You might see the Brockley Tree team cut down a dead or dying tree and wonder what happens next. We can confidently say that the life of wood doesn’t end when we or a municipal team removes a tree! While it’s always a shame when a tree has to come down, Londoners make the most of useful wood.
Turning Trees Into Useful Products
Here in London, we do a great job of reusing wood from trees. Some local businesses select pieces that they can turn into furniture and crafts, but most of the wood becomes mulch, wood chips, and firewood. If you’re having a tree removed on your property, you can ask for the crew to leave the wood behind after they’ve finished. City crews will not cut the wood into firewood-sized pieces; rather, the team will leave it in logs you have to cut and dry yourself.
The City turns trees removed from a municipal property into firewood, wood chips, and mulch. They deliver the firewood to industrial, commercial, and rural areas within London or five kilometers out of the City limits, but anyone can pick up mulch or wood chips as long as it’s available.
Invasive species have changed the equation. If it’s an old tree that ran its natural course (as long as it isn’t an ash tree – more on that below), we can safely use it for firewood and mulch with no restrictions. However, if insects like the Emerald Ash Borer killed the tree, there’s an extra step before anyone can turn the tree into useful products. This has changed what Londoners can do with ash wood, too!
Trees Killed By The Emerald Ash Borer
Invasive species like the Emerald Ash Borer are a menace in North America. After sinking their teeth into an ash tree, these green wood-boring beetles can kill it within two or three years. If the Emerald Ash Borer infests a tree, a crew must remove and segregate the wood before the insects can spread. This way, the City can work to contain the infestation and lower the chances of further infestations in other places around Ontario.
To prevent further infestation, the City of London and all Middlesex County are under a “Ministerial Order.” This Order places much of the trees and wood in southern Ontario in a quarantine area. Property owners and residents in quarantine zones can’t move ash trees and firewood made from these trees.
This means that properties falling outside of quarantine areas can move materials or firewood made from ash trees within any part of Ontario, but people can’t take ash wood out of the quarantine areas. So you can take ash firewood made from trees in London to someone in Strathroy, but you can’t take the same wood to your cottage up in Muskoka.
What Brockley Tree Does With Removed Trees
While we have to follow certain precautions for infestations, most of the trees the Brockley Tree team removes become firewood. Turning trees into great kindling has become one of our specialties!
Freshly-cut wood usually has a water content of more than 60 percent; this means the heat of a fire will expend a lot of energy turning the water into steam. This makes the wood burn rather poorly – if you can light it at all. To make it usable, we need to put the wood through a process called “seasoning.” Seasoning is drying out the wood enough for it to combust and produce heat when lit. Splitting, stacking, and storing the wood in a safe place, off the ground and with lots of air circulation, will help season it more quickly.
When the moisture content of properly-seasoned wood is 20 percent or lower, we sell it as firewood. Whether you need it for a backyard party or are stocking up for your winter wood stove, Brockley only provides wood that is ready to burn!