A friend told me his cousin was in a rental that had a bunch of two year old Doug Fir logs cold decked in the back yard. We did some investigation to find the owner and got permission to to take as much as I want. Drove across the front lawn (mostly dirt), negotiated two stumps at the end of the house and made it to the back yard which was also mostly dirt. Had to unhitch the trailer and position it at the pile then hook up again because there was not enough room to turn both truck and trailer together. Wood is well seasoned to the point that some of the bark was slipping. There is a lot of wood behind the big pile partial covered with Blackberry vines. I hate it when folks leave rounds on end to suck dirty moisture (left picture 2). I will split a few of those later to see if there is any rot. Got a fair load out with the help of my trusty wench (I meant winch...the wench was out getting groceries). These were real tree service length logs so there were a lot of shorts. I loaded several of these for the neighbor Lady. I got one of those wireless remotes for the winch. It is sitting on the tail light can in pictures 4 and 5. I really like it.
Good find. But know that a wench can also be very handy when putting up firewood. They can't load those big logs though like a winch can.
Doug Fir has perhaps the highest BTU content of the softwoods depending on what chart you look at. Seasons fast, starts easily and leaves only a small amount of ash. I like that it splits straight (mostly) and stacks well. The thicker bark burns hot and coals up. It is readily available in my area. An all around good firewood when you consider all it's attributes!
Hey Cash Larue good to hear from you my Friend! Yes I'm happy with it. This load will fill me up for the year (but of course I will have to get more or risk not having my FHC membership card punched for next year)! After a brief drying period most of it will be good to burn this year so I will probably help out some friends who are behind the eight ball for this years emergency firewood.
It's true, she does draw the line with stuff like that. At least the larder is always full and chow is on the table when I am done with the firewood!
I love DF. It’s one of my favorite woods for the area where I live. It splits easy. Dries fairly quickly but is found dead standing most of the time I get it so is usually almost ready to burn. Also leaves little ash. It coals nicely and is not as long burning as oak but much better than the abundant Ponderosa Pine where I live — it’s my second choice to oak. Smells wonderful too. I’ll take it all day long every day.
Hey Timberdog , we also have Madrone out here in the PNW which is very high BTU, burns fairly clean and seasons fairly quickly. The biggest drawback in my book is that branches are hooky crooky and and the larger trunks yield twisty splits none of which stacks so purty. Still, if I could only have two species of firewood DF and Madrone would be them! Very hard to find big scores of Madrone though.
Missed this thread so late to the party. I've jumped through similar hoops to score wood, but we find a way! yeah I'm not a huge fan of scoring wood that been sitting for too long. Messy stuff at times. Ive started doing the same with cutting the ends off to cleaning it up. Rough, dirty and/or out of square ends drive me crazy. With the size of these rounds you score, its good you have a wench. Does the wireless remote have a mute button?
How is the shelf life of DF once down? I know it was commonly used for porch floors years back. Still is on restoration projects. Last one I did was fir.
I am familiar with Madrone. Like a big overgrown bush. It grows in the area where I grew up in California, but it doesn’t grow here in Arizona where I live. I know what you mean about it’s hooky crooky branches and it reminds me of pinion pine. Although pinion Pine is way more sappy than Madrone. They’re on two opposite ends of the Sap Spectrum. The only thing I don’t like about Pinyon pine is those crooked branches, which makes it a lot more work to cut and stack, but it does burn really well when it’s dried out. But that’s one of the things I like so much about Douglas fir is processing it is so much easier and it makes much neater stacks.
That depends on where it falls. If it falls on ground that gets wet a lot and stays wet, it can start to rot, but if it’s fallen on dry ground or on top of other logs, it’s usually pretty darn good. Some areas of the forest floor have more leaves and or needles than others and tend to act like a sponge holding water and insects. So if the tree falls in one of those spots you want to get to it rather quickly. But if its a dry year it buys you more time.
No mute button on the winch but it does shut off after you ignore it for two minutes! Would be a wonderful feature on a wench!!!
Actually pretty good. It is the standard building lumber up here and logs or rounds will keep good while on relatively dry ground while the sap volatiles cure. Nothing keeps very well though if stored with the end grain on the ground!
