Stacking

I separate each species. However, poplar will get mixed with birch, red maple with cherry....etc
My sugar maple, for example, got stacked last October and its not ready to burn but was counting on the 4 facecords for this year. Thank God its all together in one location and I can skip over it to a load of beech. The beech is performing grandly.
Oak gets stacked single row and the rest goes on pallets. I can get to all of it at any one time so Im not stranded with the LIFO syndrome.(green wood stacked in front of seasoned wood)
Last in first out...
Maybe by March the sugar maple will be more up to snuff.

Stacked according to spieces. And also Apple, beech, cottonwood, dogwood, elm, fir, hickory, am I nuts? Yes.

Hardwoods go in racks that are 4wx6tx16L [3of them] . Then the next is soft wood, maple, walnut, sweet gum and so on goes into racks as stated before but only 2 of them. Need to build another 16 footer this year for more hardwoods. Right now I am filling 2018 hardwood rack.

I have my white pine separate, and one cord stacked that is mostly hickory, mulberry and oak. The rest of my stacks are all mixed up cherry, some hickory, black walnut, ash, maple and hackberry. Some dogwood blowdowns mixed in there also, but not much. Maybe going forward I might get a little more fussy. Each year I get a little better and more organized

I stack my two extremes separate - oak and white pine get their own piles. Everything else goes together.

I separate my day time wood (fir and lodgepole pine) from my overnight burn wood (birch and larch) double rows on pallets and then top covered. I am able to c,s,s standing dead softwoods and use them the following winter but I tend to put the lowest moisture content wood in the back row and highest in the front and all are loosely stacked. My biggest run ends up being 3-4 cords and the two categories meet somewhere in the middle. I have 1/3 cord of green paper birch that I have segregated from the rest.

Paulywalnut said:

And also Apple, beech, cottonwood, dogwood, elm, fir, hickory, am I nuts? Yes.

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If I could get Apple, Beech, or Hickory, there is no way I would even look at a Cottonwood.


Mine is loosely separated by species. I keep Ash and Hackberry on the ends and Oak and Maple in the middle. But, there is always a few strays. I found some Elm in the stack of Honey Locust. I don't remember ever seeing a Elm log.

Right now I separate by species because my oak won't be ready for 2-3 years. Once I'm three years ahead, it'll all get stacked together.

I only seperate according to soft vs hard. Oak and elm go together, Boxelder, cottonwood and popple go together. Haven't gotten any maples but will put them in where they belong when it comes to that point.

If you get green oak, you've got to separate somehow, don't you?

I got some apple from a neighbor, separate that for BBQ.

In

mass_burner said:

If you get green oak, you've got to separate somehow, don't you?

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I guess I do seperate to some extent. I have only cut dead standing trees so far. I generally stack the same woods together while drying. And seperate limbs vs trunk wood as they dry at different rates.

When I stage the piles up for burning for the winter they get stacked under my deck and that is when they get mixed like I mentioned.

So far I am 2 years ahead, so all my oak is dry when I come to it as it is the majority of the wood I collect.

I mix all but Oak in my drying stacks randomly. I sort it a bit when I load the facecord rack in the garage and the covered pre-garage stack on the patio. As I adjust the stacks I end up adding Beech, Locust and Mulberry that feel too heavy to have a shot at next year to the Oak stack. I'm going to be burning primo stuff almost exclusively in a couple of year's.

Just started last year. Oak is all stacked together, maple is all in one place. Got a couple sweetgums stacked at the end of the maple with cribbing to separate.

It was so aggravating, trying to get oak during deep freeze spells and all that was within reach was gum or maple, and vice versa. Seemed like what I needed was always under a ton of something I didn't currently need.

I stack low btu wood seperate from high btu wood. Currently have ash and hard maple , cherry and black walnut mixed for next year . Red oak and hickory for the year after as long as it's dry enough. So my next 2 year supply is all good stuff btu wise

I stack by date of split, but it's all mixed up by species.

Fred Wright said:

Just started last year. Oak is all stacked together, maple is all in one place. Got a couple sweetgums stacked at the end of the maple with cribbing to separate.

It was so aggravating, trying to get oak during deep freeze spells and all that was within reach was gum or maple, and vice versa. Seemed like what I needed was always under a ton of something I didn't currently need.

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Sweet gum takes forever to season. I have some 6 inch rounds that are 3 years cut and still about 25% moisture. I don't really go out of my way for it

i mix them up!

I prefer to keep my batches of wood separated by species and scores......like this silver maple...

I'm all about the American Melting Pot experience . . . most of my wood gets stacked all together regardless of species.

I do have a separate pile right now for camp fire/bon fire wood which consists of some particularly gnarly looking or over sized pine . . . and last year had a separate stack of pine and poplar which I set aside for camp fires and for early/late season burning . . . but other stacks have mixed hardwood and this Fall I even started a stack with softwood mixed into the hardwood.

I can do a reasonably good job of identifying wood . . . or at least knowing what wood is softwood and what wood is a high BTU wood (oak, beech, apple, locust and yellow birch for me) so in the woodshed it's all mixed together and I can leisurely pick and choose which wood to bring on to the porch or into the house.

Ive sorta stacked by species. I put down pallets and stack as I take trees down, usually there is enough wood for me to comfortably stack a pallet from one tree. maybe two pallets. The only difference has been my last stacks as I am carrying maple and ash over and splitting and stacking together. All that wood is on one pallet. My red oak and shagbark hickory are on their own piles.

Paulywalnut said:

Sweet gum takes forever to season. I have some 6 inch rounds that are 3 years cut and still about 25% moisture. I don't really go out of my way for it

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That it does. Have a lot of 3 - 4" limb rounds, over 2 years stacked & covered that won't burn for squat. They'll lay on a bed of red-hot coals and just smolder 'til they're gone. Thin slabs burn ok but the stuff leaves a lot of ash.

Last year was my last year cutting gum, it's all split small. No little rounds this time. Gums are plentiful here but are too much work and time for the low heat they give.