What wood is this please?

muckybutt

I agree with the telegraph pole quote :eek:

What ever you do DO NOT BURN ANYTHING WITH TAR OR CREOSOTE IN OR ON IT I once swept a young couples chimney after a chimney fire, the fire was so intense it had blown all the plaster off the chimney breast and glazed the brick inside the chimney.

When asked what it was they were burning they replied the old railway sleepers in the back garden, they said they burnt well but it had some how set the chimney on fire. Effin idiots and I told them so.

Tar and creosote hmmmm both lovely and flammable, steer well clear of both, burn them and you WILL get burnt yourself, I cannot stress enough that you do not burn telegraph poles or railway sleepers EVER no matter how old or seasoned they are.

The rest of the wood looks like soft wood, chop it up, split it into managable chunks then leave it to mature and season.

!!!!!! dont listen to highrisk he's has no idea what he's on about.

highrisklowreturn

burn the one in the middle first as it looks the driest and will therefore have the higher calorific value (cv)

suisidevw

I don't plan on taking any telegraph poles, cheers for the advice though Mucky! Will stick to the softwoods I think and mix it in with my ash/oak!

savemoney

I agree dont touch the one on left you can often tells its had creosote on it by the smell or dark brown colour

suisidevw wrote: »

The one on the floor looks a little ropey and possibly telegraph pole, but the rest appear to have bark on them etc?

suisidevw

The one on the left lying down horizontal to the path SaveyMoney? Thanks

Greenfires

Given that the sizes are pretty consistent, and that telegraph poles are always debarked prior to treatment, the fact that there's eveidence of bark on quite a few of them suggests it may have originally been a load of round timber. You should be able to tell from the colour and smell if it's been creosoted - though with the ones with bark, it's not likely that they have. Is it too far away to go and inspect it? Looks like a fairly sizeable pile if it's free, and the bark lifting from the wood like that suggests it's been seasoning for a while. Still worth testing a number of split logs for moisture before bunging it in the stove though.

Andy

grahamc2003

Presumable if you take it, you'll have to chainsaw it first. I'd be extremely careful to check for nails/staples and anything else metallic in the wood. Not sure what the pros do with logs like that with unknown history - would they use metal detectors or something before chainsawing?

suisidevw

Thanks both, only about 20 mins away so will head up there tomorrow to take a look and chainsaw up there and then into sizes to get into the car. Will be careful with the chainsawing too!

Greenfires

grahamc2003 wrote: »

Presumable if you take it, you'll have to chainsaw it first. I'd be extremely careful to check for nails/staples and anything else metallic in the wood. Not sure what the pros do with logs like that with unknown history - would they use metal detectors or something before chainsawing?

Well you try and avoid anything obvious, but hitting old nails in timber is just an occupational hazard really - the chain will generally go straight through them, but you'll take the edge off the cutters. Only five minutes work to resharpen though.

Worst job for that sort of thing I ever did was chainsaw milling a load of used sleepers up for a bank stabilisation job - they were absolutely full of buried bits of ballast. Ended up having to do a full sharpen after just about every cut - looong day!

Andy

suisidevw

UPDATE: Picked up a bootful, sawed it up at her house. It was absolutley fine. Not sure on the wood, but a softwood and nicely seasoned! Hopefully chainsaw it into proper sizes this weekend and split for next Winter.

Thanks all