About a month ago I scrounged some oak and maple. Due to work and a minor medical issue I'm just getting to splitting it. Now the dilemma I have never mixed species in my stacks before and it seems like its goinv to be a hassle to sort it out rather than just split and stack together. With the relatively quick drying time of maple and the tedious drying time of oak is it worth the effort?
I would separate them now. You are going to have to separate them at some point, or you will end up trying to burn unseasoned oak. Unless you leave the mixed stack until the oak is ready to burn. That would be the least hassle.
I feel your wood pain. A dilemma i face all the time and especially with limited space (you know how that is). Ive thought of mixing them and when time come to pull the splits leave the oak and restack, especially when im pressed for time to CSS. Oak, hickory and locust get put aside and one year drying wood (maple, beech, ash, birch etc) will get mixed for the most part, unless its an"exotic" that i seldom scrounge. I try to keep shoulder season wood separate too. (Silver maple, basswood, sassafras, catalpa take up the bulk) In your case SS together and restack the oak when you sell/use the one year wood. Stack the oak first with the maple on top so you can leave the oak without having to rehandle it. Just my 2c. Hope you are feeling better and back to your old, well, former hoarding self.
It all depends upon your circumstances. How long will the wood be in stacks until it is needed to burn? If you are on the 3 year plan, as you should be, the it doesn't make a big difference. If the wood is needed soon, then definitely separate it. One other thing to keep in mind is, even if stacked until the oak is ready to burn, will you burn both types together? For example, for years I have not had much oak (until now!) so I always saved the oak to burn during the coldest part of winter to fill the stove with it at night so as to keep a longer fire and keep the house temperature at a comfortable level. Therefore I always tended to keep most of the oak separated, but was not real fussy and some of the oak did get mixed with other woods. This usually works out good because sometimes we need to be gone during the daytime so then oak got burned then too as we usually had some in our wood rack which is on the porch, just a couple steps from the stove.
Hope you are feeling better and back to your old, well, former hoarding self. [/QUOTE] It was dental surgery Doc said 2 days no heavy lifting. Wife over ruled and it became a week.
If the stack is going to sit for three years or whatever your oak drying time is then it probably doesn't matter. I keep the two separate so I don't have to do any sorting. I want the two separate because I usually have a LOT more swamp maple than oak so I save the oak for the really cold weather and/or overnight burns. If you're not that far ahead on your supply then you want to sort it. It's usually pretty easy to tell the two apart. You might/should be able to get a small premium for all well-seasoned oak vs "mixed hardwood" if selling, too. So there's that.
I am 4-5 years ahead, so I'm not needing the quick drying wood first, but I mix everything together...it works out fine as you have warm days and cold days, so I just grab the appropriate wood as its needed...only very occasionally I run into a pocket of heavy hitter stuff in a stretch of warm weather (or vise versa) but its easy enough to work around it until needed...I try not to make huge pockets of all one type of wood. To me having different piles to pull from sounds like more of a PITA...but keep in mind I bring my wood into the garage in preloaded racks (forklift) that last me about 2 weeks at a time too, so...
I like Brad's thought about stacking the maple on top of the oak. Use a Sharpie to mark the top layer of oak. Pull off the maple when it's ready to burn,
Exactly why I asked..how far ahead are you? In my stove I like some SS wood to burn down coals from heavy hitters
I'd separate it for sure. Maybe do it one wheelbarrow at a time, keep it small and simple. Just split and then separate once you are done with a round. Having two wheelbarrows or whatever means of transport to the stacks would be ideal instead of making 2 piles on the ground where you'd have to handle the splits a second time. I found sugar/norway/red maples able to dry well within a 6 months to a year and ready to burn under 20% MC. Oak no way.
I'd separate as well, in my case I do it in log form, then split from the SS pile, the cold weather pile, or the Oak pile. I keep Oak separate from the others due to the long cure time.
The oak I have is kept separate. I than have SS , mid range and higher BTU stacks (which is 98% standing dead BL). Hit 3 year plan, so now Im more likely to stack it altogether. Especially mid range and BL.
As others have said, if possible I would keep the oak separate. Oak is the only thing I try to separate in my stacks. Even though I'm now on the 3+ year program, I still keep oak separate (never know when it will be a bad winter and I have to dig into a reserve stack that has only been drying for a year). I tag the oak stacks with the year it was processed since my memory isn't what it used to be and I always seem to be rearranging where I stack firewood. Sometimes other species (especially beech) end up in the oak stacks if I need fillers, however I try to never let any oak find its way into the 'can burn in one season' stacks. For that reason I never turn oak down, however I personally prefer to scrounge other species that I can comingle in the stacks and season in one year if needed. (This is the first year I am purposely processing softwoods for SS wood and all of that will be kept separate as well).
Let’s see. I separated my oak but mostly to get on the three year plan even if that meant burning shoulder season wood all winter for a year or two. Once the less desirable wood is gone I don’t see a lot more of it in my future. I’ll be back to dragging oak logs out of the woods. My stacker psyche likes the woods separated so I know exactly what’s in the stack. My burner psyche thinks that’s ridiculous as it’s always nice to have a mix. I’ll ask myselfs again tomorrow. And then I can ask my mother and sister who I supply. Mom likes a smorgasbord so that’s easy. Sister will change her mind every year. I’ll save that for the fall. She usually loads her own truck loads anyway
Separate it before you split it, if in rounds already. We do like amateur cutter , separate the logs first. We mixed hickory and oak in a bigger shed one year, , then had a new customer that only wanted oak.... When we delivered, we found out it was for the FIREPIT...... They want premium wood for that, then they pay premium price...... We separate most of it now, oak stacks, hickory stacks, pecan stacks, cherry stacks. Only mixed wood we have now is limb wood and some splits that we will use in years to come...elm, oak, hickory, catalpa, gum, dogwood, holly, maple, magnolia...
