Definitely treat them as splits and keep em off the ground and top covered and they will be fine for a while. Like a few said tho your drying process will be quicker if you split them rt away.
Brings to mind a old sawmiller saying LOGS ROT BOARDS DRY same as firewood seems to keep much better split less rot and bugs
I've left logs in rounds, stacked on pallets, for about a year. Not a positive experience. Nothing really dried, and some were starting to rot. Edit: also meant to say that I've gone the opposite direction, due to my wood hoarding not being up to par lately. I split everything down to about 3-4" across, max, and now I'm just making a big pile underneath one of my wood sheds. Lots of airflow and no precipitation. Might not get the oak to 20% in a year, but it will dry much faster.
We have lost the sapwood or worse for rounds stored six months to one year or more uncovered for all wood specie. Top covered, we have suffered heartwood decay for the softer wood rounds like basswood, popular, boxelder... Top covered, we have not lost sapwood or heartwood for the "better" rounds such as ash, cherry, red/white oak, red elm, hornbeam, walnut... Green sugar maple, white elm, sycamore, bitternut... rounds covered have not decayed at all. But... dead wood hit by borers which inject fungus spores into the wood suffer some decay when stored covered as rounds. My wood supply is large enough that we do not worry about any losses for wood stored as rounds for a long period when time is not available to split, it still gets burned since top covering minimizes losses. All wood cut and hauled gets burned...
I like to split them as soon as I feasibly can. That way the drying process can begin. The true seasoning process does not really begin until the wood is cut/split/stacked. Obviously splits dry a lot sooner and more complete than when left in the round. I just consider a big hunk of wood sitting around unsplit to just be wasted time. If it’s going to sit around a long time it may as well be split and drying. But that’s just me. I hate to procrastinate when it comes to firewood. The biggest advantage of course is dry wood does not rot. And I consider it like an insurance policy against rot once I get it split and stacked.
Since I have a wood boiler and hate messing with gum trees- both sweet and black- I have left that in rounds up to 30” long in a carport, stacked on pallets and in a few years they were solid and dry as a bone. Keeping off the ground and dry is key.
I would imagine that everyone here would like to get it all split and stacked and I agree. But family health or just having to get the wood because it's available then and now can get in the way of that. I used to give myself an anxiety complex over it. Now I'm realizing that it's less important to worry about it because face it unlike money it grows on trees.
A couple of years back I bucked up two Red Maples, 30" DBH and the other 14" DBH into 16"rounds in April next to a brook, by summer it was a very jungle type place with PI everywhere. Due to life happening to me every day, and the fact that I was not going into that jungle and fighting skeeters and PI until November the rounds sat, some literally in the water. When I got to it 7 months later it was all fine, but I was wondering if would suffer loss of quality in that enviorment.
That makes sense in light of the fact that the tree has to transport water up the tree as it grows, but it seems to me that as the ends of the "tubes" dry out, their ability to transport water will be diminished. You read on the forums that wood will dry faster with the bark off, so maybe some moisture can also escape from the sides of the tubes? [/QUOTE]I wonder why red maple goes bad so fast if you leave it on the ground. It would be interesting to talk to a wood expert about wood differences, even at the microscopic level.[/QUOTE]I don't know, but hard (Sugar) Maple is about the same. The stump of the one we had the tree guy take down about 1.5 yrs. ago is already rotting. With my recently-scored metal roofing, I went out today and covered a couple neglected stacks of uncovered rounds, one White Oak, one hard Maple. Maple still seemed pretty solid..I was worried about it since it's been out there a couple years uncovered. What a slug I am.
I wonder why red maple goes bad so fast if you leave it on the ground. It would be interesting to talk to a wood expert about wood differences, even at the microscopic level.[/QUOTE]I don't know, but hard (Sugar) Maple is about the same. The stump of the one we had the tree guy take down about 1.5 yrs. ago is already rotting. With my recently-scored metal roofing, I went out today and covered a couple neglected stacks of uncovered rounds, one White Oak, one hard Maple. Maple still seemed pretty solid..I was worried about it since it's been out there a couple years uncovered. What a slug I am. [/QUOTE] You're no slug, just a busy guy with a life that gets in the way of playing with wood.
Busy is right; Loafing all day on internet wood-nerd forums leaves me almost no time to handle my wood.
