Miscellaneous Wood Subjects ( http://mb-soft.com/juca/print/firewood.html ) A number of specialty subjects might be useful to woodburners. Should pieces of wood be split from the top down or the bottom up? Since most people these days either buy their wood already split or they use hydraulic log-splitters, this is a somewhat irrelevant question these days. Even though old timer wood burners will adamandtly tell you one or the other, careful experimental tests have shown that there is no advantage in time or effort in splitting from either direction. It doesn't matter! Wood pieces should be split along "check lines", cracks that have already formed in the piece during drying. This can significantly reduce the time and effort necessary to split pieces of wood. There are people who believe that wood is split easiest if it is frozen. The idea is that the pieces are more brittle and will sort of shatter. Surprisingly enough, experimental tests showed very little advantage of spliting general wood. Even more surprising, if most of the wood to be split is full of knots, there is actually substantial advantage of doing that splitting them thawed and not frozen! There are people who insist that wood should be dried (seasoned) for at least one or two years. Experimental evidence has established that that is nearly always unnecessary, as long as the pieces of wood are cut to length and stacked. Natural airflows through the stack, and particularly through the cut cells of the pieces of wood themselves, dries them sooner than that. Experimental evidence has established that one-foot long cut pieces generally dry to acceptable levels in just two or three months. Two-foot long cut pieces take about six or seven months for similar acceptability. Four-foot long cut pieces DO require at least a year. Associated with this, covering the woodpile with a tarp slightly improves this, but probably not enough to make the expense of a tarp worthwhile, except in a climate where rain and very high humidity is common. Similarly, split pieces of wood tend to dry slightly faster than full diameter logs, but again by minimal amounts. There appears to be no value in drying firewood more than about nine months. If wood is stacked in four-foot or longer lengths, the drying process is greatly slowed. In other words, if wood is cut to four-foot length and stacked, for nine months, and then cut to shorter burning length just before use, it will probably not burn well because it is still too wet (green).
Worry not Dave. You can find lots of mis-information (commonly known as Bull) on the Internet. As usual, some of their information is correct but it is a long ways from being all correct.
And they wonder why people burn so darned much wood in a winter.....because seasoning more than 9 months doesn't do any good?? Wow, that is classic MIS-information for sure!!
Oh my goodness, that persons facts get even better, read the rest of the linked page. The person says you can get all your heating needs from running a compost bin in your basement, even hot water. Who needs firewood, all you need is a patch of grass. On top of that it will make 10 gallons of distilled water per hour and make a greenhouse produce 5 time the amount vegetables and fruit.
There once was an (then to me) elderly man who owned the land across the road. He would cut wood in 4 ft lengths in the dead of winter. When it was icy cold, he would stand at the end and swing his ax splitting the whole length of the log. They usually were 6 to 8 in in thickness. He was a short Frenchman who knew exactly how to harvest firewood. My kids and I really enjoyed his stories he would tell in broken English.
I'm putting this wisdom into practice...posthaste. Who's with me? Yeah, that's what I thought. Anybody here need some Oak @ 14-16%? Evidently, I don't need it.
[quote="bogydave, post: 13202, member: 1 There are people who insist that wood should be dried (seasoned) for at least one or two years. Experimental evidence has established that that is nearly always unnecessary, as long as the pieces of wood are cut to length and stacked. There appears to be no value in drying firewood more than about nine months. [/quote] Horsechit. I love all these "scientific" studies over the years.99% of these eggheads have no real in the field experience regarding wood heat - whether cutting,splitting & especially burning.My guess most of them couldn't even tell which end of an axe is used when chopping,paring or splitting.
I had to post it for a good laugh. Also it just needs cut to length, no need to be split either. Guess I'm just doing to way much work for dry wood. The not funny thing is folks are doing this & worse. I always try to educate other wood burners I meet, Some listen & hear. Some say I'm nuts. Can't argue the "Nuts" part. But I've no doubt about the importance of dry wood.
I must have 4 foot splits! On the same lines of disinformation, the same people at the Oregon DEQ that banned all new wood boilers (until the EPA gets its act together) and all smoke dragon stoves in homes that are sold (because of smoke) make these claims at: http://www.deq.state.or.us/aq/burning/woodstoves/101.htm Species / Outdoor drying time / MBTU heat value ................................................................................... Alder / Longer than 6 months / 18-21 medium Cedar / 6 months / 14-20 medium-low Douglas Fir / 6 months / 19-21 medium Madrone / 6 months / 30 high Maple / 6 months / 19-21 high-medium Oak / 6 months / 29-31 high Pine / 6 months / 17 medium-low White Fir / 6 months / 17 medium-low Never mind the heat values, they are way off for alder and Doug fir, somewhat off for oak, and apparently cedar can have a high variable in heat value (not!). Alder, cedar, pine and white fir will dry in one season here (9 months). But Doug fir, oak, madrone and maple will not. But they are the government agency passing all the regulations... so it must be correct!!!!!
Those 4 foot splits will be useful in your vintage Colonial fireplace. I don't think the modern EPA stove will accept anything over 3.5 feet.
I wonder why the Euros use meter length splits? I remember one post from a Hearth member, from czekoslavakia or somewhere, that said they cut it in the woods, sort of like a national forest and they are my the cubic meter. Still i see a lot of you tube vids with meter long splits. My splitter wont open up that long. I dont what type of wood they have there, but it must be easy to split.
Ya 666, what's that mean? Don't let the devil fool you. Give a man some wood and he can heat is house for a day, teach him how to scrounge and he can heat his house forever, as long as he dries it properly.
