Hello, I'm Rudy and I'm a hoarder... I recently scored a variety of wood. Oak, Maple, BB, Beech, Black Locust and Hickory. For now, I'm just trying to get it all split so the it can start drying sooner than later. In the spirit of saving time, it's all getting stacked in random piles. As I found myself throwing Red Maple and Red Oak together, I wondered if there is any benefit or drawbacks to stacking it via species for drying purposes? I was thinking in terms of drying laundry. When you put in all wet towels, they seem to take forever to dry. Mix heavier & lighter clothes and it seems to be less time. Is it the same with wood? Should I mix Oak with stuff that takes less time to dry out, or is there no proven benefit to it?
For faster drying I think not. Now if you want to burn the faster drying species first that’s another story. And the Black Locust will be better firewood 10 years from now.
What I'm asking is, would a wetter species such as Oak, would all those heavier wetter pieces take longer to dry out than it was mixed in with dryer pieces between and let the wet escape the Oak sooner since it's not right new to another wet heavy Oak?
Doubtful. When talking about drying firewood, the concern is internal moisture content. The outside of a fresh split will dry within a couple days. It’s the internal layers that count though, which is why you have to check a freshly split face to get an accurate reading with a moisture meter.
I get alot of oak. I stack it by itself. Most everything else dries about the same amount of time. That is, not as long as oak. It works for me.
I stack it all as I get it. If your far enough out it doesn't matter if you stack pine, oak, maple and poplar all together it will all be dry by the time you need it. I see the benefit of this in that you never know what temperature you will have when. Especially me living in the south and not the frozen north. Like Christmas weekend it didn't get above freezing for a few days. I burned oak and ash almost predominantly. But a week later it's almost up to 60 degrees. And I'm burning doaty oak and maple and other things trying to save higher BTU stuff for when needed. This can happen all winter long for me. So if I stacked with a thought process of shoulder wood like maple poplar and more doaty stuff then hard hickory, oak, locust etc then more shoulder wood. What might happen is these early cold snaps like we had in Christmas and october I wouldn't have any high btu wood for a ways in the pile. Or when it's late January and 60 degrees and 40 at night I don't really want to be burning all good high quality oak and burned low BTU wood as fast as I could earlier in the season when I wished I had oak. But for the most part I cut almost exclusively oak so in reality it's not a big deal. But when I cut more doaty oak or maple or something I just stack it wherever I'm at in the pile. Now if your cutting wood to burn in a year, you need to put that oak in a different place and split it small so maybe you can get some ok wood for late winter to mix with the other faster drying species like poplar and maple and ash in a dedicated spot as they will be ready to burn by the next winter.
There isn’t necessarily more water in the oak that needs evaporating. It’s the cell structure of the oak thats more difficult for the water to migrate thru so it holds the water in longer.
It's been a few years but so I don't remember all my wood technology stuff. But I don't think that's exactly correct. Moisture content is based on weight. If I remember right 100% MC would be an equal weight of water to wood. So a heavier ie more dense wood like locust or oak weighs more per cubic foot so therefore it will have more water per any given volume of wood. Of course this varies because different woods will have different moisture contents and once cut they as you know dry at different rates. Cell structure and density does effect the drying rate your correct. Some of you who can remember this stuff better than I can. Am I thinking right here? Yes I'm a Forester but I don't deal with these specifics and technicalities on a daily or year basis. More like how much wood is on this acre and watch the sort, thinning and volume removed and how much was harvested type things I deal with.
I will take the multi year woods (oak, hickory, honey locust etc) and stack separately. One year woods get mixed. You can stack together for the time being and when unstacked in the future throw the oak aside to be stacked again. PITA but when in a pinch and with limited space it works.
Oak gets stacked by itself because of the longer drying time. BL by itself, because it's BL! Everything else together.
Thanks for the info folks. I just stack by species then. It'll give me a better idea of how long each takes to season and I won't forget which is which by next season. I split the oak down into slabs, so that should speed up the drying a little. My yard gets a constant breeze, so wood tends to season quickly for all but the most dense species.
This is a good reference for species btu's and drying time. I personally dont agree with some of the numbers, but it gives you a good idea. Firewood BTU & Drying Chart
We generally get Oak here....and oddball stuff mixed in. Everything is set for use "next year" based on the longest drying time of the wood in the pile. I was ready to stack by type, but then I'd have half loaded stacks, and one of those would get filled if I had a run on whatever was in it, and would need to start a new stack somewhere else just for that wood..... The only thing I might segregate somehow, would be shoulder season wood. If I find some this spring, I'll bring home a cord or 3. But yeah, just way easier here to stack everything in 1 row as it comes in. Then it all sits for 3 years or more before using. Sca
Crap, I didn't factor in different size piles. I like nice rectangular stacks or it looks messy to me. That's a good idea about putting shoulder season wood in it's own area. I keep getting lazy and stacking it all together only to have to sift it all back out each fall. I need a better system, particularly with a score this size. I've already brought home 6 truck loads of rounds with about 3 more to go once we figure out how to split up the huge stuff with not so huge equipment.
My stacks and methods of stacking have been constantly evolving since I joined up here. I suspect I’m not alone
Boiler length are all stacked together. For shorter fireplace wood, I stack hickory and oak separate, to season longer.
If I had the space to start a row of each variety, that might be something. Shoulder Season wood, oak, Ash, maples . . . But then coming home from a score with a mixed load would mean a stop at each row and separating those out of the trailer. Just finished an Ash score but mixed in was a tree of Black Birch, a few oak logs, and a maple tree. I could have separated those out at the score, piles of each, but then, not making a trailer load each, they'd be tossed in together, still making me stop at each segregated row at home. We live in a city (outskirts), so keeping things tidy is essential here. Which suits me. If we had much more space, and half finished piles were more out of sight or less of an eye-sore that might be different too. We also have enough wood volume, that I don't look for different species to burn from week to week, other than shoulder season wood. Most of what we get is oak, with other things mixed here and there. In cold season, if we hit a vein of maple in the oak stacks, I reckon we'd just go through it faster, or mix it up with oak splits as they come into the house. We bring a year's worth up to the house at a time. Once snow hits (which is never around here, but it has happened historically) getting to the piles isn't happening. Stacking a years' supply up here and then segregating that by species, and hoping I have enough of one and not too much of the other, or looking at the temps for the day or week and trying to tell the family what pile to draw from . .. . . sca
