Standing dead on my property

[Kenster]

I went out walking in my woods today, checking the trees before everything releafs. I've identified five or six standing dead trees, Live oak and hickory. All of them 30-40 feet tall, straight, and with very little top to them. Best of all, they are all right on, or very near my perimeter path so that I not only have easy access to cut them, I can drop them right on the path where I can buck them down to eight to ten foot lengths that my 8N and boom pole can carry around to my processing area.
I need to get after pretty quickly. I'd like to have some ready to burn by next winter. I know that's rushing it, especially the oak, but a couple of these trees have been dead for several years. I plan on splitting it and stacking it where it will be in our hot, dry Texas sun most of the day.

Will hickory season much faster than the oak?

 

[Battenkiller]

Will hickory season much faster than the oak?

Hickory will season at least twice as fast as oak. Not sure about live oak, however. I think that's an evergreen, actually. Real hard and dense. Never heard of a straight one, every pic I've seen looks crookeder than a small town judge. Wooden boatbuilders love the stuff because the crooked limbs make very strong and durable parts that don't require steam bending. Sure it's live oak?

 

[fossil]

Sometimes I find myself standing dead on my property. %-P Rick

 

[flewism]

Yes it will, if you split it small 3" by 3" stack it single row where the the sun and wind can get to both sides. On my ground I'm wide open with cropland all around except across the road and the wind moves through here unabated . In my experience wood stacked in single rows drys much quicker than wood stacked in double or triple rows or piled.

 

[savageactor7]

Hey ken when you get a chance could you post a pic of that boom pole for your tractor...just curious thanks.

Because of the hot windy weather down there...I'm thinking any tree that's harvest dead will be ready to burn next fall. The Oak you may want to split smaller just to be on the safe side.

 

[Kenster]

Here ya go, Savage.

 

[Kenster]

Will hickory season much faster than the oak?

Sure it's live oak?

Not certain. There is a lot of live oak on the property. You're right about it being evergreen, or almost so. Around here, it does lose its leaves but at vastly different times than other deciduous trees. One in our back yard was still full of green leaves until about a week or so ago. They're all gone now just as everything else has started budding out.

On the trees in question, they've all been dead long enough where there have not been any leaves for quite a while and limbs are starting to fall but the long trunks still look very solid. I'm pretty certain they are oaks but they are not full, long curvy limbed like live oaks. We have a lot of water oaks but they're definitely not them either. I'll have to take some pics and post them.

 

[Backwoods Savage]

Kenster, when you find out for sure I'd really like to know how that live oak burns.

I like your boom and when I was a kid I got in lots and lots of time on one of those Ford tractors. I did all the planting and cultivating with it plus we used it for hauling wagons, cutting and raking hay and in winter for hauling manure, etc. I planted a lot of corn and beans for neighbors with one of those too. I remember mounting a radio on it right behind the seat so I could listen to the radio while cultivating.

 

[savageactor7]

Thanks ken I saved it in case someone needs and idea how to safely log without a 3PH. btw every now and then those 8N's come up for sale here ...you can't kill 'em.

 

[Todd]

Y ou never know for sure with standing dead Oak whether it will be ready to burn in 6 months or 2 years. Lots of different factors. According to all the different firewood BTU tables I've seen Live Oak is the highest. I sure would like to get my hands on some.

 

[fredarm]

My experience with standing dead (several years) oak is that you can burn the top third or so and branches pretty much right away, the middle third after a few months of drying and the bottom third after a year. I've cut up standing dead oaks that have been dead at least 5 years with no bark where the bottom part of the trunk is still as wet as it probably was green. It does seem to dry out faster than green wood, though.

 

[Battenkiller]

Y ou never know for sure with standing dead Oak whether it will be ready to burn in 6 months or 2 years. Lots of different factors. According to all the different firewood BTU tables I've seen Live Oak is the highest. I sure would like to get my hands on some.

It is supposed to be some of the gnarliest wood on the continent, so hope you have a good splitter if you find some. Besides the branch crooks and rot resistance, another reason that boatbuilders like the stuff is its incredible resistance to splitting. In fact, the USS Constitution ("Old Ironsides") was clad in southern live oak. It can have a density as high at 75 lbs/cu.ft. (water is about 62 lbs/cu.ft.), so it is even denser than hedge. It'd be almost like burning coal, I imagine.

A few pics of southern live oak trees I found on a post on ArboristSite.com:

 

[Flatbedford]

I went out walking in my woods today, checking the trees before everything releafs. I've identified five or six standing dead...

Wouldn't it be easier to ID the dead after the leaves come out?

 

[billb3]

I went out walking in my woods today, checking the trees before everything releafs. I've identified five or six standing dead...

Wouldn't it be easier to ID the dead after the leaves come out?

I find the leaves block the view, easy to miss a dead one a bit further away.
The trees missing the branches that would normally grow leaves seem easier to spot in the Winter to me.

If you're standing right under the tree then in the Summer with/without the leaves might be easier.
Course you can be a bit busy swatting skeets, too.

 

[ChillyGator]

My understanding is Live Oak is a beast to split.......my father says to avoid em at all costs........I usually listen to him.

The WATER OAKS on the other hand split like BUTTER!

 

[Kenster]

My understanding is Live Oak is a beast to split.......my father says to avoid em at all costs........I usually listen to him.

The WATER OAKS on the other hand split like BUTTER!

After further consideration, I don't think any of the trees in question are live oaks. I'm pretty sure they are some sort of oak, but definitely not water oak, of which there are quite a few on my property and all are very healthy. I took down a huge water oak about a year or so ago that had been hit by lightning two years earlier. A lot of the larger branches had gradually fallen off. It was the first big tree I ever cut down. must have been 40 feet or so. I couldn't quite reach around it chest high. My little 16 inch Craftsman eventually got through it and it fell exactly where I wanted it to. Which was pure luck, though I was trying to be scientific about it. It split very nicely with my 8lb maul after I bucked it into about 20 inch lengths. It burned great after seasoning just once year. I don't know if the lightning strike helped accelerate the seasoning process or not.
A friend/neighbor recently gave me a 20 foot long white oak log that had been laying in his yard for a long time. It was about 20 inches diameter. I bucked it to 16-20 inch logs. It was extremely hard and took several mighty whacks with the maul before signs of cracks appears. The longer bucks were much harder to get that first split. Once it split into halves, the rest went very quickly. It's very solid wood with no hint of punkiness though it had been on the ground for a couple of years and was standing dead before that. That one log gave me a solid stack on a full size pallet about four feet high. What is that? Slightly less than half a cord?