If I cut down a dead tree, or cut up a fallen tree propped up on another, is it still considered "green"?
It just depends. The problem is I can't figure the depend part.
We have what I think are White Oaks on our place. If these things die, say from a lightning strike, they dry out and rot FAST! I just had one of these tree blown over a few weeks ago and I know that tree was dead for less than a year. These trees die but rot then dry again. The rot ruins them for firewood and makes the standing tree very dangerous. The tree that just blew down could be burned since it seems very dry but there is very little mass to the wood from the rot. Chalk is stronger than this wood once it has rotted which makes cutting down one of these trees so dangerous when they have died. You just do not know what you will find under the bark.
When these tree rot, they rot from the center out. The wood feels like a wet sponge at this stage.
Now, the Red Oak on our place is awesome. It rots very slowly even when wet. We still have Red Oak on the ground from Hurricane Fran which was almost 20 years ago.
TWO summers back, we had some trees bulldozed to give us more garden space AND get some trees away from the house. Over the last six months, I finally got time to start cleaning up the trees and making firewood. These trees have been pushed over and the root ball pushed out of the ground. Some trees were so dry I could have burned the wood right after splitting. Others are wet and will take time to dry. The one huge White Oak that was pushed over is wet with some rot but I think I have split the wood in time to get some ok firewood after it dries. Some of the Red Oak was dry enough to burn while other batches needs some drying time.
So the answer is it depends and the only way to know is to cut up and split the wood.
To help dry out some of the wood, this winter I started stacking wood on the south side of the house. Our roof over hang keeps most rain off the wood and I will use a tarp if we get rain. The southern exposure keeps the wall very warm and warms up the wood as well. This seems to act a bit like a drying kiln. Not perfect but better than nothing.
The wood we are burning right now I split starting in August and it has been fine so far. The only wetness I noticed was in some wood yesterday. The wood was sitting in front of the wood stove for a few hours and I saw some wet spots. The wood burned into the over fire zone on the wood stove thermometer we use. The wood did burn as high as other wood but it was certainly hot enough. Well, it was so danged cold yesterday and today, that it did need to burn hotter! It was 6 yesterday and 10 today and the woods stove has a tough time keeping up with these low temperatures. The house was 74 yesterday morning but down to 68 this morning even though the stove was running 24 hours a day. Thankfully, the temps are rising and will be above freezing today and into the 60s over the weekend! :dance1:
The water supply froze this morning! :shocked: The well house was in the 40's but the water supply line from the well house in the exterior wall. The plug of ice melted by 9:30. First time this has happened and I hope the last...
The shorter the length of wood, the faster it will dry.
Later,
Dan
