As a follow up to my previous reply, was grabbing some oak from the stacks to take to the cabin and came up on this piece. I usually mark and weigh one or two pieces in a stack to monitor weight loss and just for fun. This is red oak, cut green which I usually don't do, but it was laying across the road. You can see the split date which was a few days later. Most moisture left in the first 5 months, and none in the last year+. So cut in 2020, it would have been ready to burn in my opinion in the 2021 season.
Hey Wood Wolverine. I do not have a moisture meter ( but am going to buy one), plan on burning it tonight. That will be my "meter". I guess my point on this post was it was as dry in about one year is it is now in almost 3 yrs.
I can't get red oak to below 20% m/c in 2 years and my stacks have great exposure to sun and excellent exposure to wind. The meter just satisfies curiosity on the actual moisture reading. Pretty cool data split you have there.
I've been surprised by the comparison myself of late. I too always thought that white took longer. The chart here on FHC used to have red oak at 2 years and white at 3... but now both are listed at 3 years. Anyways, I've noticed this year that my supply of white seems a lot further along than my red. The white even has its bark loose and the sapwood getting softer where the read looks like it was cut yesterday. The red also is known to have a bit of water/steam out the ends when it starts out on hot coals where the white does not. This is with both of them at 2.5 to 3 years split and stacked....
I always thought that white and red took close to the same time to get 20% MC, all other things being equal. The white surely held coals longer, and the red seemed to generally peak higher temperature and sooner in our cat stove than the white did. The white was somewhat more reluctant to fire up at re-load, but then acted like black locust. Am I making any sense? Heheh.
That's what I've seen here too. Red oak, cut green, split and stacked pretty much within 2 weeks, and even after 2 years being split and stacked top covered, they were all over 20 %. I think 25% was average on all the resplits I tested. It was 40% or more when split from rounds.
It's pretty cool that you took those weight measurements and annotated the split. I would assume that if weight stays the same between readings, the moisture content also stays the same. If that is incorrect, hopefully, someone will chime in. Your measurements are intriguing, somewhat validating people (around here, anyway) who claim that they have cut red oak firewood in the spring and burned it in the fall as if it's just SOP. Your readings from April to September of 2020 showed that that split did almost all of its seasoning in that five months. I am of the opinion (have not confirmed it with a 'study') that red oak does not require the usual 20% or less to burn readily. IMO, 25% and even 30% can burn. In this climate. Of course, less than 20%, its will burn more readily and produce more heat. In this climate, we don't have to have the ultimate in heat production from a fireplace burning splits below 20% to heat a home at temps below freezing. Our climate is not as severe as more northern states. I am most interested to find what your MC reading currently is for that split since its weight has not changed in the past 18 months. And, I must mention that this seems odd. However, whatever the MC reading is, if your weights measured are correct, I suppose that it's possible that your split reached a point of equilibrium and it's done. And achieved that in 14 months. Very interesting!
Around here, a split of 25% mc red oak will bubble from the ends when burnt. This whole discussion is extremely interesting, and leads me to want to try my own single split tests over time. Weight and mc.
I had some WO when I first started with wood heat, didn't know any better and burnt some of it the first winter...it burnt terrible and made tons of creosote. The next winter I still had some of this same wood and got similar results...maybe just slightly better. The following year I thought this is the year, it will finally be dry now...nope, but I said screw it, I want this pile cleaned up and I'm just gonna burn it anyways. Even the RO that I more commonly get burns better the longer it sits...even after 3 years, in other words, 4 YO is better than 3, and 5 seems better than 4...with diminishing returns of course...I just used a little RO that is at least 4 years CSS'd and it seemed to take off even easier than the dead standing EAB Ash I mixed with it. (and the ash tested 17-18% with a meter)
I imagine most here will agree to the above statement. I've seen piles of green wood (logs, tops and all) burn within days of being cut. Get it hot enough, it will burn. But what is that doing to your system (creosote etc), and the loss of energy needed to make it burn. My friend who helped me install, who has burned for years, keeps saying he's going to find some white oak to process, to help him get ahead (on top of the huge dead ash I showed him). So he is certain (from his experience) that here, white oak is ready to go much faster than red. I know the idea is to cut and split enough to be way ahead, so that it doesn't matter if it takes 2 or 3 years to be ready. But knowing these timeliness can help people who aren't to that stage yet know where to focus their efforts till they get to that point.
Now you've got me thinking... I have some red oak that'll hit just over 3 years this fall. I might (and easily could) leave it another year, maybe more... Luxury problems
Im burning oak now that I cut from the 16 cord of 4' splits I got last year. The 16 cord is a mix of RO and WO. A lot of it was standing dead, say 60/40. It was split and stacked umder cover for at least 3 years. Most of it has burned fine. I did hit a pocket that didn't burn that well. I thought I had issue with the stove. I was surprised how it burned. My guess it was higher moisture content in those splits. I didn't pay attention to the type of oak or do any MM readings. If it happens again, I'll be sure to. Hopefully another year sitting, I won't have any issues. The very last of it will be burned 3-4 years from now. If I have issues than, I don't know what to tell you.
My red oak theory: Observations: Wood slivers from splitting red oak are sharper than any other wood I split. Green red oak splits have more shiny facets than any other wood i split. I split red oak using my slimmest wedge, like cutting diamonds. So: Red oak is my most brittle wood. More brittle than white oak. So: Brittle red oak fibers transport moisture very slowly and so can take longer to dry because of the brittle structure. Fibers with more "fluff" transport water better. Variation in red oak drying times could depend on how much the tubes plug with minerals during drying, more unplugged tubes dry faster. Also plugged tubes create water pockets and explain dry red oak sizzling since the "brittle" wood has slower fiber water transport to bypass the plugs. The fire heat converts plugged water to steam pressure and pushes or blows out the plugs. Just a theory...
My theory on my bubbling Red Oak limb split is that it was cut in the spring, so it was engorged with fluid. Like buZZsaw BRAD in a new patch of bark less BL. The red oak split was on an inner stack blocked from wind and sun and %50 encased in bark, so it did not lose much moisture in 4 years.
Agreed. I have some relatively thin red oak heart wood splits with no bark from May 2021 and they're all easily below 20%. I'm convinced that bark is the biggest impediment to drying wood quickly.
Im starting to agree more and more about the bark. I had a half cord stack of primo red oak splits mostly barkless. It was CSS 24 months ago and ive been using them. Single row thats shaded when leaves are out. Splits the size of a 4x4 roughly.
You guys mentioning bark inhibiting drying makes me think of when splitting a large round, you can split off shingle-like splits that include the bark and are, say, only about one inch thick of the sapwood. Then the remainder of your splits would have no bark, and the splits with the bark on it would season quickly because it's so thin. I have been burning from a stack of red oak that was split small. I think I might have mentioned it in this thread. I did that back when on purpose, creating board-like splits to speed seasoning. Sure burns a hot fire for awhile. It's not a good method for sellers, though, as it's labor intensive.
4 years ago, before I was selling and prior to joining this exclusive members only club, I was going hard on red oak and big on my splits. It might take 2 more winters to sell off the big split inventory. If we get more than 2 weeks of winter in the next couple of years.
I got curious and just headed to the basement. I guess looks are deceiving. I split larger splits in half. Red and white. The red was down, split and stacked for 2.5 years. The white was down in log form for 2 years then split and stacked for 2.5. The red was at 12.5 and the white was at 18.5%. The white looked like it had been lying around forever and the red looked like it was cut yesterday.
