According to my lovely wife, I'm WAAAAAY past the "too much" stage...... Oh, the life and times of a firewood hoarder......
Keep LOTS of air around it and keep it off the ground, it'll last 10 years! Only cover the top, (I) personally don't but just to keep snow from siting on it. I have never covered my wood and it bakes all summer. I have some 7 to 8 year old Cherry and left over Oak. Never had a problem and I'm in a damp area on the coast.
I live on a 1/4 acre. My room is precious but firewood space is justified! My wife doesn't like it, Oh well, Freeze if we don't have enough! I just got back to my 3 year mark, about 12 cord.
I think that sun is what helps you out. If I don't cover my oak under the heavy canopy of trees and shade I have in my back yard my oak gets funky as all hell to the point it just starts to loses BTU's and gets punky! I'll leave it uncovered for a year or so otherwise it starts rotting. The summer months bring some funky science experiments on my oak stacks.
My Maple has gotten Funky if I stack it to tight. After visiting with some of the FHC'rs on here, Chris and I started cribbing the wood for more air flow. Found it to be much more better! I've been lucky though, I only had 1 batch of maple go rotten on the bottom of the pile, nothing else Chuck. I do believe you're right, I keep mine in full sun as much as I can. I only move the seasoned stuff to the wood shed for the winters burn.
I have burned about 1 cord of cottonwood in the stove in the beginning of the season just to kinda get rid of it. Temps were 20's and 30's just to take the chill out of my house. Lower quality woods just don't last.....
I understand the concept of SS wood. Nordic Splitter’s challenge is that he only has a Ferrari and a dually F350 King Ranch and it feels disrespectful to take either to the grocery store. So he wants to buy a base model Corolla for that. I get it, but to TimberDog’s point I also don’t get it.
Me thinks, you miiiiiight have enough firewood when storage gets to this guy's... ... (my fav farwood ad)