KiwiBro
Gold Member
Firewood ranges from dense woods like Manuka and many NZ native trees, to really low BTU trees like Pinus Radiata (mostly referred to as pine here) which I think is called Monterey Pine up there, with various woods like gums, fir, poplar, cypress, etc at various points along the BTU scale.
Construction lumber is mainly pine, but there are now a few more legally allowed species like fir, and moves afoot to certify a few other species also. Our native trees are prized for many different qualities but are high-value and go for furniture and suchlike rather than construction lumber, although they can only be felled legally with special permits to sustainably manage the resource. A secondary and in some cases better quality source of native timber is demolition lumber from all the old buildings built before pine was introduced. Such lumber was milled from old growth trees and can be quite spectacular. Here's an example. This is Rimu from ceiling rafters in a two-room cottage on a farm that was going to be burned by the local volunteer fire-service as a training exercise. I heard about it and raced in there to salvage something before they arrived:
This is Rimu also, and from the same area, but this time from the floor boards of a house only about 500m from that old cottage mentioned above. A house fire almost burned it to the ground. Just a few rooms of flooring and a few floor joists worth saving:
Construction lumber is mainly pine, but there are now a few more legally allowed species like fir, and moves afoot to certify a few other species also. Our native trees are prized for many different qualities but are high-value and go for furniture and suchlike rather than construction lumber, although they can only be felled legally with special permits to sustainably manage the resource. A secondary and in some cases better quality source of native timber is demolition lumber from all the old buildings built before pine was introduced. Such lumber was milled from old growth trees and can be quite spectacular. Here's an example. This is Rimu from ceiling rafters in a two-room cottage on a farm that was going to be burned by the local volunteer fire-service as a training exercise. I heard about it and raced in there to salvage something before they arrived:
This is Rimu also, and from the same area, but this time from the floor boards of a house only about 500m from that old cottage mentioned above. A house fire almost burned it to the ground. Just a few rooms of flooring and a few floor joists worth saving:
Last edited:
