Needed to move some splits to make room for more splits. Next up was a stack of chestnut oak from my honey hole. Moved (most of) it in then split a piece to check moisture. Pic taken 10/10/2020 FF to today: Very pleased with the results. I can typically get big splits of red oak down to 20 or below in 3 years. This tells me I don't need to be concerned about any of the chestnut as it will be sitting for minimum 2-3 years.
I split some dead standing white oak this morning I want to check with a mm. I can’t remember the last time it rained and it’s been hot, so everything looks and feels ready to burn.
That’s been exactly my experience with dead chestnut oak as well. I cut some gypsy moth killed trees in the summer of 2020, and by the 2021-2022 burning season it was all below 20%
It's so close to straight up white oak, I can't tell much difference. Burns hot and long for me. The only experience I have with anything better is shagbark hickory. This specific stack of wood, as you can see, does not have any sap wood rot so it wasn't standing dead very long. Most of what I'm getting has some of that rot and bark is falling off or is very close to falling off. One of the reasons I was interested in the MC was the fact that this would be the longest case scenario to dry. All the rest has been standing dead, longer. With the proper top cover, all this chestnut oak will be prime when I need it.
I too cut and burn a lot of standing dead chestnut oak and agree with Wood Wolverine. It is in the white oak family and burns similar, and a heck of a lot easier to split.
In February 2021 I cut, split and stacked 2 Chestnut Oaks that had been dead for 3 years. I hand split all of it and remarked how wet the wood was despite being dead for three years. Water would spray out of the wood with every swing of the X27. Well as of today 6/27/22, I'm sitting at 17% MC on average measuring 3 freshly split pieces. I'm sure the relatively mild NC climate has helped with seasoning. I've burned a lot of white oak and post oak but not chestnut. Good thing it's ready because it's about 80% of my wood for this winter.
I have some chestnut oak in the stacks that I split 2 years ago. Tree was cut when the guy was building a house. Laid there for a year on top of a huge pile of logs. I haven't checked the moisture %, all I remember was how heavy and wet those rounds were! Even after I halved them. It was height of summer when I was scrounging it and hot as hades, had to move them uphill to trailer. Only time I questioned if burning wood was worth it. I came to the conclusion.... it is!!
