Not in any good amount just a few pieces here and there. Soon as I come into some I’ll be giving it a try, it dries quick and is plentiful
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It grows like a weed over there on the west side. Also the Vine Maple I wonder how that would burn in a gasifer truck. We have places where the Quaking Asp trees grow. I wonder if it is any good.
Bob
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Found this page, looks like our alder, is not as good as firewood.
A little interesting, I have ridden on oak a few hoppers, it gives about 25% longer mileage, but I think it reacts more slowly when accelerating.
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Every time I see Jo use his rebak it make me think it would chew through those long vine maples very nicely
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What amazing is people over there would pay to get rid of it. Clean up there property get paid for it and free wood to haul home. My chunker could eat the fpstuff up. The small stuff make into charcoal.
No Vine Maple around here where I live, I have to go up higher in elevation to find it in the river basin hill sides.
Bob
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Cody, I think I know which video you’re talking about. The black alder was favored by some because of its low tar content and therefore less soot. It doesn’t grow around here though, only gray alder does. It’s low on tar too, but extreemly bulky, My guesstimate is maybe 20% of my fuel is gray alder. If I run a hopper of 100% of it, the range may decrease down to 35-40 miles instead of 50. Other than that it works just fine.
Up here birch was probably the most commonly used gasifier fuel. At least in the northern 2/3 of Sweden and Finland.
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I agree with JO. I burn a lot of alder in my fireplace but found that it is too light and bulky to use as chunker wood. There is a lot more miles in a bag full of Douglas fir chunks
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Thanks Mike, we can scratch that wood off the gasifer wood list to use.
Bob
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The alder we have is very light but i still find it more dense than the Doug Fir i got from you.
That Alder wood must be a lot like Bob’s poplar to be lighter than Doug fir, which are the two lightest woods I’ve ever used. Whenever i chunk wood Alder is usually a big portion of what i chunk. It burns about like any other soft hardwood. Sweet gum, Chinese Privet, Alder…etc. It is a weed here like our sweet gum.
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Yeah, I actually like alder. As long as my driving is within one hopper’s range I don’t mind using alder at all. It grows fast, plenty and straight. It’s easy to cut, easy to delimb, easy to split, easy on the chunker and it dries fast. It has short fibres and is the least stringy wood I know of. It’s a little high on ash, but not a problem.
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I too like our black alder. Even as firewood. The main fuel consumer in our house is cooking food, and for this l need a wood that lights up fast, burn clean and hot and not too quickly. Alder is the answer. It just starts burning instantly when you toss a log on hot coals. Cottonwood does too but it instantly flashes the top layr, sthen it stops burning. And is way less dense.
Im sure this is one reason why its liked as a woodgas fuel. It seems wery responsive
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Ok. Interesting. I am about to plant trees for firewood. Willow is growing everywhere. Cut it and it grows again. I heard you can do the same with alder. Is that correct?
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Apparently Alder isn’t known to grow on the East Coast. Sad! I’m still waiting on the leaves to fall entirely before I begin to coppice. Lots of red maple, walnut, elm, poplar and others in my woods. Part of it was old growth forest and the rest was longleaf pine for tree farming. Before grandma died in 2008 we had about 16 acres clearcut to cover her funeral and to pad out her Will. Lots of the deciduous trees that got cut with the pines are at ideal size now. I reckon I’ll do an acre rotation at a time to see how much I gather and how fast they grow, and how many trunks come back out.
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Joep, correct. Its a vicous tree. A weed like some sayd.
But not many know it also fixes nitrogen in the soil so its a soil conditioner.
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This is one half of a plant l harvested/thinned this year
It grows from the stump even if the tree was old!
A few years old seedlings, rebak food.
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Kristijant, is this Black Alder in the last picture? It sure looks the the Alder we have over here in our neck of the woods. Yes it grows like weeds here too on the wet west side of the Cascades Mountains.
Bob
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All this is black alder yes.
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Ok. Alder is will be. Willow is a no go? Even lighter then alder?
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Willow is a bit les dense, and it doesent form thick logs as easy
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Willow makes an excellent gunpowder charcoal however. Very fast burning.
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