Is Tanoak Hardwood

The wood can be thought of as an untamed beast.

Is tanoak hardwood.

Tanoak firewood is one of the most common types of firewood available on the north coast of california. Tanoak is a hardwood that makes excellent firewood. Instead it is a unique evergreen hardwood that is part of the beech family. If you read up on tanoak tree facts you find that the tree can occupy any crown position in a hardwood forest.

Tanoak is also known as california chestnut. Superlatives edit currently the largest known tanoak specimen is on private timberland near the town of ophir oregon. Tanoak firewood burns long and hot similar to black oak. This wood species is not listed in the cites appendices or on the iucn red list of threatened species.

It has an excellent strength to weight ratio for both mor and moe but has very high movement. Tanoak is a hard heavy wood that in many ways resembles the true oaks. Veneer flooring railroad cross ties and furniture. While it has characteristics similar to both oak and chestnut it is not truly from either of these families.

The wood is heavy and hard. Sapwood of tanoak is light reddish brown when first cut and turns darker with age to become almost indistinguishable from heartwood which also ages to dark reddish brown. The wood is a light reddish brown when freshly cut but it ages to a tannish reddish brown. It can be the tallest in a stand or it can be an understory tree growing in the shade of loftier trees.

Tanoak is sometimes used as lumber but is not currently harvested commercially. Tanoak is close to true oak in both appearance and workability though it s not in the quercus genus. Common uses of tanoak include as lumber for a variety of hardwood products including furniture flooring and firewood. It grows in the siskiyou and coast ranges of southern oregon and northern california.

Thus tanoak is often included in discussions about lumber from western oak species. Except for compression perpendicular to grain the wood has roughly the same strength properties as those of eastern white oak.