I had 2 bigleaf maples cut down in January. They were bigguns. The stump from the bigger one is 5ft across. I kept a rough tally of the firewood from them and even after giving the big trunk sections to a neighbor there was still around 10 cords. Out of the 10 cords, a couple went to another neighbor and my dad took a few. I still ended up stacking maple in every possible spot on my property. There's a few stacks totalling about 2 cords that I really hate the location of. Even though I have a bunch of older wood, I wanted to burn those maple stacks first just to get rid of them. It was a little disappointing just now when I split a few chunks and stuck a meter in them. The maple I want gone is all between 22 and 28%. I have enough older wood that I could afford to leave the maple until next year. The fir and alder I checked is 11-15%. Would it be crazy to mix the maple with fir in the stove? Burning subpar wood when I don't have to seems like a waste, but having that maple in my driveway another year isn't very appealing.
If you have other seasoned firewood I would say the best thing you could do is use the dry wood first and re-stack the maple in the spot where the dry stuff is now. I know it's annoying restacking firewood but there are advantages, by moving and reorganising the splits you will help it dry quicker. I will say that stacking is my least favourite part of firewooding. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
I'd never expect pretty much any kind of Maple to be ready to burn in 8 months, although that stuff is getting close. Could you move that wood to a location that's being vacated by other stacks that you plan to burn? I know it's extra work, but if you don't want it in the driveway, you gotta' do what you gotta' do.
Same. If you do move your stacks a little at a time, might save you efforts of doing it later when you do it in the spring when things start to clear up. Push comes to shove, split it a little smaller and keep a little maple inside while you got the fire burning? I don’t want to recommend that but long as you can keep the fire hot enough in the winter, the last few months of summertime might have helped the top part of the racks. Jury is out on the bottom splits.
First in, first out usually burns best. 3 or 4 more months until you can move it into vacated space ? What can you do, you had to put it somewhere. It's not forever. Plan B.
Patience blacktail. Patience. Also, the maple still has some good drying time if it doesn't turn too wet out there.
So, did you “resplit” some chunks, or were these split for the first time in order to get MM readings?
Well then, you did mention selling it.... If you could hold out a bit longer, maple really lights up the secondaries when = or < 20% MC....
Hey, if you have that much sometimes its better to have money in the bank. If it won't mess up a "three year plan" then go for it.
I love my pole barn, can cut maple in August and burn it in 3 months if I throw it in the old horse stall in there. Al
I'm willing to bet that maple 24-28%will hit % 20 in another month-month and a half. I would plan on burning it.
The forum's drying time average for silver, red and big leaf is 12 months. Depending where you are in the PNW and there are some range of climate there it could very well be ready by January if not sooner. Worst might be burn it Feb/March. There's still some good drying weather left. Less to move in April is better than all of it. ( if moving is even an option, I don't think I would bother unless I really, really needed that space.)
With the damp climate here from October to May, most of the drying that occurs is during the summer. The stacks are an eyesore and one of them (a solid half cord+) is where I want to do some landscaping in the spring. Moving them would mean many wheelbarrow trips all the way to the back yard. I'm not doing that.
Is your stove and hearth set up so you can stack a few splits around the stove for a few days before burning? I can't speak from personal experience (owb guy until the coming season) but lots of folks seem to have good results with this, as mentioned above by FayBoy85. We're planning on it this year to help drive down some of the marginal wood that was css with the intent of burning in the owb, which is happy enough as long as the wood isn't fresh off the stump.
Not to mention how much our ground bogs down with any weight after a few solid days. Only if this was out in the woods would it likely be tolerable but grass is only green for so long during the sunny season...
1) Soft maple dries fast. You stiil have some time to dry this summer/fall. If not, it will be great for fall '19. 2) From the looks of it you should have sold it or milled it for lumber. That's some nice curl in your firewood. So be it. Hindsight is 20/20.
