I have some pine that I got from a friend a couple years ago. Since then the rounds have been at the bottom of a pile and I never got around to splitting them until a month ago. Now they are HEAVY because they have soaked up all the moisture from the ground they were sitting on. They are so wet that you could see the water squeezing out of them when the splitter ram was pushing it's way through the log. A know a lot of folks say that pine is good to burn after 1 year of drying, but what about if it's wet because it picked up water? Can I still burn it next year, or should I give it some more time? I'm only asking because I've only burned 1/3 of the wood I set aside for this year. I'm just looking for something to fill in the void in that stack that I can burn next year. Even then, the pine will be mixed 50/50 with dry hardwood.
By next year, do you mean this coming winter of '16-'17? Might be a little iffy, depending on when you plan to burn it. If 17-18, I'd say no problem. You can always split a few pieces again to see how they're doing. I'm surprised you didn't mention anything about rot, since they sat for a couple years.
I'm asking about burning it in the 16/17 season, towards the second half of the winter. There were a few smaller logs (under 4") that sank into the ground under all the weight tossed on top, and those did have a little rot and I just tossed them away. But as to the rest there's surprisingly no rot, it's just water logged. Edit: And I did split the pine smaller than I normally split firewood. Most of my logs I split to 5"-7", but I split all of this pine to 4".
My guess is it will be ready for 16-17, if you have it split and stacked under reasonably good conditions.
About 5 years ago I had felled a 100+ foot white pine. I cut the main part of the trunk into 12 foot lengths and used 4x4's as levers to move them into place using them as a barrier where the mostly flat yard took a serious dip of about 45 degrees. I had them there, direct contact with the ground for a couple of years and eventually decided to use those logs as firewood. As you said, SOGGY! Since I like to hand split, I found those would only squirt and not split, so I noodled the whole works. After a month outside on some odd sized pallets, I put them in the shed with the rest of the firewood back in March of 2014 and had them stacked so that they would be almost the last I would use for that season 2014/15. Most of them burned great with the exception of a few that didn't have a lot of air flow. So my opinion, they will be just fine as long as you have adequate air flow. And, without pictures it didn't happen right? Well, here's one!
Yep, I gotts me a whole herd of em! That pile of noodles I kept adding grass clippings and leaves to. I kept flipping the pile and it turned into some pretty decent dirt for my flower beds! (here's one of the flower beds) It was a blast making all of those noodles too! Those wood piles you see contain about 2 cord each for a total of 6 cord. (4x4x16)
It took a bit, but I found a picture of the pile of noodles with grass clippings and leaves in the process of turning into dirt. And the shovel to show the size.
From my experience with any wood that has sat on the ground for a while and soaked to a heavy state, it ends up drying very quickly once off the ground. Of course the wood ends punky once dry. Good shoulder season wood, but not a lot of BTU's. I can certainly see why someone wouldn't want to bother with it. Me, I just let it dry and burn it late spring.
bassJAM split that small they will burn great even if you had cut it down green. Proper storage as you know will be important.
It's funny you said that. When I tried to split these the first time my dad had my hydraulic splitter so I tried the Fiskars, and just like you said they only squirted! Thanks for the input. I'll move ahead and hope it's ready by this winter. If not its no big deal, I have several cords of wood that'll be dry since I burned so little this year.
That's why I posted the picture. It was more to show I did have experience in this area. I'm by no means an expert though. The pine will be fine especially if you have good air flow through the wood. I really think top covering is also a necessity, even though the pine I had at the time was in the shed. But, I keep all of my outside stacked firewood covered, more because of all the rain this area gets, and it will keep the wood from backstepping as in rewetting and needing to dry the new moisture first. Pine that has already been wet/soggy readily absorbs moisture over fresh cut green. The splitting axe I tried was also the Fiskars before I moved on to noodling the works.
I have one, I just wanted to know if it'll easily dry quickly enough to be put with next winter's stack, or if I should put it in another stack that won't get touched for 3 more years. I'm really just trying to fill back up the stack I didn't completely use this year without shuffling stacks around and handling firewood more than I have to.
I think you'll be impressed with how dry it will be. If you remember maybe resurrect this thread in October and let us know the mc.
I burn a lot of pine, and in my climate, stacked on pallets uncovered, pine would be quite ready to burn this year. Your climate and conditions may change that.
I gotcha now. I know pine will dry pretty quick but I never let sit on the ground where it can absorb moisture. Typically I would say yes it will be dry enough in one year.
