My wife gets the credit for this one. She saw a Facebook post in our town group about some trees that were taken down at a house not far down the street from us. Apparently the landscaping company did a hack job, left the sticks, screwed up the owner's yard and got the hell out of dodge. The property owner wanted the wood gone and I ended up getting two truckloads. All ash that was eaten up by EAB. And while I'm here, a question for you all. How long do you leave your wood in the round, if indeed you do so? For me it varies by species. I've found that birch stays sopping wet for months if you don't split it soon after felling. Red oak I tend to split soon as well. Maybe the longest I've left it was 3 months or so. Have you had success leaving your rounds longer? Do you get after it right away? I'm all ears, kids. Here's hoping the weather cools a bit so I can start swinging the axe.
Yeah, it depends on species...birch I would at least unzip it right away, oak, that'll keep quite a while in the round, as long as its not laying right on wet ground
I'm not a fan of leaving any type of wood sit on the ground for more than a couple months. I live in one of the driest states, but I've seen fungus develop very quickly over our monsoon season. Cut, split and stacked off the ground. The sooner the better.
Anything I leave in the round gets stored up off the ground and most importantly top covered, regardless of species. I actually learned my lesson with some ash rounds that I didn’t split right away. Some species are more forgiving, but dead ash definitely isn’t
Hats off to Mrs rainking63 for the lead! Excellent score there RK! Probelm IMe with leaving wood in the round is the ability to "crack" it if hand splitting. the ends check and can be a LOT harder to split. Storing rounds with one end touching the ground will prevent this by keeping one end damp to prevent the checking. Give it a try and youl see what i mean. Having a hydro splitter i dont worry anymore. Ill split rounds anytime from the day they were cut to many months later. I have a few PU fulls of black locust and white oak from the Winter still waiting for splitting.
When things are normal around here I will cut in late fall and early winter. Then all splitting is done in spring after snow melt with stacking right after splitting. I've tried many ways over the years but found this to work best. You might read this: Primer on Woodburning by Backwoods Savage | Firewood Hoarders Club
Most of the time I am hauling in logs. Some of the piles lay around for months before I process them. Currently working on a load of elm that’s been in my yard for several months and It could have used several more months of rest. The splits have lots of built in kindling.
My goal every year is to have the pole barn full of split wood, 3 racks of wood outside filled with split wood and another rack of rounds or quarter rounds off the ground waiting to be split. I try to get split wood stacked outside for 18 to 24 months before I transfer it to the pole barn.
I try to split as soon as I get it, but life seems to always have other ideas. I have some rounds at my place that I got maybe 12 months ago but just haven’t gotten around to yet.
I get after splitting as soon as I can/weather permits. If it's too hot, rounds or noodled blocks sit till cooler temps prevail. I've never had any issues. Never leave wood lay on the ground either. Ash would get worked up pretty much right away. That stuff in our area is at the point of no return. One tree will be too far gone and the one beside is right on the edge. Pretty soon it'll be a thing of the past, unfortunately. Nice score and as said, kudos to the wife for pointing it out!
