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Yeah there is 6.5 cord cut, split and stacked and another whole pile for the next year to get worked up. I want a another load to just have something to do. Might sell it .... pondering on how long I should cut if the plan is selling. 16" 18" 20" 24" Not all stoves are created equal ya know?
Yeah there is 6.5 cord cut, split and stacked and another whole pile for the next year to get worked up. I want a another load to just have something to do. Might sell it .... pondering on how long I should cut if the plan is selling. 16" 18" 20" 24" Not all stoves are created equal ya know?
Mac, what is the shortest cure time on oak and birch for a wood burning stove? I know all the recommended stuff, but I would trust your judgement more than the mainstream propaganda.
Red oak is about all we have here with a smidgen of pin and black. These will take 1 full year to get them to burn, but they will still drizzel sap with that time. Sometimes not dead dry wood is exactly the ticket, but of course it will soot up the smoke stack faster.
3 full years IMO is as dead dry for oaks as anyone should want FOR fire wood, longer for lumber.
Birch, depends. If you get the bark off for the better part when splitting it will dry like no tomorrow. You can build a canoe from that water proof bark and so air drying birch takes longer bark on and in the round. Another reason to get the bark off when splitting is the bark is wicked dusty, so when you carry in 1/4er rounds and drop them in the wood box dust gets every place there is, which seems to upset the women folks a lot
There is different kinds of Birch but I am assuming you mean White/Paper/Tourist Birch. You can tap these trees just the same as sugar maple, just later in the same season.
A stove sized cut round with bark still on will be plenty dry to burn once split.
I stack the ends to hold the rows, and cover with old metal roofing. The inner between ends is all placed bark side up, which effects a roofing made of bark for any kind of wood. I am fussy about how each piece is placed too, which pays off IMO. I can see rain run from back to bark right down the pile. I also use free wood pallets so no cord wood sets on the ground. You can get 2 rows on a pallet. If the pallets are placed end to end and are 16 feet long each row is apx 1 cord. The loss is if the wood has been cut less than 24 inches, due to a short stove that takes something less in log length. In that case I just raise the hight of the pile by something over 4 ft tall, in hopes that makes the difference up.
I will stack to 6 feet but no higher as it gets dangerous taller than I stand.
Mixing semi dry wood with dry wood in hard cold gets the longest burn time. So long as only dry pine, hemlock and the like are used as kindling in Fall and Spring fires, and not a main heat source wood brushing the stack should be required maybe 3 times each year. I tend to do a Spring cleaning and one in Feb myself.
With pine as the heat source it's brushing each 2 to 3 weeks. I know a guy who will burn mostly nothing else than white pine.... I have been laughing at him for that over a number of years now.
I can see that when it's all you got like out west, where there is several pines and firs and that's all there is, but around here ya gotta be crazy.
If Hickory grew local I would burn that. If White oak did and it does below the lake i would take that first too, but it doesn't grow above the lake very much, while there is some, like on Sodem Rd in Tuftonboro. I think there is shag bark hickory below the lake, but i can't recall where anymore.
Beech is a decent wood too, as is all maple except for Moose maple which isn't a maple in the first place, but the leaves look like they are.
Maples split to 1/4ers will cure in a year too.
Long logs will cure slowly and if left for around 3 years will be semi dry, and dry to dead dry real fast over a summer if Spring or Fall cut, Fall cut being the longer time to dry.
Me: I just enjoy the Peace and that sort of labor, but i don't dive in to a 8+ cord pile either. I like to work it up in 1/2 hour segments at the end of a day in the dusk, or a shady day.
I have access to a decent gas splitter, but still sometimes set up round in a C shape right on the ground, but the ground has to be hard packed and sandy. If not it a choppin block for me, which can get tedious.
Anyway the C shape bit is you stand in the center, and hit a round. No matter what happens you move on and hit the next round, and the next and the next. When you come to the opening you stop and sit to rest on one round that didn't split and didn't tip over. Once the rest ends you set it all back up.
Any that didn't split at all but cracked some you set up to hit the same crack twice. Any that split but didn't come apart you turn 90 degrees.
Learning to 'Read' the wood helps, I always look at the end grains, and I find the weak points to hit.
I avoid nasty burls and V's in C shapes splitting.Thar's no npint fighting with a big hunk of wood you know is going to be a problem peroid. Out comes Mr. Huskyvanna fer that sort of thing and I will chain saw the 1st 1/4er. In real nasty stuff i will use a steel wedge as i like hearing the wood break up some too.
Some tree split best from the tops down, while other split best from the bottom up and some trees don't care. All I do is try a few either way and get that figured. Birck when right will pop so fast as will red oak that at times i can out do any gas splitter made. That isn't a rule, I just get lucky.
All I use for mauls are either 6 # or 4#. The 4# is a smaller maul so its faster, and anything over 6# for me is too big, since i am not big. 8# and up are too much labor and wear me down too fast.
If you are pressed for time, most any thing not oak split now, will be ready in Fall by the time you need it, but stack it dry. If all you have is oak and it\ still isn't cut, drive in a wedge and split the whole log open, and drive in a wooden glut (wooden wedge) in the crack. Then pull out the steel wedge, That will increase the speed of whole oak logs to be much faster than a whole log in bark.
Oh, I see I wrote a book, Please remit 2 cents to Mac's blather and Co
Red oak is about all we have here with a smidgen of pin and black. These will take 1 full year to get them to burn, but they will still drizzel sap with that time. Sometimes not dead dry wood is exactly the ticket, but of course it will soot up the smoke stack faster.
3 full years IMO is as dead dry for oaks as anyone should want FOR fire wood, longer for lumber.
Birch, depends. If you get the bark off for the better part when splitting it will dry like no tomorrow. You can build a canoe from that water proof bark and so air drying birch takes longer bark on and in the round. Another reason to get the bark off when splitting is the bark is wicked dusty, so when you carry in 1/4er rounds and drop them in the wood box dust gets every place there is, which seems to upset the women folks a lot
There is different kinds of Birch but I am assuming you mean White/Paper/Tourist Birch. You can tap these trees just the same as sugar maple, just later in the same season.
A stove sized cut round with bark still on will be plenty dry to burn once split.
I stack the ends to hold the rows, and cover with old metal roofing. The inner between ends is all placed bark side up, which effects a roofing made of bark for any kind of wood. I am fussy about how each piece is placed too, which pays off IMO. I can see rain run from back to bark right down the pile. I also use free wood pallets so no cord wood sets on the ground. You can get 2 rows on a pallet. If the pallets are placed end to end and are 16 feet long each row is apx 1 cord. The loss is if the wood has been cut less than 24 inches, due to a short stove that takes something less in log length. In that case I just raise the hight of the pile by something over 4 ft tall, in hopes that makes the difference up.
I will stack to 6 feet but no higher as it gets dangerous taller than I stand.
Mixing semi dry wood with dry wood in hard cold gets the longest burn time. So long as only dry pine, hemlock and the like are used as kindling in Fall and Spring fires, and not a main heat source wood brushing the stack should be required maybe 3 times each year. I tend to do a Spring cleaning and one in Feb myself.
With pine as the heat source it's brushing each 2 to 3 weeks. I know a guy who will burn mostly nothing else than white pine.... I have been laughing at him for that over a number of years now.
I can see that when it's all you got like out west, where there is several pines and firs and that's all there is, but around here ya gotta be crazy.
If Hickory grew local I would burn that. If White oak did and it does below the lake i would take that first too, but it doesn't grow above the lake very much, while there is some, like on Sodem Rd in Tuftonboro. I think there is shag bark hickory below the lake, but i can't recall where anymore.
Beech is a decent wood too, as is all maple except for Moose maple which isn't a maple in the first place, but the leaves look like they are.
Maples split to 1/4ers will cure in a year too.
Long logs will cure slowly and if left for around 3 years will be semi dry, and dry to dead dry real fast over a summer if Spring or Fall cut, Fall cut being the longer time to dry.
Me: I just enjoy the Peace and that sort of labor, but i don't dive in to a 8+ cord pile either. I like to work it up in 1/2 hour segments at the end of a day in the dusk, or a shady day.
I have access to a decent gas splitter, but still sometimes set up round in a C shape right on the ground, but the ground has to be hard packed and sandy. If not it a choppin block for me, which can get tedious.
Anyway the C shape bit is you stand in the center, and hit a round. No matter what happens you move on and hit the next round, and the next and the next. When you come to the opening you stop and sit to rest on one round that didn't split and didn't tip over. Once the rest ends you set it all back up.
Any that didn't split at all but cracked some you set up to hit the same crack twice. Any that split but didn't come apart you turn 90 degrees.
Learning to 'Read' the wood helps, I always look at the end grains, and I find the weak points to hit.
I avoid nasty burls and V's in C shapes splitting.Thar's no npint fighting with a big hunk of wood you know is going to be a problem peroid. Out comes Mr. Huskyvanna fer that sort of thing and I will chain saw the 1st 1/4er. In real nasty stuff i will use a steel wedge as i like hearing the wood break up some too.
Some tree split best from the tops down, while other split best from the bottom up and some trees don't care. All I do is try a few either way and get that figured. Birck when right will pop so fast as will red oak that at times i can out do any gas splitter made. That isn't a rule, I just get lucky.
All I use for mauls are either 6 # or 4#. The 4# is a smaller maul so its faster, and anything over 6# for me is too big, since i am not big. 8# and up are too much labor and wear me down too fast.
If you are pressed for time, most any thing not oak split now, will be ready in Fall by the time you need it, but stack it dry. If all you have is oak and it\ still isn't cut, drive in a wedge and split the whole log open, and drive in a wooden glut (wooden wedge) in the crack. Then pull out the steel wedge, That will increase the speed of whole oak logs to be much faster than a whole log in bark.
Oh, I see I wrote a book, Please remit 2 cents to Mac's blather and Co
Great ideas, I wish I had known some of this last year when I split 1.5 cords of Hickory. Man that wood is hard, but it burned forever.
2Cents deposited herewith. I printed out your answer to refer to in the future. Thanks chunks.
By the way I have a huge and beautiful American Grey beech in my front yard. Was told they are quite valuable for use in furniture and other applications. Do you know if thats true ?
2Cents deposited herewith. I printed out your answer to refer to in the future. Thanks chunks.
By the way I have a huge and beautiful American Grey beech in my front yard. Was told they are quite valuable for use in furniture and other applications. Do you know if thats true ?
Ayuh Beech is a stable wood, good for makin' doors, gun stocks and wood planes a tool, a plane made out of wood, which any decent pnae is Beech if it's made out of wood.
You need a Eric Sloan Book 'The Reverance of Wood' and could get a copy in the Moultonboro General Store *that yellow place*
Maybe yours is solid, many are not, and get hollow in the middle. They can last a long time that way too. OT maybe but in a forest fire the hollow ones can run up blue hot flames and I mean it. At a point they can't take it and will blow up much like a bomb. I just find that sort of thing interesting. Your isn't any danger since I an guessing stands mostly alone.
Not sure you know but I am deep, maybe too deep by todays standards in the Old Ways. It's what makes me tick. My copy of the book I mentioned is in the hands of a ash handles maker and has been over 2 years, but I know where it is.
Great ideas, I wish I had known some of this last year when I split 1.5 cords of Hickory. Man that wood is hard, but it burned forever.
Awe, that ain't nuthin. Man if you wanna real fight go to splitting Elm (if you can find any....) won't burn worth a dam either, and that's why they use elm for wooden wheel hubs. It's like trying to split a spounge and the grain is interlocked every whichy way there IS!
I am almost but not quite willing, to bet you could put a fire out with elm wood.
Awe, that ain't nuthin. Man if you wanna real fight go to splitting Elm (if you can find any....) won't burn worth a dam either, and that's why they use elm for wooden wheel hubs. It's like trying to split a spounge and the grain is interlocked every whichy way there IS!
I am almost but not quite willing, to bet you could put a fire out with elm wood.
Hickory was enough, it took at least a year off my life. I hope I never come across elm.
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