The attached pictures show the same piece of wood. This is red oak, cut in late 2017 (2 years old now) and left on the ground, in the round, in the woods. I picked it up and brought it back to the yard to split and stack. First photo shows the MC% of the end of the piece, second is the MC% in the center of the fresh split. This informal test, more than anything else I've seen, proves that rounds left unsplit do not dry properly unless they are kept indoors or dried by mechanical means (i.e. kiln or dehumidification). I took two more photos on a separate split and they measured 16.0% and 32.4% respectively. Unfortunately, this is part of my wood for this winter. I put it at the back of the shed near the bottom, so it will have another 4-6 months under cover to continue to dry. Will be interesting to see the MC% in late March or April.
I hope all the rounds have been split. And, try to give it as much air circulation as you can. Hopefully, you won't need it until the end of the heating season.
March of last year we had a blizzard drop a huge red oak (24" DBH) across our driveway. I CSS soon thereafter. Last summer i took a heartwood split (16 months seasoned) the size of a 4x4, split it and MM said it was still over 20%. Burned it in my firepit later that night and it sizzled a lot. When i joined FHC in February a didnt believe oak took as long to dry as they said. I was then finally convinced. Wood in the round dries very slowly. Ive seen a few members here season in the round but they live in VERY dry, low humidity climates.
I guess it really is relative to the location. This is a fresh split I did after reading this thread. I have no idea how long it sat on the ground in the guys pasture, but this is from my "walnut turned oak" score last week. It was in log length until a couple days ago. Sent from my LML212VL using Tapatalk
I split some poplar (aspen) rounds last week that had been left in the round since January 2019. About 14" diameter. They were nice and light, I thought they were dry, but a couple of them actually squirted water out when the wedge was driven in.
How does your new owb handle the wood that’s not as dry as you’d like? Does it require you doing more maintenance to the OWB or not really?
Last fall I split and stacked a big red oak that fell into a lake. The location where I stacked it, was right on the lake shore and was facing south, I also had the stack sitting on a row of smaller limbed logs from a prior cut. After one year, moisture content is around 17% on a fresh split. I’m assuming the constant wind off the lake accelerated the drying process. So far, it’s burning nice. I lucked out I guess, because I didn’t give the location that much thought.
Nothing special. As long as I have a nice hot bed of coals, it's usually never an issue, I could probably burn a wet sponge if the coals were solid. Starting a new fire on a cold ash bed would be problematic. As far as maintenance, it's the same no matter what I burn. Just have to keep at it.
If your rounds weren’t sitting on the ground, your findings would be significantly different. Not saying it would be as dry as you want thoigh
So basically my experience stacked and stored 16” rounds do dry somewhat quicker once split than logs left laying around. Id rather buck and stack rounds then cover them for a while until i can split them rather than having the tree just lay there. Not sure If im making any sense here
Plenty of sense! I always try to stick to this rule. If I know I am not going to be able to split the rounds for sometime I will stack them off the ground for sure. Like so many experienced folks on here have said and I learned first hand how fast wood will start to turn if left on the ground for a period of time at least in my limited experience so I always try and get it off the ground.
Yes, rounds off the ground is a good idea. I've found that even a layer of bark between the grid and the wood helps a lot. In my wood processing area at my house, I've been taking the bark off of ash and silver maple and essentially mulching the area so that weeds don't grow up, and I've seen that just the couple layers of bark helps to keep the wood dry.
Thats exactly what im doing in my new storage area, im getting loads of red oak with the loose bark and cleaning my pickup out rt there in the new area. Also putting the free asplundh mulch down. And everthing gets stacked on pallets or old cedar 2x6’s that i have from an old swing set.
I personally consider round wood to be rotting, not drying. A couple months or maybe up to a year isn't that big of a deal, especially if you can get it off the ground, after that it is getting worse, not better. Just a general opinion. This thinking encourages me to get it split and stacked in a reasonable amount of time too.
Nope. Not worse but could be depending upon how it is handled. Wood 10 years old can be excellent firewood if handled properly and it has not rotted; only dried.
I get what you are saying, and it's always best to split and stack off the ground as soon as you can. However, if off the ground, even unsplit and in rounds, wood dries out. It just dries better once split.
Maybe, but my argument would be that big round logs aren't being handled at all, in most cases, and definitely not in my case. They are outside, almost always uncovered, and almost always on the ground. If there is a log or round 10 years old at my place, it is most likely becoming or already is part of the backstop, so at least it still has a purpose. Obviously lots of factors here. I've had good luck with Ash that laid in the yard for 4 or 5 years, that stuff was great. I hate getting that ring on the outside edge of old oak that never got split. Makes a mess in the house. I'll deal with it for the good stuff inside though. The cherry pile that got a little past its prime was soft and spraying water when split after 2 years, but some of that had ants too. Lots of factors, and depends on what anyone wants to deal with. As my uncle says, it's all BTUs baby.
I'm sure if you bring in a load and give them a couple days inside by the stove you will be more than good to go... No worrys
