Cross-posted to DIY and to Gardening:
A bit late to ask because I've just finished sawing up about half a ton! However there is another ton to come.
What's leylandii like as a fuel (open fire, and/or wood burner)?
I'm not intending using it until next winter.
Cheers John
Open fire - awful - it spits, like most conifers.
Wood burner - no problem.
Regards, Nick Maclaren.
geat for bonfires, even when freshly cut, huge high flames, not very eco though.
[g]
Great, possibly too great. It's very resinous, so it burns like crazy. Make sure you're capable of burning it safely. If you've burning logs, dry them a year first, then do it in something with a lid. They can go off like a grenade when green.
Efficient burning needs a Norwegian box stove, with enough secondary combustion chamber to cope with burning the producer gas from conifers. It's also likely to coat your flue with tars and creosote.
if its a few inches across, better option:
the foliage is almost explosive. Be VERY careful not to get a chimney fire. The rest is just sappy pine wood - lots of oils that burn, but once dry many go.
A friend burned a very large pile of Leylandii clippings. Brilliant bonfire, followed by a sodding great insurance claim to have various neighbours' cars repainted, including one brand new one. The ash destroys modern car paintwork.
In message , Andy Dingley writes
Chimney fire material.
Absolutely not. It's full of resin or some sort of stuff that spits like crazy which is dangerous in an open fire. I have a woodburner and I don't even use conifer wood in that - it can spit out of the dampers on the front even if open a half inch and set the carpet on fire whilst you are out of the room for a few minutes. So my advice is don't use it for fuel in your house. The foliage makes a good starter for a bonfire even when green but stand well back if you don't want to lose your eyebrows..
Tina
Tina
Getting the green stuff off theboughs is a real pain - hardly worth the effort for theamount of useable timber available. The green fronds burn ferociously and care is needed. As for the logs, can't say as I've never used them for house heating. On a garden fire the logs do not burn very well at all.
Bill
Leylandii is pretty good wood for burning as long as it's well seasoned. All the complaints about it posted here indicate that it hasn't been dried well enough. We have been felling a row of *big* Leylandii at our house over the past ten years and burning them on our wood burner with no problems. They need to be stored for a good twelve months before burning though.
Leylandii is *much* better than pine and other similar softwood for burning, although it is technically a softwood it doesn't really behave like one, it's much denser and tougher.
Fine for wood burner as others have said.
Only if it's not properly dried before burning and that applies to
*any* wood you burn. Tar/creosote is produced by burning wood of *any* sort with high water content.
I would say be very careful, I would not describe it as "fine" for a woodburner if you have a sliding damper on the front of your stove. It will spit out of it across the room, in my experience. I tried conifer wood once, I'm glad I was not out for a few hours, it sparked out from the tiny hole in the damper and set my carpet on fire when I was upstairs. Never again.
Tina
I burn leylandii in a wood burner without problems. The woodburner has a sliding damper on the front. Since the damper is within an anclosure that is made of the same steel as the woodburner it is hard to see how it could be "spit out of it across the room".
Yew is a conifer.
"spit out of it" is not the same as "spit it out" It's the burning wood that spits out.
They do when dry, I once burned a stump out that way.,
After a couple of years.
The key is that conifers are nowt special, except the sap contains tars and resins that will in combinatiuo9n with water, spit like f*ck and carry tars up in the smoke. Once dry, without the water, they burn just fine.
after all, ordinary constructin timber is coniferous.
I suppose it might be...at that.
I burn lots of coniferous stuff. builidng wopod scraps, douglas fir, scots pine, odd bits of spruce. once dry its not the worst spitter in the world by a long chalk. Willow and polar just as bad if not worse.
I'll tell you a tale about that.
I felled 6 leylandii whilst on leave once. The day I was supposed to be rejoining the ship I spent the morning burning the last of the branches. I was in a hurry, and threw a big pile on the fire, from which the volatiles were obviously evaporating. I then threw a second bundle on, which disturbed the equilibrium and caused the vapour to ignite. There was a huge fireball - a flash burn - that lasted a second or so, and when it was over my glasses were irretrevabley frosted and all my hair and beard had burned off. I was otherwise unharmed, although the smell of burning hair inside my nose persisted for a week.
I had to go straight to the ship with a slightly pink face and no hair of any sort.
Like all wood Leylandi needs seasoning well before burning. I try to never burn anything under two years old, and have burned a lot of Leylandi over the years. It's not good firewood, but hey when its free I'll burn it. If you need the damper far enough open that sparks can fly out then that's a sure sign that the wood inside is not ready to be burnt. Another sure sign that you are burning wood too early is when the glass in the door tars up. I have often been asked how we clean the glass in ours and the answer is that we don't. It stays clear when burning well seasoned wood. See
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