By Type, How Long to Dry - Wood

[leeave96]

We read many times - let your wood dry for 2 or 3 years, but not all wood is the same type and not all of itis green.

What kind of drying times are you comfortable with for a given type of wood?

For example:

Oak - green & fresh cut: 2 to 3 yrs for me.

Oak - Dead, aged in the woods for several years, but exposed to rain: 1 year for me.

What are your drying times vs wood type and green vs something else?

I am busy cutting wood for fall of 2012 & 2013, but as I cut am encountering some dead wood that will be suitable for the fall of 2011 too.

This time around, if it is in the woods, made of wood, it get's cut and put in the trailer or truck. This includes oak, locust, pine and from this past weekend, black cherry.

Some of these pieces of wood are so aged and dry that I might not want to throw them into the Englander 30 if it hasn't burned down for fear of a thermo nuclear melt down, but no worries for the Keystone.

Thanks!
Bill

 

[CTYank]

I'd love to see a simple table of species/drying time like you request. But ... ain't gonna happen- way too many variables.
Variables (some): species, growing site conditions, climate where drying will occur, dimensions of pieces, orientation of stacks, target final MC.

Around here, in the spirit of K.I.S.S., I dry the wood as long & completely as feasible outside facing south & top-covered. Come fall, with first small fires in stove, some of the best splits start getting moved indoors to racks near the stove. Before long, there's plenty of Good Stuff handy with very low MC. (Yes, care to keep temps low is mandatory.)

The added efficiency of burning the really dry wood reduces the consumption rate so the wood still outside will likely get longer drying time.

Distilled: my approach focuses on the demand side vs the supply side. (No problem, since I'm no longer in firewood sales.) Increasing quality to the max without regard to recent weather gets it all done here.

 

[pen]

Unfortunately, there are MANY variables here.

Saying ash dries in 10 months is about as realistic as saying "Brand X bath towel will dry in 12 hours".

As a general rule, most species will dry in 1 full year under average conditions.

Oak and other extrmely dense wood should have 2 full years under average conditions.

pen

 

[Dune]

I have three stacks I am making right now. I didn't process for a while, and now need to get the piles out of the front yard.

Green oak and pine in one stack. I also put some large maple rounds that will just fit in my stove in that stack. The extra drying time will make up for the size. This pile is for two or three years out, hopefully three.

Next stack is the wood shed for this years burning. Two year old oak, freshly cut dead cherry, green cherry and maple and pear branches up to about two inches, year old apple rounds, two year old pine, spuce and fir, year old hard maple splits.

Third stack is for the following winter. Dead oak, large fruit wood rounds, year old pine, green oak branches, you get the idea.

 

[leeave96]

Firstly - my apologies for posting this to the wrong forum - thanks for moving it here!

Growing-up, we ALWAYS cut oak or locust - really nothing else. We'd walk by apple, cherry, pine, popular, etc. I always thought it was because there was enough of the good stuff to leave the other behind. As I get older and feel my back ache for longer periods of time, I have come to conclude that we bypassed that other stuff because my Dad was running the saw (a new back then Homelite Super XL) and me and my brother were toating the wood the distances to the truck - past the other stuff! Soooo, in as much as my fine Keystone seems to burn everything very well, I see no reason to walk by a potential stick of wood.

Having said the above - I know the drying times for oak and locust, I'm just courious to others drying time for different types of wood.

Thanks!
Bill

 

[Mt Ski Bum]

My experience in a low-humidity rocky-mountain climate:

Lodgepole pine, Ponderosa Pine, Limber Pine, Subalpine Fir, Douglas Fir, Engelmann Spruce, & other mountain conifers of the Northern Rockies:

Already Dead: 3 months or less, sometimes dry enough to burn instantly

Still Green: 3-6 months


Aspen, Cottonwood:

Already dead: 1-3 months

Still green: 3-8 months

 

[gzecc]

We read many times - let your wood dry for 2 or 3 years, but not all wood is the same type and not all of itis green.

What kind of drying times are you comfortable with for a given type of wood?

For example:

Oak - green & fresh cut: 2 to 3 yrs for me.

Oak - Dead, aged in the woods for several years, but exposed to rain: 1 year for me.

What are your drying times vs wood type and green vs something else?

I am busy cutting wood for fall of 2012 & 2013, but as I cut am encountering some dead wood that will be suitable for the fall of 2011 too.

This time around, if it is in the woods, made of wood, it get's cut and put in the trailer or truck. This includes oak, locust, pine and from this past weekend, black cherry.

Some of these pieces of wood are so aged and dry that I might not want to throw them into the Englander 30 if it hasn't burned down for fear of a thermo nuclear melt down, but no worries for the Keystone.

Thanks!
Bill

The best you may be able to get is the table at the bottow of this web page.
http://mb-soft.com/juca/print/firewood.html

 

[midwestcoast]

+1 on Pen's summary: Generally 1 year, Oak 2 years. That's about as good a rule of thumb as there is IMO.
I'll add that if you really MUST cheat, you can have luck with many softwoods, lighter hardwoods (like basswood, cottonwood...) and a few of the denser hardwoods like Ash, Cherry, or Birch put-up in early spring for the following winter. Spring to fall drying time is more valuable than below freezing winter months.

 

[woodchip]

Whatever live wood you cut now will have the sap up so it will take quite a bit longer to season than wood cut just a few months ago.

Any standing dead wood will probably be ready to burn within a year or so (except oak here, it really does not start to season until it is cut and split), and standing dead birch tends to rot without being cut and split fairly quickly. Ash is the quickest to season here, as it seems quite dry to start with. Cut last February, it may well be ready to burn next February. Same with Cherry, it is quite quick. It also depends on your own microclimate where you live, as well as the size you cut your wood.

My main aim here is to get further ahead, so I'm not spending my time wondering whether the next load is fully dry or not. Not only will my 3-4 year ahead plan guarantee me some fuel security against any unusually cold winters, it will allow me a small insurance against any unforseen illness or accident. Last thing I want is to fall ill and then go cold.... ;-)

 

[Backwoods Savage]

In the interest of the KISS principle, always have 2 to 3 years worth of wood cut, split and stacked and you will never have to be even thinking about how long your wood has to dry.

As for the dead stuff, I've never bought into the belief that you can cut dead wood and burn it that year. Yes, some you can but most you can't. I recently was at a fellows place and he was cutting an oak that had been dead 3 years (his statement it was 3 years dead). I told him to cut it and he would find all sorts of moisture. He did.....and he did. That oak will still need 2-3 years to dry. On the other hand we have cut dead elm and burned it right away, but only the tops of the trees. The bottom almost always is filled with moisture.