This is Why I Hate Oak

[Woodcutteranon]

I know, I know...oak burns hot, it's dense, it has HUGE BTU's... but I HATE oak when I'm trying to sell it. I offer exhibit A and B below. This is one year old pin oak that has been split and stacked in a single file rank since last April. The ends are checked and the bark has fallen off. It looks awesome! The outside reading is 16% moisture content. I take my handy Fiskars and split this nice log piece in half to find 53% mc inside! Ugh...

TBH the mc inside was pegging my moisture meter as it read "OL" (overload) on multiple areas of my fresh split.

To sell oak this stuff has to take up valuable space in my yard for 2 years if I'm going to get it down to 20% mc. I could have sold 3X the amount of maple, ash, cherry for the same time I have dealt with this oak. I think for the time I have to sit on oak more than ruins my ROI given any premium I can charge for it.

Another reason I hate oak is I honestly can't stand the odor when I'm cutting it. It reminds me of elementary school when some kid would barf in the hallway and the janitor would come by and spray that god awful aerosol can on it. Ugh...

There... I got that out of my system. Happy cutting everyone!

 

[president]

I know, I know...oak burns hot, it's dense, it has HUGE BTU's... but I HATE oak when I'm trying to sell it. I offer exhibit A and B below. This is one year old pin oak that has been split and stacked in a single file rank since last April. The ends are checked and the bark has fallen off. It looks awesome! The outside reading is 16% moisture content. I take my handy Fiskars and split this nice log piece in half to find 53% mc inside! Ugh...

TBH the mc inside was pegging my moisture meter as it read "OL" (overload) on multiple areas of my fresh split.

To sell oak this stuff has to take up valuable space in my yard for 2 years if I'm going to get it down to 20% mc. I could have sold 3X the amount of maple, ash, cherry for the same time I have dealt with this oak. I think for the time I have to sit on oak more than ruins my ROI given any premium I can charge for it.

Another reason I hate oak is I honestly can't stand the odor when I'm cutting it. It reminds me of elementary school when some kid would barf in the hallway and the janitor would come by and spray that god awful aerosol can on it. Ugh...

There... I got that out of my system. Happy cutting everyone!

View attachment 646211 View attachment 646212

Ya ,I know that smell old lino,puke, and floor wax.got me running every time !

 

[bear1998]

Personally...I think its worth the wait...I only cut for myself.....
I smelt stuff a lot worse than red oak so it doesn't phase me.

 

[crowbuster]

yip. 2yrs for me and I have an owb. I see ur point. selling it n all

 

[Jed1124]

Love the smell of some good gamey oak but otherwise I agree 100%. If you don' have 3 years to wait, it ain' worth the trouble.

 

[Ted Jenkins]

It takes about three months for green Oak to season into 25% as long as it is during the dry months. This last winter was cancelled so will wait until this coming September. Our November December January had highs in the 60s and low maybe 40s. It is standard to get more than $400 a cord when people want it though. However if it gets cold getting $600 is not a problem. Selling decent Oak is not difficult year round. So having Oak on hand is always important. Some times Pine is way more profitable because it moves so much faster. Thanks

 

[Cody]

Bur Oak smells great, especially when there is wind blowing through the shed and you've got a freshly split row. I really don't like the smell of Ash but that might be a neurological thing with me. It's all a personal preference too I believe, but some wood just plain stinks. I actually cut up an apple tree last fall, and while the smaller branches smelled great, I thought the trunk was just plain horrible.

 

[sb47]

2 years to season split single row stacked oak? Where do you live, the rain forest?

 

[foeke]

It reminds me of elementary school when some kid would barf in the hallway and the janitor would come by and spray that god awful aerosol can on it. Ugh...

Sometimes I think we are not from different continents but from different worlds.
So many questions from one sentence. Was it a common thing to barf in the hallways?
How is spray going to clean up that mess? Does your oak smell different then ours? What was in that aerosol can?

To me it smells like being in a woodworkers shop! Only good memories.

We had an endless supply of oak this year because of a freak storm (hurricane in American) in January.
Every evening we are splitting (also mostly with Fiskars) I get the sudden urge to make a staircase. To bad our area was bommed a lot during WW2 so all big oaks are littered with grenade scraps inside.
Not nice for your chain. Even wors for a planer.



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[Little Al]

Personally...I think its worth the wait...I only cut for myself.....
I smelt stuff a lot worse than red oak so it doesn't phase me.

I'm with you on this the extra time sat seasoning is exceeded by it's burning qualities. To the OP if it gives you this amount of grief as in your rant if you can source/process a different wood &get what you require from it go for that no point in stressing yourself as the process becomes a /more of a chore with even the payment received not copensating the effort

 

[Woodcutteranon]

2 years to season split single row stacked oak? Where do you live, the rain forest?

Pretty much. Ohio. I swear the entire county drains onto my land.

 

[Streblerm]

As someone who lives in the same area I can confirm that it does indeed take at least two years to really season the red oaks in NE Ohio. They’ll burn ok after a year but you don’t get serious heat until after the second. You can speed it up with a kiln or splitting really small pieces which seems like a waste.

 

[coutufr]

I like big chuncks of wood too

 

[stumpy75]

As someone who lives in the same area I can confirm that it does indeed take at least two years to really season the red oaks in NE Ohio. They’ll burn ok after a year but you don’t get serious heat until after the second. You can speed it up with a kiln or splitting really small pieces which seems like a waste.

Same thing in NW Ohio... 2 years for oak. Probably has something to do with the clouds and higher humidity that comes off the Great Lakes.

 

[Blue Oaks]

Maybe it's the hot dry climate here in the summer, but one year is usually fine for the Blue Oak, Live Oak, or Valley Oak around here in Nor Cal.

 

[sb47]

Same thing in NW Ohio... 2 years for oak. Probably has something to do with the clouds and higher humidity that comes off the Great Lakes.

I live on the gulf cost, humidity in our middle name. Still, 2 years to season is very slow, compared to my dry times. I can only guess at the moisture content since I don't have a meter.

 

[boltonranger]

Ya ,I know that smell old lino,puke, and floor wax.got me running every time !

When I was a boy, I remember the custodian used to cover “human spills” with sawdust that he kept in a barrel.
No aerosol then.

The sawdust was all the shavings he recovered from the pencil sharpeners.
No one had ever heard of recycling.

 

[jrider]

I sell firewood and have no problem selling all the 8-12 month seasoned oak I can create. All of my wood gets thrown into windrow piles and sits out in full sun and wind. When I say full sun, I mean in the middle of a field where if the sun is shining, it's shining on the wood pile. I have found that even a few hours of shade makes a difference as does the orientation of the wood pile. I have more success with drying on piles that run north south vs east west.

 

[foeke]

When I was a boy, I remember the custodian used to cover “human spills” with sawdust that he kept in a barrel.
No aerosol then.

The sawdust was all the shavings he recovered from the pencil sharpeners.
No one had ever heard of recycling.

Again. Any additional information would be appreciated. You guys make it sound like puking was something you did between History and French class.
I can't remember ever seen puking at school, other than with 13 year olds who over did the pre-school-party drinking.
And that was never inside.

Trying to scrape up some culture

 

[sb47]

Again. Any additional information would be appreciated. You guys make it sound like puking was something you did between History and French class.
I can't remember ever seen puking at school, other than with 13 year olds who over did the pre-school-party drinking.
And that was never inside.

Trying to scrape up some culture

He didn't say it was a daily occurrence.