After driving by this for two years I decided that it was time to buck it up, no maul so I cut it in half (noodled) and took a moisture reading. Lots of sugar maple in the area this was down in.
zap
zap
ansehnlich1 said:hey zap, great pic. It kinda proves just cuz a tree is dead and down a couple years don't mean it's ready to split and burn right away eh!
Danno77 said:that's 31% and was sitting on the ground. I bet standing up or laying off the ground would have it closer to burning than it was. maybe look around for one that's laying right on the ground and throw something under it to keep off the dirt. repeat the experiment in two years, lol.
thanx, been wondering if stacking oak vertically, so to drain, might make a diff.Adios Pantalones said:Have cut good sized oaks that were purposely girdled a year before- water squished out of the base rounds, but most of the tree was quite dry. The3 branches draw some water out, some sinks by gravity, and standing up like that gives good surface area for drying. On the ground is very different.
Cowboy Billy said:Zap I cut down a white birch last fall that died because I was working around it with the dozer the year before. I was surprised to see that it was soaking wet. But it dried out fast. I have come to think we are dealing with two types of moisture in wood. One where the moisture is bound up in the cells of the wood which takes a long time to dry and the other is moisture around the cells but dries fairly quickly.
Billy
Cowboy Billy said:...I have come to think we are dealing with two types of moisture in wood. One where the moisture is bound up in the cells of the wood which takes a long time to dry and the other is moisture around the cells but dries fairly quickly.
Billy
ansehnlich1 said:hey zap, great pic. It kinda proves just cuz a tree is dead and down a couple years don't mean it's ready to split and burn right away eh!
A live oak would be at 45% or better so you are dealing with 15% less moisture from the get go. Dead trees and logs are a crap shoot.woodjack said:Cowboy Billy said:...I have come to think we are dealing with two types of moisture in wood. One where the moisture is bound up in the cells of the wood which takes a long time to dry and the other is moisture around the cells but dries fairly quickly.
Billy
I think you're on to something.
I've split fallen dead oak that looked like it was dead for decades. Thought for sure it would be ready to burn immediately but my moisture meter told me otherwise (28-31%) - I was beginning to hate my moisture meter.
However, once split, the wood seemed to season in a fraction of the time as fresh cut oak with similar moisture content.
woodjack said:Cowboy Billy said:...I have come to think we are dealing with two types of moisture in wood. One where the moisture is bound up in the cells of the wood which takes a long time to dry and the other is moisture around the cells but dries fairly quickly.
Billy
I think you're on to something.
I've split fallen dead oak that looked like it was dead for decades. Thought for sure it would be ready to burn immediately but my moisture meter told me otherwise (28-31%) - I was beginning to hate my moisture meter.
However, once split, the wood seemed to season in a fraction of the time as fresh cut oak with similar moisture content.
Zap, BC is a nice place, but you can't see much of it from those pictures! lolzapny said:Carbon, Southern BC looks like a nice place, is that PINE!
River19 said:We have some standing dead 4”-5” whispy birches and beeches, plus a bunch that were downed the past winter etc. So I went out last weekend and cut up some of the dry stuff that was sitting around on the ground, most was in the 11-17% range, but the birch that was cut and left on the ground was about 30%+ (meter kicks off at 30%).
It is amazing what birch will hold for water content. Most of my seasoned wood for this year is in the 11-15% range.
I have mostly a bunch of those 4-6” rounds cut this year, not much worth splitting, but I’m now starting to get bitten by the bug and may look at a basic set up to split next year.
zapny said:River19 said:We have some standing dead 4”-5” whispy birches and beeches, plus a bunch that were downed the past winter etc. So I went out last weekend and cut up some of the dry stuff that was sitting around on the ground, most was in the 11-17% range, but the birch that was cut and left on the ground was about 30%+ (meter kicks off at 30%).
It is amazing what birch will hold for water content. Most of my seasoned wood for this year is in the 11-15% range.
I have mostly a bunch of those 4-6” rounds cut this year, not much worth splitting, but I’m now starting to get bitten by the bug and may look at a basic set up to split next year.
River19, 11-15 % I'll take that. I have a dead standing maple that I want to fell and take a reading on, maybe this week.
zap
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