You know when you plant a garden and every year you get a problem crop of at least one particular vegetable? For instance, one year it seems everyone you talk to had no luck with eggplants, the next year the cucumbers seem stunted, another year peppers are few and far between etc... Well this year I notice my oak being rather sluggish and I often need to mix it with other varieties that seem to be burning much better despite the year being a washout. I see I'm not alone here and I guess oak has shown it's most vulnerable to damp conditions since it seems to pull the moisture deep into the split of wood. I knew it took long to season, but now I guess we also must consider it can be a sponge in extreme extended rainy seasons. I guess like as in a stock portfolio, you need to be diversified and not heavily invested in only one company, or in this case tree.
I have some 4 year old oak that wasn't top covered. Every now and then it just won't get going. Even on a good coal bed. I'll have to squeeze some pine in and then it will get going. An hour later it will be a blazing inferno, the pine long gone. The splits don't feel heavy like they are wet.
Well it’s getting cold and late. Last load I used all red oak. Working fine here. Course it’s been in my basement since September.
I'm burning a load of 2015 vintage red oak right now. No problems at all with it. I've had it top covered with plywood pieces and tarps since it was stacked. The plywood roof overhangs and the tarps are tied out so that no water runs off on the faces of the stack. Such that there is no black staining on the ends, the wood looks pristine. I have a feeling that has something to do with it being good and dry.
If i needed dependable wood this year....my 2 year old oak is my go to. It was standing dead for several years before felling....
Im really surprised at all the negative Red Oak comments. My first year with an EPA stove, I burnt red oak that was just less than a year CSSed. MC in the lower 20's. No problems at all and its just gotten better over the years. I just finished a face cord of 5-6 year CSSed Mulberry. It burnt fine but doesn't hold a candle to red/white oak IMHO. Just not near the heat. Noticeably more ashes. Takes 1/3 more wood for the same heat and still burns out faster. Im happily back to 5-6 year oak now. All has been top covered, I haven't taken a MM reading in years. The Mulberry does flame up faster.
Oak is so much more dense than my usual wood that even dry it is a very different burning process. It takes a lot longer to come up to temperature. If I turn the air down once it is all on fire, it goes to a smolder straight away. With pine, that would work no problem but the oak is so dense that the interior is still cold when the outside is on fire. Oak needs a hot hot stove to burn well for me. After I’ve burned it wide open for a long while I can turn it down and I’m good to go with mostly coals and just a tiny bit of secondary flame. More than flame, the secondary jets create glowing hot spots on the top logs. Nothing but heat waves out the chimney. If I want flame, it takes more air.
Yes, this is what I'm finding with oak and I think given the added dampness this season it has been that much more difficult to get it up to cruise mode. However, like Timberdog and others have mentioned mixing it with other woods like pine seems to be the solution and then oak reminds you why it reigns supreme.
For sure there is a big difference in oaks. This year, for the cold weather we've been having at night it is all oak or all but one piece is oak. If the coals are down quite a bit I'll usually put in a soft maple or ash on the bottom right on the coals then fill with red oak. It still takes a bit longer for the oak to get burning good but once it burns, it give good heat for a longer period of time. White oak is different though but I won't be burning any white oak for another year yet. With our cat stove, when burning ash or maple usually I can set the bypass in 5 minutes and sometimes much less. Not so with oak. One thing I did start to do is to turn the draft down a bit when starting else our flue pipe gets too hot (horizontal pipe). That lets me give good flame to the oak for a longer period of time then when I set the bypass, the oak will do just fine. I'm not sure but don't think I've ever been concerned with overfiring using oak. But, like this morning, I put ash in the stove and it shot up to 680. With oak that takes much longer and the stove will usually top out around 650.
Sorry you're havin a prob with the red oak basod ... sounds like you got that RO the same spring as I got what I'm burning now. It's doing really well here. Higher humidity year round down there? Dunno. I bet your idea of splitting it again might work. Bummer ya gotta do that.
As far as it having been wet or rainy it was a wet spring, then drought for a few months and December was one of the wettest on record. It still kind of has me miffed because I've burned plenty of RO in the past with even less seasoning time without any heat off put issues. Maybe just been too spoiled with all the WO at my disposal. Plenty of pine at my disposal to mix in, but won't be needing any Oak for a week atleast with temps heading into the mid 60's-70 this weekend through next week - sorry to rub that in for you up in the central US
Oak is definitely not the most dense wood I have in my stacks. It's less dense than beech and sugar maple, and nowhere near as dense as the locust, ironwood or hickory I have. All of these other woods I have need less air on the stove than the oak.
Have you burned beech, sugar maple, shagbark hickory, locust, or ironwood? I like a nicely seasoned oak, but all of those species I mentioned are superior firewood to red or white oak. About the only way that oak is better is in splitting ease.
Oh I've burned it all baby! ...along with a few bridges. Actually Beech is my favorite wood, seasons easy, burns hot and a pleasure to split. Only just wish I could get more of it, but its relatively rare in these parts, hickory is also a bit sparse. The other woods you mention are all great, but I just find oak a great all around performer. Though it doesn't burn as hot as locust or beech, it has very long burn times where the heat output remains stable and consistent. Its definitely the set it and forget it wood and If I had to choose only one specie to fill my wood sheds I would probably choose oak. Even with this year being a bit harder to get oak started on it's cruise control, it has been great. I will disagree a little with you as far as splitting which depends on the type of oak. Beech is my favorite wood to split and red oak comes close to it as far as ease of splitting (I split by hand), but pin oak which is abundant around here can be rock hard heavy and a bit stringy. It takes a few more whacks than I'd like, yet because it's a great burning oak I find the motivation to keep at it. Again though, I'm not going to kick any of those varieties on your wood list out of bed and I might even add elm to the list, but for the splitting.
With VARIETY OF WOOD....I found a little trick to get any of it goin quick (as long as its below 20% moisture... I have a lope box full of kiln dried white oak flooring scraps.....these are any where from 2"s - 10"s long...1-2"s wide. After leaving coal burn down good...i run enough pieces north to south in stove...2 rows...6-8"s apart. Load wood n it takes off fast n great. We get these scraps from some Minnonites for 20.00 a box....a box last up to 2 years...great for startin fires also..
The biggest problem i have with oak is when it burns down to coals, the coaling stage lasts a few hours and the stove isn't putting out enough heat. It takes more BTU's to heat from the basement on these cold days. If i'm home, I'll turn the air way up after 2-3 hours and try to burn the wood/coals up faster. I have about 4 years worth on hand now due to drying time. I still find i'm looking for maple, pine and poplar for mid day fires and quick heat without a lot of coals left over.
I do not have even a single split of oak, but I did notice one thing. The hickory throws fits from time to time, and I notice more right after these warm spells. My wood is stored out of the weather in a steel roof lean to, with plenty of cross wind. When we get these lovely thaws (like the one coming), I struggle to burn the hickory for a week or so afterwards. I think it thaws outs, sucks in the ambient moisture and then does not burn well. The fall and summer here were wet, but that has happened many times in the past. The old school winter with one thaw seems to be a thing of the past, and I notice most of my headaches happen during and after these thaws. Much like someone else, I bought a pickup load of kiln dried flooring scraps and I stacked them all in my stove room. I intend to supplement with them next week when the weather switches just to kick the burn up a notch. It is incredibly frustrating watching and hearing the sizzle after maintaining a three year plan for sure. But again, say 20 years we had wet summers but once winter hit, it stayed and the wood burned well all winter. Sublimation (solid to gas, or ice to water vapor), is how wood dries below freezing but after a thaw every few weeks and fighting makes me think ambient moisture simply is sucked backed in. Lots of mixing since I have some cherry and ash mixed in. Good times.
