So with mostly oak on hand, I kept maple and other woods kinda separate....but they're all stacked by year, each stack/holzen progressively newer....more or less thinking I'll burn the oldest stuff first. So if the oak and maple from early 2020 are in one 5-cord stack, and not to be touched for 2 years more, I'm not sure how the maple will fare by that time. Almost thinking I should make one stack for oak, and use that from the oldest end. Then stack all maple and misc stuff the same in their own stacks, using by age. I have been stacking pine seperately, for shoulder season or camp fires. How d'yall organize your wood?
I used to just put it all in the same stack. Since joining here I tend to separate it by species. Pretty easy with the IBC cages. At the very least separate by how long it takes to season., So 1 year wood goes together, 2 year wood goes together, etc.
This ^^^^ I now stack based on seasoning times. A mix of red maple and ash, I'd stack together. I'll also put green ash with a stack of 2yr oak, to top it off.
Going forward I'm definitely going to stack by estimated seasoning time. Last week I found myself breaking down a perfectly good stack of red oak, maple, ash, cherry and birch. The latter three were all less than 20% and ready to burn. I ended up topping off the woodshed with those. The oak and maple were too wet for my liking... and with a little foresight on my part I could have avoided the wanton destruction. I can't tell you how many "firewood lessons" I've learned this past year!
I've found that Oak takes a bare minimum of 2 years in darn near perfect conditions to even come close to being good enough for my liking if it's fresh css. Ash and Red Maple...I prefer 2 years, but others say those can be good in a year. Pine and Poplar/Big tooth Aspen, or whatever it is we have can be good to go in 6-8 months, although I prefer longer. As for the stacking, I have wood that's been in the stacks for several different time frames, so the best thing for me is to keep species separate since they all dry at different rates. Right now, I have Boxelder, Poplar, a little bit of cherry, white Birch, Red Maple, a very small Oak that I css a couple years ago, and some Red Pine in the outside stacks. Are we having fun yet?
I separate by species & time of cutting. I separate wood cut in late fall - early spring (October-March), April - Sept. goes in separate piles.
I do separate it by species in general, but will mix and match piles if the drying time is comparable. I make sure to separate sugar maple from red, but will mix red and silver maple in the same stack. Ash and Beech can get tossed together, or pine and poplar. In a perfect world I could have everything separated 100% but it's not practical for me since sometimes I scrounge a small amount, other times a cord or more.
I have six rows. One row is hackberry, dead bark free slippery elm, and dead white ash which has a chance to dry in one year. The other rows are a mix of green white ash, red oak, white oak, sugar maple, bitternut hickory, ironwood/hornbeam, and rock elm. I always segregate the oak, either at one end or at the bottom, in each row. All these wood types other than oak can dry in two years and so can be removed first from on top or an end. I check moisture in a fresh split and burn wood under 20%. If the oak is over 20%, then I leave it in it's spot at an end or move it to an end if the oak is at the bottom. Oak at an end can always be burned the following year. Two rows is enough fuel for a typically cold year but the majority of winters require less than two full rows. A couple of less sever winters results in all my wood drying for at least 3 years which is my present inventory.
I stack a single species on a rack. I'll accumulate rounds, and when I have enough of a particular wood, I'll split and stack it. Oak gets separated into dead standing and fresh cut wet.
The only thing I stack separate is green oak, everything else gets mixed. My primary scrounges are beech, red maple, silver maple, ash, and white birch. I do get long-dead standing red oak once in a while and that gets mixed in the community stacks as well. Most of the wood I burn is split and stacked for at least a year before going in the wood shed where it may stay for another year before I get to burning it. Green oak is the only wood I purposefully season for at least three years. Been doing this for the last 11 years with no issues. I'm finally closing in on a 3-year stash so everything will have plenty of time to dry.
I usually stack by type which is easiest as I usually get one type all at once (i.e. from a big tree). I keep track of how long each of my piles has seasoned.
Purely by age. It gets split and stacked in the order that my tree guys bring it to me. I never sort by species. It tended to to run over half oak but now it seems there is as much ash as oak. I find no problems with certain species rotting faster than others so long as I keep it covered and protected from snow and rain. 3-4 years in the rotation and everything is prime to burn.
I stack it as I cut it and the oldest stuff always comes out of the barn first. Last year, I had over 80 face cord in my barn that I put up in this fashion. Storing majority outside this year but will use the same process. Planning to put about 15 face cord in the barn. Good thread!
Stacks of pine and hemlock Stacks of oak, I'll mix white and red together sometimes. Stacks of pretty much everything else. I won't mix green wood with dead standing as dead standing is often ready to use. Especially the top part of a dead standing tree. Even the bottom of a trunk that is wet and heavy and tests high with a MM dries out really quick, even in the Winter, if you can keep the rain and snow off of it. I used to be be 4 or 5 years ahead on my hoarding. Right now I'm cutting it real close. But I have tons of pine so I won't freeze.
Stacked by age here. Only hardwoods here anyway so I don't see any advantage to separate stacks by species. Now that I think about it, I did make a separate stack for the two pickup loads of shagbark I grabbed around 4 years ago! Nice stuff!
I used to be hard core about separating it by species and time cut, but now it tends to get mixed up together according to when its cut. However, it goes in batches so it kind of separates itself.
Same here Dave Seems every year I get somebody calling with a very specific request for a specific variety of firewood, splits only, no round wood, and then wants a deal I’m usually like, “that’s not how it works. What you get is always the oldest stuff I got and it’s whatever variety I happened to be cutting at that point” It goes in my stacks as it gets cut. I already handle it probably 4 times more than I want to. Last thing I’m gonna do is separate it out by variety when I get it home!
I split it, and I stack it. I guess you could say I organize by age, as the stacks are from different years.
I stack by age as well. I got two piles going and only I know where to grab from. Mostly so the wife doesn’t see all the beer cans
I stack all my wood separately by type of wood. Then when I get a full stack I then write the date on the stack toward the end with a black marker. So I can look at them at anytime and see when they were done. I do have to go back once in awhile and rewrite the date so it does not fade away.
