My most recent find of a firewood honey hole yielded me alot of ash and maple. I guess not too bad for being free. While splitting the ash I noticed it is on its way out, it is getting punky. I did take a little notice to it while cutting it, but didn't really care. Some of it was really bad, like just crumbled instead of split. I would say I lost about 2 rounds worth because of that. The other stuff. like in the pic, is getting punky. I never really seen this in ash. I have maybe 1 in 10 pieces that are like that. I stacked them with the more solid stuff. Any experiences with burning it? I figure since it was dead ash when it was dumped, probably sat for more than a year in rounds, it should be ready to burn this year. I will probably try to use it for the late shoulder season.
Here in NE Ohio, we were hit with the emerald ask borer a number of years back - like many other places in the country. My property had lots and lots of big straight ash trees which perished as a result of the borer. I've always left trees stand until I'm ready to process (CSS) and the ones standing are just now- maybe 5+ years in starting to get punky. It's a real bummer as ash is kick butt firewood! Luckily, I'm noticing the bugs only got the mature trees. I have thousands of younger ash trees growing that are healthy as can be. I was worried they'd all be dead!
I have 8 dead ash on my property that need to come down. Been dead for almost 4 years now. Hoping they are still good.
We have lots that we ended up just leaving in the woods because as time goes the wood does begin to get punky and very light. It does not throw good heat any longer and not worth the effort to put up. Its not all bad as the deer like to bed next to a downed tree.
It all depends on how long it was standing dead once cut and if it had bark. Barkless off the ground seems to hold up longer. I have seen what you experienced firsthand. I just toss the punky logs/splits, sometimes firepit fodder.
They will slowly rot from ground up and top down until they fall over. Should still be good for the most part, but id get them down soon.
I’m splitting a few cord of dead ash right now and I’ve had a few rounds split like that. I just threw them in the pile I figure it’ll still burn.
Yeah, if it's going punky, it won't last as long as of it were more solid, but it still burns. Use it for shoulder season or gopher wood.
In my experience with the EAB even off the ground it goes bad. Yes, it amazed me but I quit cutting a lot of them for this reason. Sad, for sure. I do have a few to cut this winter. These we thought were going to make it but the borer ended up getting them anyway. So this winter I have some ash and elm to cut up.
It took a while before they got to my area. Now I’m seeing dead and dying ash everywhere. I recently saw a beauty 120’ tree that is beginning to show dieback.
I started to finally find some dead uprooted Ash just over three or four years ago, I took care of those and then I started to fell some Ash on the hill on the southside of our house property.
I'm still pulling some solid dead Ash out around here. Some of the standing stuff is still good & the bigger downed trees still have solid wood in them.
I'm still cutting and burning ash. I'm pretty close to the epicenter of the eab. I've found that they get punky in spots, the rest is solid. Ten years or so now. The elms are still dying, for some reason. The problem is, my neighbor cuts in the same spots. He goes threw around a cord a week.
Yikes!!!! I enjoy cutting and heating with wood but not quite to that level. we started cutting EAB damaged trees in 2002 0r maybe 2003 here. The last time I cut any ash was 2 years ago. However I do plan on cutting some ash this coming winter as we had some trees that were not hit until just the last year or 2 so I will get those down this winter to enjoy perhaps the last ash we'll get here.
I burned a lot of less then ideal ash last year, all were standing for some years in the forest and losing bark. I will be a little more selective this year. The ash I was using 5 years ago was great.
I'm hoping to get another 2 maybe 3 years out of the ash that's standing around here. Most of it still has bark on but it may be wishful thinking. I gotta have 100+ trees over 12" bhd that gotta go
I've been hauling out a bunch of ash. Sometimes a log on the ground covered in weeds ect. is rock solid and another standing close by is punky.
That's what I was thinking. Probably just use in the shoulder season, or for the afternoon quick burn to warm the house up before the little lady gets home.
