Hopefully I can get these pictures captioned correctly but essentially, these readings prove everything I've read about seasoning times from long time burners on this site 100% correct. All of these are fresh splits. First is some silver maple that I css'd over labor day 2014. Was always told this was fast to dry and it sure is. This was a big split I busted and it was on the darker side of the stacks. This is some sugar maple that I css'd a few weeks later. The split I broke apart was smaller and it got way more sun. The next one is red oak that was split small in October with optimal sun and wind. This one is tulip poplar cut from a live tree in late January. I css'd it in early February. This was a bigger split on the darker side of my stacks. The final one is some standing dead sugar maple my father in law dropped for me. This must have been higher up in the tree. The lower sections with bark read high 20's. Seems to me everything I've read on this site about seasoning times for various wood is dead on accurate. Only thing I would add is I thought sugar maple totally outperformed the red oak last year. I tend to think red oak is overrated.
Well I already realize I screwed up the post..lol.. the red oak and sugar are flipped. The oak is the higher reading.
Hard Maple outdid Oak in the stove? What did you like better about it? How dry was the Oak? I've burned a bit of Maple, and thought it was pretty good. This winter I will probably burn a lot of Red Oak, medium splits that have 3 summers in the stack. We shall see...
Very interesting, I personally know a few " non believers " of seasoning times. Should a piece of wood be split again to measure moisture or is it ok to grab a random piece or 2 off the pile and then check?
I thought so. The maple was 3 or 4 year stuff from my father in law and the oak was 2 and 3 year stuff from my buddy that was split small. I though the sugar started easier, burned hotter, and lasted longer. I suppose some of that could have been they were bigger splits. Last winter was our first year burning so they saved me with some very good dry wood. I haven't burned any of my own wood yet other than a little punky oak that did ok.
Yup. Grab some random pieces and split them again. Take the reading from the face of the fresh split.
I feel the same way, put ash or red oak in front of me I'll take the ash every time. When properly seasoned red oak is great but I have stuff that is in the stack for 3 years and still not ready so I usually give it 4 years .
I am not sure I will ever get 4 years out! I burn so much as it is if I have 4 years worth crap I would burn it up faster!
sugar or hard maple is soo, different than soft maple... have not seen many sugar in southern Indiana on my many visits.. than again so are oaks.. in my limited experience only thing that beats sugar that's limited available is shag, bark and ironwood that has to be gotten further south than me
Like rdust, I like to give the oak a bit more time. It usually pays off given that extra year or two. However, some will claim it is okay after a year but not around here.
Nor around here, in N NYC burbs, either. After 3+ top-covered in a good location, it gets my attention. Great to not have to rush it.
I'd take sugar maple over red oak any day too, even if the oak was css'd 4 yrs. That's my experience over the years at least. I only learned just this year that the sugar maple is higher on the btu charts anyway. Another thing I've suspected but never had a mm to prove it prior to this winter, is that cutting the standing dead, and even living trees before they started to sap up makes a HUGE difference. One standing dead 18" or so sugar maple was under 20% at the bottom chunk, from a fresh split, while that remaining stump in the ground was juicing water/ sap out of it the same day I split that bottom piece. Had I not felled that tree when I did, it may not be burnable this winter. Not the bottom few feet at least.
Shagbark hickory and ironwood is available north of you. There's also beech, which is also one of the very few woods that's better than sugar maple. It sucks for me that I have to choose from all the sugar maple, the shagbark, and the beech. I keep it real by cutting box elder and pine for my shoulder season wood. Who knows, maybe I'll knock a big cottonwood down this fall for the following winter or so?
This was the first winter that I burned a pretty fair amount of red oak all 3 years split and stacked, it burned good but I think I like sugar maple better too. In all my years of burning I just never got into much oak until starting last year, many other good hardwoods but the areas I cut the most in prior just did not have a lot of oak. This winter will include a nice batch of 4 year old white oak.
I have only seen shagbark and ironwood, basically from smuggler notch down. A lot of it on the long trail area. I got beech, Elm ash oak and maple... yeah horkn, we all feel real bad for you in that hard search for shoulder wood..
There are some here that were planted along the road, and they seem to be spreading out into the woods. But we're in the Oak/Hickory belt here, so they predominate. Most charts I use have them equal, 24 MBTU/cord. Now, I haven't been ahead long enough to burn full loads of both so I'll make my own determination later. This year, I'll burn a lot of Red Oak so I'll have a baseline. When I harvest a dying hard Maple in my yard, I'll try it after a couple years in the stack. But it's gonna be mainly Red Oak for me since that's what dies the most here.
okay most planted up here are not sugars but hybrids like autumn glory, a cross of sugar and red maple for ideal blaze red foliage. you can tap them but they make lower grade syrup. and not quite as hard as the real thing. but do most people know difference in firewood probably not..
