How old is too old?

I've been given some oak and birch rounds. 6" to 18" This wood has sat for about 5 to 8 years. The oak seems good enough, but the birch seems awfully light in weight. Obviously there was some soft stuff that was thrown out.

Can wood be too old to burn?

By the way, there is about 3 cords of this stuff.

there is a guy on arboristsite who keeps talking about 40 year old oak he has behind his garage that he burns. That seems a bit old, but you should be fine. Just get it off the ground.

If it's not rotten, burn it. Watch for too quick a burn.

But your not rotten ;-)

if you can pick it up and it doesn't crumble burn it
i put in some elm that was a little crumbly on the outside and that burned for hours

Like the others, I say burn it. You say you've been given it which makes it sound like you have it on site at home. no point getting rid of it. I had about 3/4 cord of punky stuff I tried to burn thru toward the end of the year. got thru most of it but still have a bit left. Will segregate it for early season burns next year. dry wood will last hundreds of years if the bugs don't get it.

Thanks guys. I tested a burn in the firepit and the softer birch burnt pretty good. Guess the stuff is ok. The oak is fantastic!

We were driving around this weekend and a local place that specializes in vintage barn beams and other old reclaimed wood had a huge pile out front of free firewood - basically short scraps of beams they can't use. All nice untreated ancient wood.

I'd guess it's probably 100 years+ - should be REALLY nicely seasoned at this point

Took one compact truck load and may go back later to see if any is left. Will probably use this sparingly to get stove going off coals really quickly if we have an unusually long period between loads but I imagine it's going to have to run on pretty low air intake to avoid overheating.

-Colin