How much does that log weigh?

[/pine]

Correct. It is why I single stack my wood outside for two years before I bring it into the wood shed for an additional 2 months.

FWIW...I recently cut and split some red oak...that was a live tree before it fell on a friends house...when first split it was reading about 38%...I stacked a few pallets tic-tac-toe style for 5 weeks with nothing but a lid on it...in 5 weeks (of breezy low humidity weather)...the internal (re-split) content of 6" splits was reading about 25%...tinder and smaller fuel splits were reading 15% to 20%...

 

[nickmags]

arrow + /pine- wish I had that much room. I burn an average of five cords a heating season, or roughly a cord a month. It is not unusual to have eight or nine cords of wood cut, split, stacked, and covered with some pieces of old tin to keep the rain off yet still allow it to dry. Like the original post I cut a two year dead standing white oak (60" diameter trunk) Figured I could burn fairly soon - it being so long dead. Wrong! tried, no moisture meter( you guys must be richer than this old retired GI) - but the stuff just sat in the stove and smoldered. It felt heavy also - like green wood. Finished splitting it and added it to next years wood.

 

[LD1]

I dont have a meter, but I try to throw a seasons worth of wood in the basement prior to heating season. Mostly ash and cherry this year, which IMO dries pretty quickly. But getting it in the house, and stored in the room right next to the wood burner, with a fan blowing that hot dry air in my wood room.....it dries in no time. And what does dry, puts humidity back in the house for comfort.

Nothing I burn in the house sizzles. So its dry enough IMO.

My issue isnt creosote due to wet wood, or loosing too much heat to wet wood. When its ~30F out, I have to keep the stove damper (automatic bi-metallic) turned all the way down otherwise it gets too hot in the house. Having to keep the fire choked down dont keep the chimney nice and hot, and that causes me more creosote issues than wet wood. But nothing a brush once a month cant handle. Super dry wood might allow me to not clean the chimney as often, but would just keep my house too hot.

 

[nickmags]

I understand the Not wanting a super hot fire. Seems to me, to be asking for creosote issues: cold fires and wet/green wood are just about a sure and certain recipe for a chimney fires. Local VFD gets calls on two or three a month during heating season. It must be fairly dry if you are not seeing the ends bubble/sizzle. Just not sure I want all the crumbly bark/ insect/mess in the house.

I dont have a meter, but I try to throw a seasons worth of wood in the basement prior to heating season. Mostly ash and cherry this year, which IMO dries pretty quickly. But getting it in the house, and stored in the room right next to the wood burner, with a fan blowing that hot dry air in my wood room.....it dries in no time. And what does dry, puts humidity back in the house for comfort.

Nothing I burn in the house sizzles. So its dry enough IMO.

My issue isnt creosote due to wet wood, or loosing too much heat to wet wood. When its ~30F out, I have to keep the stove damper (automatic bi-metallic) turned all the way down otherwise it gets too hot in the house. Having to keep the fire choked down dont keep the chimney nice and hot, and that causes me more creosote issues than wet wood. But nothing a brush once a month cant handle. Super dry wood might allow me to not clean the chimney as often, but would just keep my house too hot.

 

[LD1]

Mess in the house is no big deal. Its in an unfinished basement. Crumbly stuff sweeps right up. Not really have a insect issue as a result. I do keep some terro ant bait traps down their though.

 

[LD1]

Mess in the house is no big deal. Its in an unfinished basement. Crumbly stuff sweeps right up. Not really have a insect issue as a result. I do keep some terro ant bait traps down their though.

 

[Deere Dude]

After looking at that chart now, no wonder my JD3720 with FEL was having so much trouble with as 36" 7' oak log. That sucker weighed close to 3000 pounds. I was able to carry it an inch of the ground by manipulating forks but ground a couple nice log chains down to nothing from the asphalt from FEL settling out. Should have cut it first.

 

[Baby Grand]

I keep a good load in the basement, where the humidity stays very low, thanks to a heat exchanger water heater. The wood gets brought in during the Spring or early Summer - whenever it's dry enough to drive on our so-called-lawn with about 1/3 cord stacked on a pallet, each trip. By the time it's brought in, this wood has set outside for at least a year, more often two, under a tarp or canopy so it gets plenty of air without getting rained on. I'm burning hardwood, oak, hickory, soft & hard maples, birch and elm, mostly whatever the storms drop for me.

When I haul the logs out of the woods, I strip the bark off with a spud. Sometimes the bark won't separate from the trunk without a fight. This seems to depend on what species of tree and if the tree was still alive when it dropped or has been dead for a while. After beating the cr@p out of my wrist & shoulder a few years ago, I learned that if I let those stubborn ones set a year or two, the spud would zip the bark right off. Once all the bark is off, I cut to length, split and stack on the aforementioned pallets.

Since I started all this futzing about with my firewood, it never hisses or bubbles in the stove, but burns hot and steady, like a coal furnace. Because there's no bark on it when it comes into the house, there's no bugs & very little mess. Now that I skid the logs out when there's some snow down, and the bark is off before it gets cut up, blades stay sharp a lot longer.

-Jim

 

[Oldpath05]

Curious...do you have a problem with Woolly Adelgid up there?...it has devastated the hemlocks here...

...on a related side note...the loss of hemlocks with their heavy canopy's and the advent of several years of high white oak mast crops...(walking the hills here is like walking on marbles with all the acorns)...with all the sun reaching the ground there is an unreal amount of acorns that are sprouting and not getting eaten as wildlife fodder...

So far I notice more of a porcupine problem with hemlock trees, that I can deal with, bugs on the other hand might be harder to shoot.

 

[Creamer]

I am not understanding how wood can be too dry for good burning. The dryer it is the hotter the fire is (although we all know from Ray Bradbury that the actual flame temperature for all wood is Farenheit 451)

sorry but 440f to-about 470F is the auto ignition point of paper- the actual flame temp is higher

Thanks! I never had looked it up but you caused me to. Per Wikipedia adiabatic flame temperature for wood is about 1980 C (3596 F) - very similar to that of propane.