Amidst all the other chaos in my life....

My old man and I made that mistake many years ago. Wood in a big square out in the middle of the field. Put a large blue tarp on it that was well past its prime. It was an ugly mess when we finally uncovered it.
I think if the top covering is 100% it would be fine. Blue tarps are hardly waterproof new when laid flat. When they’re frayed and have holes,,,,,,,,,better off without them. They concentrate leaks allowing the water to get much deeper in the pile than normal rain
, block the sun and wind from drying.
Put a decent pitch on a tarp and they’ll shed water even when you can see through them. Maybe not every drop but most and most is better than none. It’s all about the angle of the dangle.

 

Yeah, lots of sun makes the difference. My "cube" was top covered but with mostly shade.

 

Back in late summer 2024 I came into a glut of white oak. It spent the first 9 months stacked in the shade but uncovered, through the winter into the following summer. Then it got covered late summer 2025. Back in the spring of this year, I started pulling from that pile and was mortified at how far gone some of the splits were after only a year and a half. Many were light, most of the ones with sapwood had gotten too soft for me to sell. Pill bugs and various borers started chewing everything up. I thought for sure white oak if anything would be fine exposed for a while... I'll never again take for granted how fast things can turn under the wrong conditions.

 

Looks like I’ll have to move some stacks. Right now my excess wood (not in totes) is in a stack about 7-8 splits deep and 4-4.5’ tall. I’d hate for it to rot instead of dry.

 

I too am amazed at how white oak sapwood degrades. Today I cleared a trail in my woods of WO limbs that had fallen, long dead, but I cut them up for campfire wood anyway. Sapwood was punky and 36% with MM, heartwood solid and 22%.

 

So, is this more of a white oak problem? I cut up a 24" red oak in Jan '25. Some of it was noodled, a little was hand split, but 75% of it left in rounds. This was all stacked in the woods. Maybe a couple of hours of sun a day and wasn't top covered. Got a decent amount of snow and rain on it for 1-1/2 years. I got most of it out of there this summer. And so far all of it looks fine. Some of the splits even had bark falling off and looked pretty dry.

 

I can’t make heads or tails from it. I’ve cut both red and white oak that was down for many, many years that was solid all the way through, except for the outer sapwood. I actually seek that out more than I do live cut oak. So I really don’t know what happened with this one batch of white oak.

 

I wonder if it’s a cause of death scenario? Never noticed a real large sapwood rot until the gypsy moth devastation happened. Yes it’s always rotted faster than heartwood but the pace seems to have been sped up.

 

Ive encountered white oak where the heartwood was less than solid, but appears okay when cut. As a matter fact I have one sitting in the woods directly behind my bundle shed. It had blown over last year (gypsy moth victim) and I bucked it up last Winter. Some of it was questionable so I left it. I admit I was too lazy to carry the rounds out to hand split. I should retrieve it and put aside for my pit wood customers. Nothing wrong with a little oak mixed in.

My other gripe with any oak (especially dead) is the ability for the sap wood to sprout fungus growth seemingly overnight.

The stack of dead bark on red oak from my cut last month has been stacked in full sun. Just realized I blocked the front of it with a temporary stack yesterday. Ill betcha dollars to doughnuts the shaded ends will get some fungi!

 

This is mid term storage. As I empty totes I will be restacking from this pile so maybe I’ll just leave it.

 

And/or time of year...sap up, or not...

 

I’ve had covered white oak unsplit limb wood turn to trash. I’ve had white oak splits exposed to moisture rot. I’ve had white oak and chestnut oak splits covered for years look like they were split 6 months ago.