The OFFICIAL Firewood Hoarder's Club thread!!!

Welcome, mrfancyplants. You’ll like it here.

 

Thanks all for the tips. I am on board with the three year plan, however, we have some landsscaping planned this summer, and the missus wants to hold off on additional rack space until we make some progress.
Also, to me it is worth it to pay for the chord just for the joy of feeding the pyrotechnic monkey, so to speak, but it is even more joyful to burn self-sourced wood, and, well free. Mixed hardwood cords are around $150-$200 around here, including a few “hissers”.
So I might try to focus on woods that might be seasoned in a single season, while separating stuff that might take longer to season.
Red Maple, I gather is a contender. What about evergreen cookies( not sure type, but a little sticky)?
I think some of these worm eaten woods (saw some mites). Will dry out pretty quick as long as I can keep them dry. I avoided the total mush-burgers.
Thanks for the advice; i’m Rethinking my stacking system, too. Right now I have two 8 foot racks with covers. And I gather the cover has its place for already seasoned wood; but at a minimum, the longer term stuff should only have a top cover.

 

i top cover only. and only cover when a stack is finished/full
dont worry to much about the cover, ive burned 5-7 year old wood that was never covered, and it was only starting to get some punky edges...mostly because there were leaves and weeds and grass around the stacks and the skids were sinking into the moist Pa soil.

 

If you have access to ash, it's a good one for single season, especially if split on the small side.

 

How long do the evergreen cookies take to cure generally? I just picked up another trunk load of some random woods that split like butter.. that is if butter was really brittle yet damp.
Edit: the orangier stuff split a lot easier even though the bark looks about the same. Heavier and wetter feeling too. Any idea what I hacked my way into?

 

I'm afraid I'm not great at wood ID from bark pics.


As to the cookies, it would depend on thickness. Obviously thinner dries quicker.

 

A cat stove can also have a secondary burn. I get them in my Cat stove. I call the other type "tube stoves" and I also have seen others refer to them that way.

 

Depends on where you are and how much wind and sun it gets. Top covered oak can get punky here in just a few years if not totally covered by a shed, ie the ends get wet constantly

 

that seems to be a different situation...

 

I think mine has a secondary, but no cat. It had some tubes with holes in it along the top. I couldn’t figure out it was doing anything though.
It has been super rainy around here the past year or more. Part of our landscaping will be putting in some drainage canals and probably a dry well or two. I do have a nice shed that I could stash some wood away in, maybe even a seasons worth and still have room for much of the bikes, tools, surfboards etc that are in there. I’m hesitant to put any of the buggy stuff in there since it is made of cedar(juniperus).

 

Cedar repels bugs, but you never know, might be a kind of bug that has a taste for it!

 

Tube stove- you need decently dry wood as for the secondary to fire off requires close to 1000 degs in that area of the fire box . fuel with to much moisture cools the fire down and then you do not get the dancing Ghost flames or when really cranking the raging jets of flame from the tubes.

 

I just bought a few wedges.. hopefully that will get me cracking.

 

Hi mrfancyplants , welcome to the club, I see you're already getting plenty of good advice from members. Plenty more to follow, so just ask away.

 

Awesome! You should sharpen the smallest one to a sharper edge (not knife sharp). That is the one you will use to start a split, if you haven't cut a groove in the round.

 

Hey quick questions about pallets, but there are some on our property that need to be discarded and I can’t tell if they are treated. I am assuming “when in doubt throw them out,” but any other advice on the matter would be appreciated.

 

I know of NO pallets that are treated. There a one use type thing so there is no reason to treat them. There thrown out before they rot. I know a guy who owns a pallet mill and as a forester I deal with Mills and other foresters ok in the business....just lending credit to what I am saying this by telling you that.

 

You won't get secondaries if your burning wet wood. Burn those pallets and stack the boards in there I bet you will see them. Dry wood is oak that has been stacked and split for 3 years and other species like a pine or ash for at least a year.

 

X2, I've been a pallet burner for 5 decades. clemsonfor said it well.

 

All that said they DO heat treat them. Which is just to kill insects. If coming from a foreign country or from a part of ours with a know invasive problem. All this is is the wood is out into a kiln and run up to a certain temperature for a certain amount of time.