I am spliting and stacking some green oak for next year and I am spliting it as I go. At what diameter do you guys say good enough and just stack it. 6 inch? 4 inch? I know it will only help it dry out, but I would like to know what you all do.
What size rounds
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If I do not have to worry about drying time 6 inch would be the max size unsplit, I think it just packs better in the stove.
I have almost exclusively slow-drying woods (Red Oak & Mulberry) and not too much sun so I split all my rounds, right down to the 3 inchers. It's a trade-off, the small rounds are great for overnight burns, but in my experience they are significantly slower to dry than splits. If I could wait longer for them to dry I might just leave'em round & pile them seperate.
To split the small rounds I lay them flat & whack them in the center with the Fiskars. That way I don't have to mess with a hatchet & risk loosing a finger if I miss.
To split the small rounds I lay them flat & whack them in the center with the Fiskars. That way I don't have to mess with a hatchet & risk loosing a finger if I miss.
I use 1/2 the width (for N/S burners) or depth (for an E/W stove) of the firebox to determine how big the rounds can be. For the Quad that's 6", for the X33 it's 4-ish. This winter I'll be burning nothing but rounds in the X33 - just go to the areas where commercial woodcutters were a few years ago and you'll find tons of them lying around perfectly seasoned. They lop off the branches and leave them splayed around the stump.
midwestcoast said:
+1
I split birch rounds (Alaska's hardwood) down to the 3" diameter, dry better/faster & helps give me small stuff to fill in the voids when loading the stove.
Spruce 4", it still dries pretty quick.
Oak, I don't have the privilege to have any to burn here.
Thanks for the input all. I split some Black Jack Oak yesterday and the water poured out of it like a bucket. It may never dry!! I split it down to the 3-4 inch range as well.
liv2hnt said:
By saying next year, some folks mean next winter. Regardless as to which you met, for splitting oak I'd split it pretty darned small because it takes a good length of time to properly dry.
I also like some rounds to hold the fire at night and have used up to about 6" with this stove. Previously I had used up to 10" rounds. However, keep in mind that we have more than a year or two for drying our wood before sticking into the stove.
Backwoods Savage said:
Let me clarify, by next year I mean the winter of 2011/12 and not 2010/11. Good to know about the use of rounds for overnight burns.
A buddy who burns wood has a good philosophy that I tend to subscribe to . . . if he can easily grasp the round with his hand he doesn't split it . . . works out to be a 3-5 inch round in most cases.
firefighterjake said:
That is my take as well. If I can grab it one handed from the end, it stays.
I try to split everything i can that has bark on it down to about 4 inches. This year I made a separate stack of rounds 4 inches and less that will season longer. However i put some small rounds in the stove last winter that were seasoning for two years and they still sizzled. I now pass up a lot of wood smaller than 4 inches because they take a long time to season and have a lot of rounds and short logs stacked in the yard waiting to be processed anyhow.
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