Is weeping willow good for firewood? (2023)

How good is Willow for firewood?

Good firewood. Burns well but only produces a moderate heat output. Willow has a high water content so only burns well when very well seasoned.

Willow logs need to be seasoned for at least 12 month; kindling (up to 1” diameter) can be used 6 months after being cut. Logs should be dried off the ground; those in contact with the ground will rot. After 6 months logs should be placed in an open sided log shed to season.

If you have no time to let it dry, you can use it in making furniture. Willow wood is resistant to shock, and it is light hardwood. That makes it relatively easy to carve, making it an excellent fit for making furniture. You can use it for whittling projects or to make intricate and small furniture.

The weeping willow is poor quality for burning. The trees produce little smoke and few sparks. Weeping willows are easy to split and only have a slight fragrance. Willow wood produces only 17.6 million BTUs, or British thermal units, advises Virginia Tech.

The best-known firewoods are white and red oak trees. The wood from these oak trees is prized for its strength and density, and that density makes it one of the best at producing heat.

Most oak trees put off a ton of heat when they burn, but the white oak is at the top of the list with an astounding 30.7 million BTUs of heat per cord of wood.

What kind of wood SHOULD NOT be burned in the fireplace? Don't burn driftwood in your fireplace. Driftwood is loaded with salt, and the chlorine in salt mixes with wood compounds during burning to release a toxic chemical, one that's been linked to cancer. Don't burn treated, painted, or sealed wood in your fireplace.

Watch out for any wood covered with vines. Burning poison ivy, poison sumac, poison oak, or pretty much anything else with "poison" in the name releases the irritant oil urushiol into the smoke. Breathing it in can cause lung irritation and severe allergic respiratory problems, the Centers for Disease Control state.

Ideally, you should wait, say, 6 weeks from cutting before using it to allow dry a little, whilst still being flexible. However, once the willow has become more dried (it's then called brown willow) – from, say, late April onwards it will probably* need soaking before it is pliable enough to use.

Allergies/Toxicity: There have been very few adverse health effects associated with the actual wood of willow (Salix genus), however, the bark and other parts of the tree have been reported as sensitizers. Usually most common reactions simply include skin and respiratory irritation.

Is willow tree wood good for burning in a fireplace?

Out of all the woods you could use in a fireplace, willow wood may be the least effective. Willow wood is rated as fair to poor when being used as firewood. It produces less heat and causes more creosote than many other types of wood more commonly used in a fireplace.

Hardwoods such as maple, oak, ash, birch, and most fruit trees are the best burning woods that will give you a hotter and longer burn time. These woods have the least pitch and sap and are generally cleaner to handle.

Willows are softwood trees that are easy to cut into firewood logs. But like all softwoods, weeping willow does not burn well.

Pine, fir, and spruce: cone-bearing trees make for a beautiful sight in the forest, but their wood shouldn't make up the bulk of your firewood pile, especially for indoor fires. Beneath their bark, conifers have a sticky, protective substance called pitch or resin that you won't find in trees like oak or maple.

For the serious fire lover, you may want to invest in hardwoods like madrone, live oak, ash, hickory, walnut and fruit trees like apple or cherry. Hardwoods are denser woods that burn hotter and longer than softwoods, but you'll need to let them season more than a year.

Seasoned hardwoods make the best firewood. Hardwoods like oak, cherry and maple are denser than softwoods like pine or cedar. Due to their density, they burn longer and produce more heat or BTUs. When wood is “seasoned” it means that it has been cut and dried for at least 6 months.

Softwoods like fir, pine and cedar make more smoke, and therefore more creosote.

Seasoned firewood should be stored out of the rain to help prolong how well it keeps for. If seasoned firewood gets rained on it can dry out within a few days, but constant contact with moisture will lead to the wood going bad.

Wood that isn't stored correctly can start to rot due to regular and prolonged contact with moisture. The CSIA states that you can keep firewood stored for up to 3 to 4 years without any issues of the wood going bad if you follow these recommended procedures for storing the wood.

What is the fastest growing tree for firewood?

The Usain Bolt of trees – willow is the quickest tree out of the blocks! Incredible high yield biomass growth in just 4 years. Let's look at the pros first – easy to grow, cheap planting stock, very fast growing, excellent yield and good form. You can produce log scale willow in just 4 years.

Since duraflame^® firelogs are made with dry wood sawdust, only a fine soot is left in the chimney. In fact, tests show that a duraflame^® firelog has 66% less creosote accumulation per hour of fire than the creosote accumulation from burning a wood fire.

You can use dead trees for firewood, but you should take into consideration the type of tree as some make better firewood than others. Specifically, hardwood trees are often better than softwood species as firewood. Also consider the condition of the wood, the size of the tree, and whether it houses animals or insects.

It can be difficult to tell if firewood has been seasoned by sight alone. Deep radial cracks at the ends of split logs are one indicator of dryness. Seasoned firewood will also be lighter weight than green wood, although judging this can be subjective.

Sycamore and other Maples Makes a good wood fuel log, burning well with a moderate heat output and good flame. Willow Even when very well-seasoned Willow produces poor slow burning fire wood with little flame.

Common Uses: Baskets, utility wood, crates, furniture, cricket bats, carvings, and other small specialty wood items. Comments: White Willow is so named because the undersides of the leaves are a pale white. Historically, it's been the wood of choice for cricket bats.

Several fungi cause wood decay in willow trees. Wood decays are often invisible diseases, rotting the interior of the tree's trunk and weakening the tree so that it can fall without warning. Fungi can enter the tree through wounds, and rotted areas can feel spongy when pressed.

For the serious fire lover, you may want to invest in hardwoods like madrone, live oak, ash, hickory, walnut and fruit trees like apple or cherry. Hardwoods are denser woods that burn hotter and longer than softwoods, but you'll need to let them season more than a year.

Willows grow in most places and tolerate numerous zones; you may even have one in your neighborhood and not know it! All weeping willows are willows, but not all willows are weeping. The weeping willow has a delicate weeping growth pattern and is the classic shape you think of when you think of a willow tree.

What is the lifespan of a weeping willow?

Weeping willows are fast-growing trees, adding up to 10 feet per year when young, but their average lifespan is a relatively short 30 years.

Willow trees tend to start to fall apart around 20 years of age. It is possible to have them reach 50 years with proper care. When they have lived their lifespan, you should have the trees removed to keep up on a healthy ecosystem.

The finished result – often referred to as ore-pine or cured pine – is the material that you usually find in the many ancient wooden buildings – in Norway and in other places around the globe. Wood that will last for a thousand years and more.