I have 5 trees to go 3 will be milled and 2 for firewood and the spring season is over...(also have 2 days of hard splitting of rounds to go)
Who's done cutting till fall?
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Backwoods Savage said:
I remember you telling me a couple years ago to be done by May 1st. well I got all the wood I need for the next 3 years and will add another 2-3 cords before the end of May for 2015 lol Wow cant believe I made 3 years and burning with a furnace, and this is the first year the hardwood is going to be ready have burn mostly silver maple til NOW!
I'm just getting started, lol. next year is gonna suck big time. I have SOME seasoned wood, I'll have to do some mixing. I'm not ahead like I should be.
I have enough by volume for the next two winters. However half of it is oak that was split over the winter (with about 1/4 cord still in the round). So... I will be looking to find some faster drying wood to split this summer to dry out in time for 11/12 winter and hopefully let that oak have more time to dry out and be used in 12/13. But it is nice to be in MUCH better shape than last year. I somehow doubt I'll ever really be "done" though - it seems that it is a continuous process here.
I'm never really done cutting. I just keep piling it up and adding to the back of the stack. My first year burning, I didn't even start to think about cutting and splitting until August.
smokinjay said:
Jay, I checked for skeeter larvae yesterday and nothing shows yet. I don't think it will be many days though before they hatch.
I have about a cord of ash to shorten and split after that I plan on being done for a while. This is still wood from that large ash I scored back at the end of March.(I haven't had much free time) I've split about 3 or 3 1/2 cords out of it so far, I was hoping to have time to finish it up this weekend but the weather is not looking good for that.
On the way to work this morning I seen a guy cutting an ash tree with the wood stacked up near his drive. I almost stopped and asked about it but with 15 cords or so on hand I decided my wife would hurt me. :lol:
On the way to work this morning I seen a guy cutting an ash tree with the wood stacked up near his drive. I almost stopped and asked about it but with 15 cords or so on hand I decided my wife would hurt me. :lol:
rdust said:
lol the wife thing becoming an issue for me as well, so hope to finish very soon.....Oh and milling don't count. Don't know how we agreed on that over a nice restaurant dinner last night.lol
oldspark said:
I know it WILL be ready by then. It MIGHT be ready sooner of course. I have a cord+ that has been stacked now for a year (almost exactly) that I checked a week ago. It tested around 30% MC. Clearly not ready now. Perhaps it will be ready by this fall... perhaps not. Based on advice I've received here from many folks, if I can get the oak stacked for 2 1/2 - 3 years I can be pretty well assured that it will burn well without much worry about it. That is where I want to be - no worries, just great burns.
Mind you - per the discussion in another thread that we had, I'm sure my stacking is less than idea. I don't have single rows with air space between so my rate of drying is probably slower than it could be. I'm evaluating options for being able to do this, but I have limited space to work with here.
So - do I really think it will take that long to dry? I don't know, but I want to be sure that each winter I have good dry wood and I don't want to get to winter of 11/12 and discover that I have 3 cords of oak that is sizzling when I load it and nothing else available to burn.
Slow1 said:
You can always expand vertically. This is why I'm slowly gaining interest in the "holt hausen" method. If it merely works just as well as stacking in single rows, it would allow a much smaller footprint in my yard. With my oldest boy getting married in July and expecting up to 60 people hanging around for a couple days camping and such after the reception is over, I really don't have room for 15 well-spaced single rows of wood 4' high and 24' long (3 years x 5 cord/year). Besides, three 5-6 cord holz hausen piles would look one heck of a lot prettier to my wife, for sure.
So - do I really think it will take that long to dry? I don't know, but I want to be sure that each winter I have good dry wood and I don't want to get to winter of 11/12 and discover that I have 3 cords of oak that is sizzling when I load it and nothing else available to burn.[/quote]
I think this is the best way to treat oak - assume the worst, and if you have to use it early, so be it. I look at all oak as 3 year minimum in the stack to be ideal. I stack on pallets in good sun/wind, but red oak in the stack for the past 10 months might as well have been split yesterday for how it handles in the stove (popped in a piece last week just for fun). Cheers!
I think this is the best way to treat oak - assume the worst, and if you have to use it early, so be it. I look at all oak as 3 year minimum in the stack to be ideal. I stack on pallets in good sun/wind, but red oak in the stack for the past 10 months might as well have been split yesterday for how it handles in the stove (popped in a piece last week just for fun). Cheers!
Have you seen this? (broken link removed to http://www.woodheat.org/firewood/holtzhausen.htm)Battenkiller said:
NH_Wood said:
I think this is the best way to treat oak - assume the worst, and if you have to use it early, so be it. I look at all oak as 3 year minimum in the stack to be ideal. I stack on pallets in good sun/wind, but red oak in the stack for the past 10 months might as well have been split yesterday for how it handles in the stove (popped in a piece last week just for fun). Cheers![/quote] Red Oak is listed as "not easy to burn" on one of the firewood lists I have but White Oak is in the easy to burn, so may be Red Oak has more issues than White, I cut and stacked some Bur Oak about a month ago and it has some serious checking going on already so it has lost some moisture just after 4 weeks or so.
I haven't cut any wood lately . . . I do have some wood that I cut down tree length that at some point I need to haul out, buck up and split . . . but that's wood that will be used in 3 years plus.
Done cutting until some cool days come around in the fall (if I can control my latest addiction)
Still have about 1 cord left to split which will be done at a leaisurely pace and by hand.....just so I have something to hit periodically :lol:
Still have about 1 cord left to split which will be done at a leaisurely pace and by hand.....just so I have something to hit periodically :lol:
smokinjay said:
I've always told the wife I wanted to be 3 years ahead so she was always fine with that. I just need to tell her we used 6 cords of wood instead of 4 so I can bring more home!
She probably would have agreed to anything over that nice dinner last night, no reason to press you luck though! :lol:
rdust said:
I didnt bring it up, so it was fair game on! lol she knows me, and she just figures after close to 30 cords on hand that I should slow down and start kayaking again....Well I am all in on that.
here one of our spots we stop and camp when yaking!
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