How Picky Are You On The Condition of Your Firewood?

[woodbooga]

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

I know what you're saying. I did some work in a First Period colonial, ca. 1690. Powder post beetles had caused quite a bit of damage. Didn't have a camera, so this one swiped off from the web will have to do.

 

[lewis16]

not fussed, as long as she burns, thats good enough for me

 

[ProMac1K]

It's nice to hear all of your thoughts. A few years ago I had done some cleanup out in the grove, and tossed a lot of that wood in the basement. Well, I ended up stuffing the furnace with it all with it within two days because the stuff with the pinholes in the outer layer got pretty soft and rotted, and I wanted to get rid of it. I wanted to get opinions from other people on how wood like that turns out, whether it stays hard and dry, or it turns into junk. Maybe I tossed it all down there in that state, or maybe I was told to, can't remember. I know the stuff I have cut this summer shows bug issues, but the wood is real hard. And it's all ash, the mulberry that i've cut this summer has been perfect, and I have stacked it all. It's a shame to toss it out. I was told the same thing by someone who drove up and saw all the ash logs tossed in the burn pile.

 

[goof008]

Curly, thanks for correcting me...I knew it was something, but I read in another post something about wasps. Never saw it before!! I don't even know how long they had been working on my pile, as it's about 30 miles away at the farm I hunt at...that wood won't be coming home with me until hunting season...and then only a pick-up load at a time.

 

[Curlycherry1]

Curly, thanks for correcting me...I knew it was something, but I read in another post something about wasps. Never saw it before!! I don't even know how long they had been working on my pile, as it's about 30 miles away at the farm I hunt at...that wood won't be coming home with me until hunting season...and then only a pick-up load at a time.

Oh you were not wrong. There are wasps that eat wood too. But they are big and they make big holes and they dig in as adults.

Harvested off the Web:

 

[trialanderror]

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?

When i get done splitting a cord or so, i always end up with like 10 wheel barrows worth of bark, punky chunks, knots, sawdust, ants, grubs, etc etc etc.

i attack it with the scoop shovel and cram it so thick in the firbox i gotta Hercules the door to close.....

good enough to heat the hot water in the summer....i get about a week or so out of those 10 barrows.. It's nice actually, every cord i split, i end up with enough garbage to heat for a week, so i techincally don't burn any wood until the cold season, and i still end up with a clean yard...

note; i have dual forced draft, so, there's no such thing as too wet, too fine, or too thick...it WILL burn eventually.

home brew boiler. wood burns outside, wood stays outside.

 

[wkpoor]

My experience bugs won't live in dry wood. They might be there when you split but after the wood is good and dry they will either be dead or moved on. All my wood starts out drying outside a year (in the open air away from trees,shade and weeds) or 2 before it moves in. Sometimes during splitting I find all kinds and amounts or critters. I don't see them after a year on the split pile. In log form I see a bunch of stuff especially this year. I except them to be gone after split and dry time.

 

[ProMac1K]

Here's a couple pics of the bark off an ash tree that I recently cut down. I just happened to see this bark sitting in the pile, and I thought it looked neat. It's hard to see in the pictures, but the bark is full of small holes, and they are easily viewable from looking at the inside and seeing through them. What do all the lines scribed in the inside view of the bark mean?

The general consensus that i've gotten locally is that i'm being too picky on my wood, and if I was worried, I should just let it freeze before I stack inside, or else spray or bomb for bugs when the wood is hauled in. Maybe i'm watching the "cookie cutting" videos too much, all that wood seems to be real nice, and it's a shame that it's being cut into cookies. I'm told that if i'm going to be this picky, that i'm never going to have any wood to burn. I don't know, it's my first year of cutting down furnace wood, aside from cleanup and trimming.

 

[savageactor7]

In my experience after wood has seasoned and drys out the bugs leave as well...and we'll burn anything. There are some flys and moths that will hibernate in the bark though and it rare they come out of hibernation after you bring that wood into the house...but it has happened. Still it;s no show stopper.

 

[bowtechmadman]

OWB so I will burn any wood. Even the stuff that is pretty punky that most would turn there nose up to has BTU's. I

 

[wkpoor]

I'm told that if i'm going to be this picky, that i'm never going to have any wood to burn.

I think your after Holly Wood. Thats th wood you see in the movies. Every piece perfect in size and shape. Or like you see on a rack in a magazine. Thats not real firewood. Real firewood is every shape and size some my be in a certain stage of rot. However the nasty crotches will be your best longest burning wood.

 

[ProMac1K]

However the nasty crotches will be your best longest burning wood.

They also seem to rot the fastest for me, especially silver maple.

 

[wdchuck]

I think your after Holly Wood. Thats th wood you see in the movies. Every piece perfect in size and shape. Or like you see on a rack in a magazine. Thats not real firewood. Real firewood is every shape and size some my be in a certain stage of rot. However the nasty crotches will be your best longest burning wood.

Martha Stewart did a piece on the perfect firewood pile some time ago. It's a running joke between the mrs. and myself when we drive the backroads and pick out the perfectionists.



Often, on the site, silver maple seems to be a 'burn it today or it rots tomorrow' wood.
There is silver maple rounds from five years ago that are still solid as the day they were cut around here. They are off the ground on pallets, but out in the elements.
Some logs waiting to be sawn will hopefully have some great spalting in them, again, over three years old, but solid.

It's great wood to cook over, coals wonderfully.

 

[woodbooga]

Martha Stewart did a piece on the perfect firewood pile some time ago. It's a running joke between the mrs. and myself when we drive the backroads and pick out the perfectionists.



Often, on the site, silver maple seems to be a 'burn it today or it rots tomorrow' wood.
There is silver maple rounds from five years ago that are still solid as the day they were cut around here. They are off the ground on pallets, but out in the elements.
Some logs waiting to be sawn will hopefully have some great spalting in them, again, over three years old, but solid.

It's great wood to cook over, coals wonderfully.

Now that we've established that pine and cottonwood are ok, we need a species to dump on. (Maybe if I hang around long enough, there'll be threads named something like, "This wood is not oak-ay" or "The official Ash-bashing thread." )

 

[Geez]

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.

Powder post beetles are nothing to mess with! They get their name from their ability to turn an oak post to powder. I looked at a house to buy once, an old farmhouse. Had oak sill logs and full 2x12 rough sawn oak floor joists. They looked normal and in good shape except for the tiny pinholes. Being a woodworker, I knew what I was looking at and astonished the seller when I grabbed ahold of a floor joist and a fist sized chunk of it turned to dust in my hand! They are more destructive than termites in my book because an infestation can be less noticeable until it's too late.

 

[ProMac1K]

Can we confirm that any bug or beetle, once temps drop, will freeze off? But once the wood is thawed, they come back to life, correct?

Does that look like beetles that are making pinholes and burrows in that barK?

Just for safety sake, i'm stacking clean kindling and stuff that doesn't need splitting on the rack. And i'm just piling the rotted and infested wood in a pile. How far away do the separate stacks of wood have to be?

 

[GrizzlyAdams86]

The people I know with OWBs will take pretty much everything. In fact one person with an OWB when splitting wood and would get a pieces with carpender ants in them they would toss'em in the chicken pen for a while. Where as the people with indoor stoves get the good stuff.

 

[ProMac1K]

Cut down a couple nice-sized ash trees today. One has shelf fungus growing up it. From what I hear, that stuff will dry up in a matter of time. I hope so, I kicked a chunk of it off and it wreaked to high :censored:.

I also bucked the trees into two, and pulled them across the yard to get them out of the way. Do any of you cut them down and then limb and buck them later? I like to cleanup the branches after limbing, rather than add to the mess in the grove. I've been hauling long flatbed trailer loads of brush out of the grove, trying to clean it up so I can cut. I've got a stack of branches that's plenty high the way it is, so didn't want to limb the trees yet.

 

[ProMac1K]

I think your after Holly Wood. Thats th wood you see in the movies. Every piece perfect in size and shape. Or like you see on a rack in a magazine. Thats not real firewood. Real firewood is every shape and size some my be in a certain stage of rot. However the nasty crotches will be your best longest burning wood.

Not after Holly Wood, just Candid Camera wood.

The kind you see on sawbucks, getting cookies cut out of.

Well, I cut about an acre this past weekend. I won't be so picky this time. Also, won't be storing it inside a closed shed either. Or the basement. We'll see how it seasons.

 

[J.W Younger]

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?

I,m so picky if it don't stack just right I kick it over and stack it again