My brother who lives a couple towns over had a smallish dead standing Oak hit his garage during a hurricane remnant storm a while back. Since then him and his wife have been concerned about 4 dead standing Oaks near his house in a similar area to the one that fell. Except these ones were about 16"-20" instead of 8" or 9" like the one that fell. Three of them were Red Oaks, and one was a White Oak. He told me they were too close to the garage, so he didn't feel comfortable cutting them down. He got a price from a tree guy we know. Just to drop them in place, and leave them for my brother to clean up was $1,000. I told him from the get go he was crazy to pay that, and that we could rope them over easily. In fact they were all leaning away from his garage. I do understand the tree guy has to charge enough to cover his overhead and costs and turn a profit, these particular trees were rope able though. After the tree guy kept putting off when he was coming, I was able to convince my brother to just have me, him, and our father cut them. He agreed. So this morning we started at 8am, and had all 4 down by 9am. Went pretty smoothly. I was lifted in a forklift box about 40 feet in the air, and tied a bull rope to the tree. My father cut, and we pulled the rope from as safe distance. I stayed and helped him buck the wood and throw it in his tractor bucket to dump in a processing area so it was out of his way. I took the White Oak, and my tractor back home. I'm glad everything went smoothly, and we were able to save them the $1,000. He also had a huge 6" x 6" x 1/2" angle iron that's 6 feet long that will make the perfect base for my 3 point sawbuck project.
Nice work on saving him the money. There is nothing better than splitting nice straight White oak. Now if we could only get it to dry quicker
I process a ton of Red Oak, but not too much White Oak. I forgot how stringy it can be. To be honest I prefer the Red for splitting. What’s the consensus on burns? Pretty comparable after they fully season?
wh White is better btu wise. Have you ever referred to the FHC btu chart? I dont agree with some of the numbers. Firewood BTU & Drying Chart
I have seen the chart. I know you said before you thought the Locust numbers were off. The White Oak seems like a cross between Red Oak and Hickory. Stringy like Hickory, and even the bark somewhat resembles Hickory. I think once dry it’ll make some great heat. Just wish it had been a bigger tree.
Nice wood. Great to save a little money. Sometimes ya gotta call in the pros but it’s always nice when you can save the coins. Like you I have tons of red oak available. Gets a little boring after awhile. I’ll be burning some of my first ever white oak this winter. Looking forward to trying it out.
Im surprised it was stringy. Splits just as easy as red oak for the most part IME. Pretty common around here. Not so in your area?
I’ve noticed it can be a little stringier, tough to split. Maybe it’s more near the butt. First round I split was a buttround. Blew up like a hand grenade I even posted here asking about it. I learned not to split the rounds big end first on the hydro. Seems easier to attack the smaller side of the round. I sorta liked going big side first with the four way wedge. Less bind as the split gets smaller instead of bigger.
I guess not. Maybe it was that tree. Like I said I don’t process a lot of WO. Definitely was harder on the splitter. Most of it was straight trunk with hardly any knots. Maybe I’ve just been spoiled by the ease at which the Red Oak splits!!!
Yeah the red can crack pretty easy under the right conditions. I had a big stacked pile of red rounds, halves and quarters that sat for two years. When I finally got around to splitting them they were soaking wet from lack of air I swear the wedge didn’t go in more than half an inch before they let go. Might have gotten away with a hatchet. I was worried the wood had degraded. Seems fine now tho.
