How long do you season and where are you ?

What tamarack said, except all my firewood is down timber from the Natl Forest. Sometimes after a big wind one can find a freshly down green pine or doug fir, they've usually been down for months. Since I'm 2 years into the 3 year plan, I still let pine sit 1 year split and doug fir 2 years. Nice thread.

 

I have been up in the Medicine Bow National Forest and cut down beetle kill lodge pole pine where the bottom 8 feet of the tree was so wet it was starting to rot from the inside out.
The bigger the tree the worse it was. The smaller trees were never like that and usually very dry. So size also can make a difference too.

 

For our cat stoves, oak takes 3-4 years to dry in our climate.

 

I hope so, the shed is stuffed with it!
Back in 2017...

 

If it's really cold, I'll reload the stove in the early hours, when the cat wakes me up for treats .

 

blacksmithden , not disputing your story but I was thinking about this while I was out splitting. Your average relative humidity is 54% in your part of the country. Just seems really odd to hear you mention 8% on some of your wood. I don't think I have ever got that low of a reading here. I wonder if your meter is accurate.

 

Well....I cut some greener than green spruce Sunday morning (nasty stuff to split even with a splitter). I can go bust a piece of that open in the morning and see what it reads. If it's really low, then I know I've got a lemon meter on my hands. The meter is a General MMD4E and the only calibration I've got for it is the resistor that's part of the lid. It's supposed to read 18.3% and it's reading 18.2%. Not the exact number, but 1/10th of a percent isn't off by much. Actually...to heck with it. I'll go grab a piece now and check. The stuff I cut this summer was in the low 30% range and it came from the same place. They should be pretty close. Back in a bit.

 

Well CRAP. Looks like my meter is leading me down the golden path. I grabbed a piece of spruce that I cut this weekend and split it in half. I can FEEL that its heavy and and that the surface of the wood is wet. Here's what my wonderful meter is telling me.

Edit: I just went and found the pictures I took of pretty much the same stuff a few months ago, and the readings were averaging right around 30%. I think I bought this thing on Amazon...I wonder if I can still return it.

Edit #2: Bought July 17, return window closed Aug 17.

 

As I sit here looking at a pretty purple smashed finger I'm reminded of the true prime benefit of the 3 year plan. I don't believe it's super dry wood. That is just a happy side benefit. The icing on the cake if you will. The true benefit is piece of mind knowing your good if something should happen and you aren't able to process firewood.

 

Heck I doubt the KD lumber at Lowes would test 8% around here!

 

That is a pretty picture...very nice rounds there...anybody would be proud to have them.

 

Bingo! That's a big part of it for me as well.

 

Yeah, I wondered if you were thinking of the Western part of the state. It is a totally different climate here - hotter and colder, and much dryer.

I can see that standing barkless forest fire wood could be quite dry. I haven't had any of that, my dead lodgepole is usually beetle killed, and still has much of its bark.

 

Just wondering why you don't burn or sell oak?

 

My land does not grow a lot of oak honestly. I have some, but it is sporadic at best, and what I do have I keep as seed trees.

I did stop many, many years ago at an oak grove that had trillions of acorns scattered about this dirt road I was on with my ATV, collected a garbage bag full, then went out through the woods and scattered them about. They took, so I got about 20 acres of oak saplings starting to come up now, but I will never see anything meaningful in my lifetime from that endeavor.

And if I am cutting wood on another landowner which does grow oak, people who buy firewood do not want oak in the mix. They like beech, maple, and yellow birch, and will take small amounts of ash, and white birch.

 

Disgusting story about oak...

I was logging for a guy in some suburban lot who had just a few acres. He wanted me to log 2 acres off for a farm pond he wanted to dig. I told him I would do it, but because it was over an hour away from my home, and only a few loads of wood, I would do it for the wood. He agreed and so I started cutting.

But he liked to hunt grouse, so he wanted me to cut this 5 acre part so saplings would come up and attract grouse. I went through and cut just about everything out except these gorgeous oak about 8-10 inches in diameter. I just could not cut such beautiful potential logs. Nope he wanted those cut too, and being so small, they would not go as commercial logs, so I took them home and sawed them on my own sawmill. As I said, I hate waste.

But that left only teeny-tiny saplings...nope, he wanted it clear cut. So I did that, as his neighbor came over as I was cutting who had this really nice tree farm next door of White Pine and Oak as well. Anyway, what did that landowner do, plant Popil to attract grouse. Now that tree farm landowner was rightfully miffed because seeds would inevitably go over the property line in due time, but what could he do as it was his neighbors land? Now the first landowner had to because the whole area was free from Popil. Not any more!

Well the guy got his ponds and grouse hunting anyway.