Oak wood burners, post your opinion

[fvhowler]

I have mostly Post Oak, White Oak, Water Oak, Hickory, Maple and some Cherry. I'm now to the point of giving all my split wood (any species) two summers worth of drying before burning. Everything I've burned has come from my land but that will change in a year or so.

 

[St. Coemgen]

I selected 2 years, as that is how long it takes me. But really, it depends on local climate, weather over those two years, where I put the stacks, etc, etc, etc. So 2 years is only an ideal. Sometimes, it takes longer. In other words ... it depends....

 

[Jonathan2001]

I have found a huge variance in drying time based on the type of oak. This past February (10 months ago) I cut two monster oaks (over 4' DBH) -- one was a chinquapin oak and the other a burr oak. Both were very wet and heavy to start. I got 5 cords from just the burr oak. The trunk was 30" diameter 40 feet up, and it had 5 or 6 branches that were 20"+ diameter at their base. I question whether oaks this big are a smart way to get firewood. Even with big saws (Dolmar ps-7910 and ps-6100) and a 30 ton splitter, I spent at least 20 hour cutting, splitting, and stacking this one tree. Not to mention the wear and tear on my body.

In any event, 10 months later the small splits (3-4") of chinquapin are close to 20% MC, and even the big splits (6-8") of are noticeably lighter and heavily checked on the ends. The chinquapin has been top covered in IBC cages in a windy but somewhat shady location along side my barn.

The Burr oak, on the other hand, is nearly as heavy as the day it was cut despite being stacked in a single-wide row, top covered, in full sun and with good wind. And there are almost no checks on the ends. We did have a wet year here in SE Michigan, but still...

I have also been able to get mid-size red oak splits to 20% or less MC in 12-16 months when top covered, single row, in the sun.

I'm thinking this burr oak is going to take at least 3 years which isn't too big of a deal since it would take decades to rot even if uncovered. I recently came across some big burr oak rounds that were cut in 2002 when my house was build and left laying at the edge of the forest for 17 years. The sap wood is rotted off, but the heart wood is solid, hard as nails, and still at over 30% MC.

 

[kennyp2339]

Oak is our premium here in my neck of the woods, 3 years is what I give it no matter what, generally I try to use as much of the tree as possible, cutting limbs into logs down to 3" diameter mark, even the limb wood needs to be split in half to dry out right, I had some old limb wood that I never split (bark on it) and threw it the fire pit, still had sizzling and steam coming out the ends.
Red oak gets split thicker then white oak, the internal cellular structure is different, red oak is open cell, white is closed cell, so white tends to dry at a slower rate then red. Knots to me are about the same with both species, that's why I give everything the 3 year drying time, 1st year its stacked out in the open, no cover just neat rows on pallets, i'll then move the wood to my open sided woodshed and it will sit in there for 2 full years just drying away.
I will eventually build another 8 cord shed on the rear piece of my yard, I just got 2 free tandem truck loads of dirt and leveled the area, now waiting for it to settle and then I'll re-grade and pitch it correctly and off to the races I go.