This may be my OCD kickin up

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infinitymike

infinitymike

Minister of Fire
Aug 23, 2011
1,835
Long Island, NY
BUT I have been sorting my wood into different racks. Each rack I made holds one full cord. My splits are 24" long so I have a rack 10 feet long by 6.5 feet high.

My thinking is that I can monitor the dying/seasoning time and pull from each rack as I see fit and mix the loads in the burner.


Any way.... I have 3 cord of locust stacked 1 cord of maple stacked and 1 cord of oak stacked.

1002934n.jpg



Since this pic I've split and stacked more.

Now I have still have some oak, cherry and maple. not enough for a full cord of each.
Should I put them in 3 separate racks and fill the up as I get more. But that creates another problem depending on how long it takes me to fill it up because the more seasoned stuff will be on the bottom.

Do cherry and oak take the same time to season? Should I mix the two in one rack?

Am I just, as I always do, over thinking it and should keep it simple and just stack the wood as I cut it and split it.

Just so you know I get my wood for free from guys in the tree business so I get different species each time they drop it.

And another piece of info I have never burned before and just got my new WOOD GUN E100 yesterday!!!!!!

1002952y.jpg



Man am I stoked!!!
 
that boiler looks like a beast!
(man am i jealous)
good luck with it. bet you and your family will be warm this winter. if it ever gets cold i mean.

OT
 
I stack mine by species also but just use the "2 years for drying" rule of thumb for all of it. That way I know it's dry no matter what it is. I like your racks, I've been to lazy this year to build mine. Still using some run down ones that need some help.
 
That is Super Cool!
 
I have the same situation as you. I get free wood from my wood suppliers. There's always a mix of wood species. I stack them together. However, the size of the splits will depend on the species. The species that seasons slower (Oak, Apple, Walnut) will have smaller splits compared to faster seasoning species ( Maple, Locust)
 
I stack oak separate - I want 3 years for it to season, so I don't want other faster seasoned woods mixed into the oak. Cherry is one of the fastest seasoning woods - in good wind and Sun, 6 months seems just fine. Cheers!
 
I'm like NHWoods . . . only keep the oak separate . . . although until just this year I never had any appreciable amount of oak to make it worth separating . . . however this year I scored 3/4 of a cord of bucked and split oak for free . . . which will see my woodstove in three years.
 
I stack it all by species, but that doesn't mean that I don't run multiple species together in the same stack. The wood stack along the back of my house starts with hard maple, turns to white oak, then to red oak. The stack by the basement that is 6 rows wide starts with 2 rows of hedge that turn to black locust, then 2 more rows of black locust that turns to honey locust, then a row of mixed woods that will be burned this year. The mixed stack is partially punky BL, misc poplar, dogwood, and a few other misc pieces that were laying around.

I also have a small stack of black cherry.

ETA, to further expound on my method, I stack in the order that I intend to burn. This years wood is going to start with a little poplar left from last year, transitioning into the mixed pile, then into the honey locust I think. The row along the back of my property is being used as a winter wind-break for some trees I planted so I don't really want to burn that just yet. The hedge and BL are my "long term" emergency supply of wood because of their rot-resistance.
 
I give you credit for all that sorting. You don't just have OCD, I think really you might have ODC. It's pretty much the same thing but the letters are in the right order. :)

The only thing I keep separate is my oak.

Maybe a divider in your racks so you have left and right sides to fill and not just a really wide space with seasoned at the bottom?
 
infinitymike said:
BUT I have been sorting my wood into different racks. Each rack I made holds one full cord. My splits are 24" long so I have a rack 10 feet long by 6.5 feet high.

My thinking is that I can monitor the dying/seasoning time and pull from each rack as I see fit and mix the loads in the burner.

Any way.... I have 3 cord of locust stacked 1 cord of maple stacked and 1 cord of oak stacked.

Since this pic I've split and stacked more.

Now I have still have some oak, cherry and maple. not enough for a full cord of each.
Should I put them in 3 separate racks and fill the up as I get more. But that creates another problem depending on how long it takes me to fill it up because the more seasoned stuff will be on the bottom.

Do cherry and oak take the same time to season? Should I mix the two in one rack?

Am I just, as I always do, over thinking it and should keep it simple and just stack the wood as I cut it and split it.

Just so you know I get my wood for free from guys in the tree business so I get different species each time they drop it.

And another piece of info I have never burned before and just got my new WOOD GUN E100 yesterday!!!!!!

Man am I stoked!!!
Click to expand...

Hi Mike. Looks good and congratulations on the new boiler.

Cherry and oak do not take the same time to season. Cherry can be ready to burn in a year or less. Oak; 3 years or 2 if you are really lucky. So, definitely sort the oak from the cherry and maple. The cherry and maple could be stacked together and would compliment each other.
 
If I had the time and room, I would stack by type, but that is also assuming I get a full face cord of each. My racks are all a single face cord in size, so I try to put same type in each rack. If not, then it gets stacked by when I split it since all mine is from scrounging so it's more important to know when we got it so we know when it's time to burn. We have enough room that I can rotate each year so it all gets at least one full year of seasoning. The exception is oak; I will stack it all together and make sure it gets minimum 2 years.
 
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