A Monumental Discovery/ Theory Revealed !

[dave7965]

The bigger the piece of wood the longer it will take to dry out. So if you choose not to season for a year plus, I would think it would make sense to split the wood into smaller pieces hence a shorter drying time.
In my previous post I discussed that I was getting a lot of unburnt chunks. After reassessing, I realized that these pieces were by far the biggest ones.
Do you all agree ?

 

[smokinj]

huh by God I think you got it Watson! Now next year will be even better.

 

[Hurricane]

I think if you read on here you will find that to be the consensus.

 

[hareball]

Begins to whittle down splits

 

[Gary_602z]

So that is the reason toothpicks are so damn dry? :cheese:

Gary

 

[Slow1]

So that is the reason toothpicks are so damn dry? :cheese:

Gary

ya - ever loaded your stove full of them? sure takes a lot but you can get secondaries in no time at all I imagine...

Hmm... how many toothpicks in a cord?

 

[SolarAndWood]

In all seriousness Dog, it definitely works. I split small while working to get ahead. Some say I have a lifetime supply of kindling. You get the drying benefit but I think even bigger is the benefit of the extra surface area burning it. I'm in year 4 and only now far enough ahead that I have started to split bigger.

 

[BrotherBart]

In all seriousness Dog, it definitely works. I split small while working to get ahead. Some say I have a lifetime supply of kindling. You get the drying benefit but I think even bigger is the benefit of the extra surface area burning it. I'm in year 4 and only now far enough ahead that I have started to split bigger.

A week or so ago solarandwood you ask about the weight of my oak splits. I weighed the ones I use for long burns and they run 16 to 18 pounds apiece dried three years.

 

[SolarAndWood]

The beech and hard maple I split the week between Christmas and New Years was in the 25 lb range. I imagine it will be similar to your Oak in a few years.

 

[Backwoods Savage]

The bigger the piece of wood the longer it will take to dry out. So if you choose not to season for a year plus, I would think it would make sense to split the wood into smaller pieces hence a shorter drying time.
In my previous post I discussed that I was getting a lot of unburnt chunks. After reassessing, I realized that these pieces were by far the biggest ones.
Do you all agree ?

An even better plan is to still have some big splits but have enough wood on hand that they have time to season properly.

We burned some pretty good sized splits last week for an experiment. It was wood that was cut last winter and split in April. The pile got covered in late November. It burned great. It was ash. Did it last any longer than the 4-5 year old stuff we presently are burning? No.

 

[Dune]

The bigger the piece of wood the longer it will take to dry out. So if you choose not to season for a year plus, I would think it would make sense to split the wood into smaller pieces hence a shorter drying time.
In my previous post I discussed that I was getting a lot of unburnt chunks. After reassessing, I realized that these pieces were by far the biggest ones.
Do you all agree ?

An even better plan is to still have some big splits but have enough wood on hand that they have time to season properly.

We burned some pretty good sized splits last week for an experiment. It was wood that was cut last winter and split in April. The pile got covered in late November. It burned great. It was ash. Did it last any longer than the 4-5 year old stuff we presently are burning? No.

Yeah, but ash drys super fast anyway. How does that affect your equation?

 

[Backwoods Savage]

It isn't that ash dries fast but it starts out with low moisture so does not take long to season.

Around here it doesn't much matter what we burn as most of the time we are burning wood that has been drying for a much longer period of time. We do have a pretty decent amount of wood on hand. Sometimes it is interesting just to try different woods to see the difference each make. However, with the cat stove it does not make a huge difference as it might in other stoves.