Preserving and storing cut wood?

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Mustang71

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Just got the news that the power company will be sending crews through my area in the next month or 2 to cut ash trees. They will be cutting a low estimated 40 trees from my property. I get to keep the wood. I couldn't be happier to sign the agreement on that. These are 60 to 70 feet tall trees.

How do I store this wood? I don't have room by my house so I will be letting it sit in the woods. Should I stack it off the ground and leave it? It won't be log length just something "manageable".
 
Wood will last a very long time if kept off the ground (air gap is best), exposed to reasonable amounts of wind, and kept out of the rain.

NO TARPS.

I got wood that was like 7 years split, oak, maple, mulberry, pine.

It was all kept as i stated and is perfect shape.

Humid environments it needs as much wind as possible.

But in you case,
Just sacrifice a few trees and lay them down and then perpendicular on top of those stack your logs. I assume you can move the logs.


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I'm hoping that being unsplit wood it will handle the rain fine. I know standing dead trees last for years. Its sad because basically they will cut all the woods hiding my house on that side. But the ash trees are dieing anyways so it is an awesome deal. I cant imagine what it would cost if I hired a tree service to cut a 100x300 set of woods down. Some of the trees are ones that I was going to cut this summer with a boom lift so it saves me a lot of stressful cutting. I'm still in shock that it's all free but I definatly do not want to waste the wood. It's all on the wind side of my property so that should help. There's more ash trees they will cut not part of that woods but I will probably move those closer to my house and stack them. The main cutting is the 100x300 cluster of mature ash trees.

They are supposed to be manageable sized logs and I have the subcompact tractor. If they are cut small I may lay down some pallets. I honestly have no idea what I'm in for.
 
If your tractor has a fel and can handle the trees, dont let them buck it up. Tree companies cut where the saw hits, one round 12inc long and the next 3 ft long. get them to leave the trees in log lenghts and use your tractor to stack the logs. Lay a couple of logs cross ways to stack the rest onto. The wood will dry and the bark will fall off and make things a lot neater when it comes time to buck and split, and all the mess will be in one place.
 
I'm hoping to get to talk to the foreman when this takes place. Make it easier for all of us. I'm thinking it will take a few days to do. Its the tree company asplundh, I know they are a national company and they do all the tree cutting for the power companies around here so I'd think they are top notch. I know they are just doing their job but they are doing me a huge favor too.
 
Most of the time those tree cutters that work for the power company will leave them in the length you can work with. I would have them cut them in 8 or 10 foot lengths. Lay some cross ways and start stacking they should keep a couple years that way giving you time to buck and split them. If they are doing a lot of work in the area they will probably knock that out in a day. They don't mess around on those kind of jobs. Five years ago they updated a high line next to a farm I own and they had Asplundh do the work there were five crews working in a 10 mile area they were updating the line on. It didn't take them long to finish the job.
 
1 day would be amazing lol. They came through a few years ago and trimmed trees and did a fantastic job. I wish I could be here to watch them work. I'm just a fire wood burner with some saws not a tree pro at all. Not saying they are the best because I dont know good from bad.

I'm hoping I can catch them so they dont chip the smaller stuff that I like. Anything less than 3 inches would be fine to chip but I know they will chip the whole top of the tree. I'm going to have a field of chips and low stumps. It's a big change I'll be able to see my neighbor...
 
I'm hoping to get to talk to the foreman when this takes place. Make it easier for all of us. I'm thinking it will take a few days to do. Its the tree company asplundh, I know they are a national company and they do all the tree cutting for the power companies around here so I'd think they are top notch. I know they are just doing their job but they are doing me a huge favor too.

I do not like that company.


Sent while firmly grasping my redline lubed RAM [emoji231]
 
1 day would be amazing lol. They came through a few years ago and trimmed trees and did a fantastic job. I wish I could be here to watch them work. I'm just a fire wood burner with some saws not a tree pro at all. Not saying they are the best because I dont know good from bad.

I'm hoping I can catch them so they dont chip the smaller stuff that I like. Anything less than 3 inches would be fine to chip but I know they will chip the whole top of the tree. I'm going to have a field of chips and low stumps. It's a big change I'll be able to see my neighbor...

Your going to miss the privacy.


Sent while firmly grasping my redline lubed RAM [emoji231]
 
Pallets are a great way to keep wood off the ground and letting air circulate. My 2, 25c rows are on a slightly raised gravel bed then a pallet, all my kibbles and split & to be split are basically the same way. Been fine for me.

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Keep on ... Runnin' Loads !!
 
Your going to miss the privacy.


Sent while firmly grasping my redline lubed RAM [emoji231]


There's some pines in there and some big maples. I'm hoping they dont destroy that stuff. But yea right now I look out my driveway and can only see woods after this I'll be able to see my neighbor and the road. I bought the house 6 years ago because of the privacy. My driveway turns into a wooded tunnel in the summer but that will be gone.
 
I skided these out of an area that is nearly always wet when it dried out during rhe past summers drought.

Used the bota to roll them up in a pile.

they are where the North and south and west winds hit them.



:D Al
 
These trees are all on the wind side of my property so I'll be losing my natural snow fence but the wood will be in the wind a lot. I was walking through the woods tonight with the kids and it seems like if I stood under the ash trees on the edge of the property and looked at the power lines they were with in falling distance. So I'm hoping they take them all down. There's a lot of new growth below these trees that I'm sure will take over.

As much as I love my trees I have come to hate the ash trees because they are dangerous. I'm all for free tree cutting because we all know that cutting the tree down is less work than processing the firewood but one wrong move will create a very dangerous situation. I still have a million more ash trees on my property and will still have to continue taking care of the ones that are going to fall on something. This is a bit of relief and a lot of fire wood for my new furnace.
 
I would start stock piling some Gatorade type drinks, energy bars and that kind of stuff and have it sitting in a cooler ready to set out for them. Couple hundred bucks in treats will buy you 100's of hours of your labour saved. ( no booze) Write down what you would like them to do and really think about making it easy for them and yourself in the long run. Don't be fussy though, just say what you would like done and they will do the best they can. Just remember they also have a boss they gotta please so don't get too unrealistic or they will just go by the book. If possible I would even cut a couple simple trees down now and have them set up and ready as log bunks where you would like the logs piled.
 
There's a lot of cutting close to my house, barn, and wood shed so I'm going to get picky. The tree rep told my wife the chips would be spread out over the field which I think is ridiculous if true. I'll tell them to keep it simple and make a few piles. As for log lengths I dont want to piss anyone off by asking for specific sizes. I've seen their work before and usually they stack log length logs by trees but this might be different.
 

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