How Picky Are You On The Condition of Your Firewood?

[ProMac1K]

I cut a bunch of ash a few years back and stored it in a shed, and bringing it out now, a lot of it is full of small needle holes on the bark. On most of the stuff, the wood was solid, but I tossed a lot of it as I was concerned with putting it in the house for the winter. Same thing goes with a lot of the ash and some of the mulberry i've cut down this summer. Wood looks good on inside and out, but some of it has pin holes from the outside. I've been tossing out a lot of stuff that would burn real good, but am worried about storing it.

How picky are you guys when you select what firewood to cut and keep? Also do you burn outdoors (OWB) or burn indoors and keep wood indoors?

 

[Ol' Brian]

I'm not too picky at all... as long as it's not punky and rotten... if it's all I can get, I'll cut it and burn it. Beggars can't be choosers...

If I've got wood o'plenty, I'll burn the lower quality stuff myself and sell the good stuff...

 

[Steve NW WI]

I cut a lot of oak that has the carpenter ants in em, herds of the little critters come scurrying when split. They seem to disappear after splitting and drying, I don't have a problem with them in the house.

Not sure what your bugs are, but if you're in an area where termites are a problem, it could be an issue. I'm sure someone on here has fumigated their woodpiles, lets hear from you if you have, if it worked, and how much time and money was involved.

 

[ProMac1K]

Are the carpenter ants large black ants? If so, I had dozens of them shuffling out of an ash stump right after I cut the tree down. They were carrying chunks of wood I think. I'm not so concerned with those holes, as they are more detectable. But the ones I see most often are like needle-sized holes, in various spots into the bark and also into the wood from the outside. I'm not sure how big a termite is or what they look like. Could this be it? I'm guessing either they find rotted wood, or they create rotted wood. Seems like a lot of the smaller and less healthy ash has a lot of those holes. The wood still looks good, but maybe it's freshly dead.

 

[johnzski]

I'd burn it. hopefully you're killing some emarald ash borers or EAB:censored:

 

[wdchuck]

If the wood is worth burning in our indoor wood furnace, then it goes into the basement window, four to five cords are stacked down there by the first snowfall, and that gets us through to the first thaw for a refill.

We actually see very little in the form of bugs around the wood, but its stored outdoors, on pallets, that are concrete, under a tin roof for about a year or better before it comes into the house, so its pretty dry to start with, and it all gets eyeballed before we toss it down. We don't start loading the basement with any substantial quatities until the last minute, and then the weather has been in freezing temperatures during the night often enough to kill off most problems.

 

[Shagbark]

Wood critters make btu's too. I only stack about 3-4 days supply in the house at a time. I do get an occasional ant that gets stepped upon. No other issues so far. If you are concerned, bring one of the pin hole pieces in and put it in a sealed clear plastic bag see what crawls out - if anything.

 

[MR4WD]

Firewood stays outside, until it gets loaded in the stove. I don't mind the heat loss with opening the doors and reloading a few times a day. I know the wife hates the critters that come in and get thawed out with the wood almost as much as I do.

 

[boostnut]

Firewood stays outside, until it gets loaded in the stove. I don't mind the heat loss with opening the doors and reloading a few times a day. I know the wife hates the critters that come in and get thawed out with the wood almost as much as I do.

Yep, great minds think alike. Wood stays stored outside. Keep a stack near the back door so its not an inconvienence to go grab the next armload. Never more than a couple extra splits kept in our house, no way.

 

[vwboomer]

For those that refuse to keep wood inside, are you using a stove or a furnace?
There's no way I'd consider keeping wood outside and having to bring it in even once a day.
I don't have a very good way to cover it right now to keep it dry outside, and having to keep more open paths through the snow is more work that I want to get into.
I nailed a couple 2x4's to the ceiling and floor in the basement approximating 8x4 and there's a mark on the block wall that tells me when it's about a cord.
Yeah, there's always bound to be some critters that come in but a good bang of each piece before bringing it in takes care of most of em.

Besides, if there was nothing that got in, what would the cat hunt?

 

[BigPITA]

Firewood stays outside, until it gets loaded in the stove. I don't mind the heat loss with opening the doors and reloading a few times a day. I know the wife hates the critters that come in and get thawed out with the wood almost as much as I do.

:agree2: We have an ara in the garage that will hold some wood. Other than that, it all stays outside until we're ready to put more into the stove (though we rotate our 'stock' from outside to garage to stove). Don't want to bring in any carpenter ants, termites, etc. into the house and end up with a major problem.

 

[goof008]

The ants were carrying the pupae (baby ants) not wood. And once your wood is dry, the can't live in it anymore anyway, so no big deal with them...as long as they aren't near the house.

If the wood is dry, I burn it. I have burnt some that had some small punky spots on it, it all burns.

I cut mostly standing dead trees, as we have a lot of them and I'd rather cut somthing that's already dead and give the other stuff a couple more years to grow. Most of the wood i get has some type of insect, or several types, living under the bark. By the time I cut it, split it and haul it to my wood pile, they have moved out.

I had some wasp or something burrow into a lot of my hickory this summer. They left piles of sawdust all over the place and 3/8"-1/4" holes all over the logs. It's going in the fire this winter.

 

[MJR]

It is hard to find ash around here with out little holes in it. No worries about the house.

 

[woodbooga]

Ah-yuh. Only champagne-grade, organic grown, free range, fair trade firewood for me. Only the best for my ole cookstove.

Ok, not really. Each Sept. at the start of the wood heating season I tell my stove, "Hey, I love ya. I really do. But in the end you're just a ~300lb hunk of iron with a lid. Burn what we feed you or we'll get a stove that does."

Never had any back talk from the Crawford Century.

 

[Curlycherry1]

Bugs like you saw holes from are probably powder post beetles. They love ash, they love it alot! Hickory is also another one they like. If you bring the wood in and burn it right away within a day or so you will be fine. These and many other species of beetles taste the wood they lay their eggs on and so in a house that has polyurethan, stain, paint and all manner of other surfaces covering the wood they will not find a suitable taste to their liking and they will not lay eggs. Once the eggs hatch very tiny larvae tunnel into the wood, usually into the bark and cambium layer and that is where they feed until they are ready to metamorphose and come out as a beetle. Your house is very safe because they prefer bark to almost anything for laying eggs on.

Any tree in a woods or in a wood pile has tons of bugs and critters on it that you cannot see, and if you limit your selection criteria to just what you can see you are missing 90% of the other critters. So burn them all, as someone else said, they are all BTUs.

 

[olyman]

curly, couldnt think of the name of them, but i checked on it also--thats what they are--

 

[danrclem]

I wish I lived near you ProMac. I'd take all of that ash and mulberry that you didn't want. I might even bring a cordless drill and when you weren't looking I'd drill a few holes in some of the good pieces. Look! There's some more bad wood. I'd better take that too.

Seriously, if I were you I'd just cover up the stuff with holes in it outside until you get ready to use it and then bring it in.

 

[CrappieKeith]

I hear ya on the bug thing but I keep all of my wood stacked outside and only bring in an armload on each end of the day to keep her going.
Gotta go out anyway to let Buck Henry do his business.

 

[Curlycherry1]

curly, couldnt think of the name of them, but i checked on it also--thats what they are--

One of my other hobbies is woodworking and woodworkers pay close attention to beetles in their lumber. It is not good in raw lumber.

 

[Ironbark]

How Picky Are You On The Condition of Your Firewood?

All depends on how cold you are