Saving wood

Good morning fellow hoarders. Hope all is well. I am wondering how many of you kind of sort out wood species once you get it to the storage area right before you burn it? My process this year with this goofy weather we have in NEPA, is to bring in a couple different species, some of my stacks are mixed, so I really have no choice there. Otherwise I have been mixing ash and red oak for the past 2 months. I try to save the oak for colder nights. I also have Black locust stashed away for the below zero nights. I think I used maybe 10 splits out of a hundred of locust in the past 2 years. Next I have about 100 splits of sugar maple that I am saving for when I cook in my stove. Some people might say I am a bit obsessed with my wood, I just love it. So do any of you stash away wood knowing that it can be used at certain times? What wood is the most valuable to you?

 

My stacks too are a mixed bag. Whatever is there, Ash, maple, Red or White Oak, the odd B. Birch, Cherry, EWP, just gets used. 90% of what we have is Red Oak.

We hit a gold mine of Ash last year, it has its own stack. I dont know if we'll bring up alternating Ash and Oak loads and stack them all mixed, or just go with straight Ash.

I kinda guess ill burn whatever comes in (if it is a mixed bag,) and use less on warmer times, use more on colder days. Unless Ash seriously under performs vs. Oak...in which case I might stack a row of Oak up at the house just for cold snaps.

Good thread, curious to see what everyone else does!

 

I am sorting and saving now for the new smoker.
Pulling out any bark-less and running them through the bandsaw to make mini splits to cook with.
Other than that whatever is on top or in front of the pile gets burned in the stove.

Lots of very nice dry Oak for this right now.

 

I stack by similar drying times, when I CSS. So, my oak gets stacked separately. Most everything else is a mix. It's my shoulder wood.

When I bring wood to the house deck rack, which is 8ft long, I'll pull wood from an oak rack and stack it on one side of the deck rack. The other side, is for mixed wood. So, I am pulling from 2 different stacks when I move wood to the house.

Based on forecast, I'll have more or less oak ready to go.

 

I guess I'm saving all of it?
I have loose plans for each stack/species with regards to when I want to burn it and what I might want to mix with it when I do. I like ash and cherry as firewood, but don't like to burn either by themselves. IME straight ash doesn't leave much coals, and straight cherry leaves piles of charcoal behind, which irks me. Mixed together though, they complement each other nicely; the cherry bringing the coals and the ash helping to burn them down. Yellow birch also leaves a lot of charcoal so I plan on mixing that with either ash or pine/spruce. On the subject of conifers, 2 years ago I came into a glut of white pine which I thought would be great shoulder wood. Turns out I like it more as an all-season wood and usually run a load or two every week to burn down hardwood coals. I still have a cord and a half of dry black locust, but don't burn that straight due to the difficulty of getting a fire started in a cold stove with it. On a frigid day though, once I have a bed of coals I'll load it right up with BL. So, I'll probably be chipping away at my BL for years to come. It may be somewhat "highly coveted" but I'm not exactly being a miser with it to save is for as long as possible. I treat hickory the same way. Mix it in a little here and there when it's needed, and enjoy it for a while. The only species I'm kind of saving is my roughly face cord of mulberry and puny 2 stove loads' worth of honey locust. Both are kind of a treat for me to come across so I'm in no hurry to turn them into BTUs any time soon. I've got about 4 cords of oak, which is just about the only species I enjoy burning straight up, but I've learned patience in waiting that 3 year mark to burn it. It's well worth stacking it and forgetting about it until it ages to perfection.

 

I’m definitely a sorter and do it at my staging area. This is where I mound rounds as I bring wood home. Of the 20 cords I have S/S, less than one cord is BL and in staging is the honey locust I recently blocked up. Which should be less than 2 cord. Rest is all chestnut oak, so not much variety.

 

Once it’s near the owb, I just open the door and toss it in no matter what it is or what the weather is.

 

Same here. I like to know what I am burning and can better keep up with what’s seasoned and what’s not. Also attempt to stack only one species per rack but sometimes not always possible when filling one out. My wife thinks I’m nuts

 

You must be doing something right.

 

I have mostly white pine, swamp maple and oak and I separate them as I cut, split and stack them. Feast or famine on oak most of the time and it's famine right now so the oak gets rationed for colder weather. I've also had so much oak that I let some maple rot on the ground in the woods. I'll even sort red oak from white oak as the white oak burns just a little better and seems to benefit from a little more drying time.
I don't have any troubles burning pine as long as I am around to feed the stove.

 

Formerly (presently) mixed. Inbound wood will be somewhat seperated by specie. I don't mind burning a mix as there is no undesirable wood in the bunch. New stock includes red & white oaks, honey locust, cherry, sugar maple and hickory. There may be a small amout of red maple in there as well.

 

Not as fanatical as some, heavy hitters and mix, always like some light weights for burning down coals on cold weather 20 below or colder.. tulip poplar works fine ..

 

I don’t separate, but I know what I’m loading. There’s always Red Oak, frequently White Oak with Hickory and lower btu wood sparsely mixed in. When I got home from work today I loaded the stove with fuzzy pignut splits. It made me feel firewood rich.

 

My wood for the house has had whatever I found to cut on the property. Any oak species, Beech, Hickory, Maple etc.

Now that I Am filling the landing with wood from the commercial cut, intended for sale, it is all Oak, Hickory.

 

I know the feeling.

 

I now burn 100% Beech for several years because it's my favorite wood to burn. But when I had mixed stacks I always just burned whatever was next in the stacks. To much work to have all the space needed for all the different stacks but that's just me.

 

Pretty my method. I will sort out some of the large pieces for the cold nights but I don't sort species.

 

I will mix random hardwood, but 75% of the stacks have all the same species.

 

I used to mix it all together but last few years I started to separate by species. I burn in a fireplace so having dry wood is key for a nice fire.