Seasoning Red vs. White oak

it will take 3 to 4 years to dry enough to burn. Red oak retains water and white oak doesn't.

I find them more or less the same. White Oak is supposed to have closed pores, which makes it waterproof. That is why white oak is used for barrels and, formerly, ships. Red Oak has open pores so it isn't as waterproof. You'd think the open pores would make Red Oak dry faster, and maybe it does, but since I measure seasoning time in whole years, the difference is not noticeable to me.

Wisneaky said:

it will take 3 to 4 years to dry enough to burn. Red oak retains water and white oak doesn't.

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What in the hell..

Wood Duck said:

I find them more or less the same. White Oak is supposed to have closed pores, which makes it waterproof. That is why white oak is used for barrels and, formerly, ships. Red Oak has open pores so it isn't as waterproof. You'd think the open pores would make Red Oak dry faster, and maybe it does, but since I measure seasoning time in whole years, the difference is not noticeable to me.

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The open pores make it retain water.

Regardless of exact species, Oak is extremely dense. Figure a minimum of 2 years if split on the smaller side.

You might get more responses on the Holly in a fresh thread - I've got no experience with it myself.

https://chimneysweeponline.com/howood.htm

I've no experience with Holly either, but check the link: American Holly is rated higher in btu's than white oak.

I just split and stacked a half cord of red oak this morning, it was mostly 6"-12" limb wood and it didn't split near as easy as the white oak I had last year. It was just cut last Wednesday so it is green and heavy as hell. I sure hope it doesn't take 3 years to season, I already have a neighbor that wants it for next winters fires. Good score Fishkiller.

claydogg84 said:

Regardless of exact species, Oak is extremely dense. Figure a minimum of 2 years if split on the smaller side.

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This.

2PistolPacker said:

I just split and stacked a half cord of red oak this morning, it was mostly 6"-12" limb wood and it didn't split near as easy as the white oak I had last year. It was just cut last Wednesday so it is green and heavy as hell. I sure hope it doesn't take 3 years to season, I already have a neighbor that wants it for next winters fires. Good score Fishkiller.

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It will burn next winter, but not good. It will sizzle, steam, smoke, and produce at least half the heat output.

2PistolPacker said:

I just split and stacked a half cord of red oak this morning, it was mostly 6"-12" limb wood and it didn't split near as easy as the white oak I had last year. It was just cut last Wednesday so it is green and heavy as hell. I sure hope it doesn't take 3 years to season, I already have a neighbor that wants it for next winters fires. Good score Fishkiller.

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I can't get oak to season in less than 2yrs and even then some is iffy but I have a lot of shade. Some folks out your way seem to have better luck if they can get it out in the open. Years probably pushing though.

2PistolPacker said:

I just split and stacked a half cord of red oak this morning, it was mostly 6"-12" limb wood and it didn't split near as easy as the white oak I had last year. It was just cut last Wednesday so it is green and heavy as hell. I sure hope it doesn't take 3 years to season, I already have a neighbor that wants it for next winters fires. Good score Fishkiller.

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I tried burning medium sized oak splits that were in my stacks for 18 months and they wouldn't keep a flame.

jatoxico said:

I can't get oak to season in less than 2yrs and even then some is iffy but I have a lot of shade.

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That's about how it is for me, and the stuff that's in the shade (woods) doesn't get as much breeze. I've pretty much resigned myself to 2 yrs. for dead Oak, 3 for live blow-downs, and those times are if it's not split too big, maybe 4" on a side.

Yup, my red oak is stacked at least three years. I actually tried to burn some two year old stuff earlier in the season as an experiment and it was miserable. My stove just didn't like it.

FishKiller said:

another question, does cutting in the middle of winter help speed up seasoning time? you would think that the tree is in "hibernation" for lack of the appropriate word, are moisture contents down? does it make a difference?

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Its going to depend on species and humidity. For oak, I dunno.

Local to me spruces and birches cut in the winter with the sap "down" are really only about two weeks of drying time ahead of green sap "up" wood cut and split in April.

For the other half of your question, how much does wood dry over the winter, it depends on your climate. I am sure you have seen freeze dried products, water vapor will evaporate from ice cubes in below freezing weather, its just a really slow process, how much air flow you got and how dry is that flowing air? I am going to look at my woodpile pretty careful this fall. One end I had stacked and split going into Thanksgiving weekend, the other end I finished after Valentines Day,a ll of it was felled sap up in late Sept 2014.

I think I will find (at my house) at the end of the summer that cutting wood sap up v- sap down and splitting before Tgiving rather than on Valentine's Day neither one really makes a huge difference. Having it all split and stacked up and ready to start drying out on the first day of the thaw is I think the main thing I need to shoot for year in and year out.

Holly is great firewood but also in high demand for it's dimensional stability, similar to black walnut. I would try to market the trunks first just to be sure. Very expensive wood, used for jewelry boxes and gun stocks IIRC.

Holly is (was) also popular for making thin floor boards on wooden boats. Narrow strips of holly between wide boards of mahogany is a really really good looking floor, at least to my eye.

If you got some good straight pieces they don't need to be very thick to be floor boards, usually the holly would be maybe 1/2" wide and 1" tall, between 3/4" thick mahogany boards 4-6" wide. A little proud of the mahogany boards for some traction.

In the dead of winter(Jan-Feb), I broke out the red oak that I split and stacked June 2010. Kept us nice and warm. I mixed it in with other woods, which I found to work best.

I burn a lot of red oak. It takes between 2 - 3 years for the red oak to be ready to burn. We have a fairly wet climate in western North Carolina so I stack it on pallets and keep it covered.

I hate oak. It's way down on my list of favourite species for nearly any purpose, including lumber. Any oak I get, I trade away for something more to my liking - usually beech, birch or ash.

Jon_E said:

Any oak I get, I trade away for something more to my liking

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About half the trees here are Oak so I just have to bite the bullet and get it dry. Once dry, it's about the best-burning wood there is IMO, especially White.

Wisneaky said:

it will take 3 to 4 years to dry enough to burn. Red oak retains water and white oak doesn't.

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Based on every bit of info I've ever read on this, the extreme difference is between Northern (aka upland) and Southern (aka lowland) oaks, much more so than red vs. white. The Northern oaks dry roughly twice as fast, as their lowland counterparts, which may be why we see such variation in dry times reported on this forum. All kiln tables, etc., break oaks into four (sometimes five) categories:

Upland red
Lowland red
Upland white
Lowland white
Bacterial

http://ir.library.oregonstate.edu/x...5242/Techniques_Procedures_ocr.pdf?sequence=1

http://www.fpl.fs.fed.us/documnts/fputr/fputr8.pdf