I was cutting my own wood...green stuff bounced instead of splitting (too wet)...I went after recent falls from storms (not dry or infested wood, just storm fall) and the really green stuff meant bouncing blades.

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