We are cutting out wood for next year now, and I wanted to make sure that it was okay to just buck it into 20" rounds and stack them for the winter, then split in the spring? I dont have my own splitter. Is this okay?
Is it okay to stack rounds for the winter?
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As long as its not live oak or a couple of the other very wet when live species, you'll be fine. Just leave the bark on and watch the ends for checking. That will tell you when it is drying well and splitting it will help it finish for next year.
Yup that should work. Best would be to split it now. At least make sure that it's off the ground and piled horizontally as you would the split pieces.
Ed
Ed
aandabooks said:
It's mostly maple, a little hickory and some yellow birch.
colebrookman said:
It is off the ground, I laid down some 2x4's under it.
I wish I could split it now, but I don't have the ability/time to split it by hand, and my buddie is tired of coming over with his splitter every weekend...
It won't dry very much (if at all) if left round, but it won't hurt the wood to leave it that way over the winter. It should be easier to split in the spring, since a certain amount of decay happens to wood left in round form and that makes it a bit weaker.
split it over the winter or try to split it when you can the sooner the better but spring is better than summer splitting!
up here thats the way they sell it any more and it is measurably dryer than if not cut at all. its not worth the effort to split it any more to the seller when you can get $300-350 for unsplit spruce per cord. it only takes about a half hour to cut it all up with a chain saw and it does help with the drying. just think if every cut gives you two more surfaces do direclty dissipate water, for every cut in the log it gives you about 62 more square inches ruoghly of drying surface for a 10 inch diameter tree even though spliting it would give you exponetialy more. basicly it cant hurt.
also i like to split wood in the winter here with a maul. i dont know how cold it gets there but when it warms up to about 15-20 below zero it splits like glass just falling apart when its that brittle and you work up quite a sweat even when its 30 below i find my self sometimes in a t-shirt. it cools you down pretty good its perfect. way easier than a wood spliter to me.
also i like to split wood in the winter here with a maul. i dont know how cold it gets there but when it warms up to about 15-20 below zero it splits like glass just falling apart when its that brittle and you work up quite a sweat even when its 30 below i find my self sometimes in a t-shirt. it cools you down pretty good its perfect. way easier than a wood spliter to me.
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