They say ash is good to burn right after cutting.

Right... And you can cut down a dead tree and burn it right away too. Right...

Once again we see the difference. I wanted to get rid of a pile of wood so decided to burn that one this year. It is not our oldest wood but it was all dead when we cut it. As most folks say, dead wood is good to burn right away. On top of it being dead, it is ash. Two counts for it being great firewood.

It burns....sort of okay. Definitely harder to get started even on coals. So how old is this wood? It was cut during the winter of 2009-2010 and was all split and stacked in March 2010. So it is over 2 years in the stack after being split.

We are lucky and have plenty to compare it to and when I break out the wood that is a year older it is a huge difference! I'll take the 3+ years in the stack any day no matter what the wood type.

For those who would like to know, I do not know what the moisture content is for this wood nor do I care in the least. I know how it burns and I also know what 1 more year means. Give me 3 years or more in the stack and I'll show you some great firewood.

I'll take your 3 year old wood too, gotta go dinners ready.

zap

Couldn't agree more Dennis. I think part of it is " seeing is believing ."

Yes, you are very correct. I'm finding this out currently. And quite the difference from last year and the year before when I started burning.

chvymn99, good that you are finding out now. This means you will make good decisions from here on out. How has deer season been out there so far this year?

Dinners done, I'll still take that three year old + wood. Meatloaf with mashed tatters with a veggie.
zap

Hush zap. You are making me hungry.

I'm not quite sure, I know Dad's excited. But with all my hours at work, it'll be another year that I haven't gotten out. I miss it dearly, but works been almost nonstop for the last 6-7 years. One day...

They say ash is good to burn right after cutting.


Who's "They"?

How comes we came cut down dead trees and oak thats been laying on the ground dead for years, bring it home fill up the stove with it a day later and have a stove top temp of 700 with it shut down all the way and a 87 degree house?

How about - some dead trees are different and dryer- and it ain't that cold outside in Mineral County, West by Gawd Vergini--no one says you can't run into that dead standing tree that you bring home and seems to burn fine. We here trade thoughts and try to help new burners and best is to get as far ahead as you can. I have run into Black Locust dead on ground burns good but burns better after sitting in stsck for a yr. Oak to

Good Luck

Yep Who Dat Not Me

You ain't fixin to die on us are you Dennis, act like you are filling folks in on things, like Myths and such??????

The ones who wrote the poem that says "Ash wet or Ash dry a king shall warm his slippers by"

Just think how much better it would be if it was split & dried a year.
900 degrees & 98 in the house
LOL

not trying to stir the pot, really.
But our humidity this summer peaked at about 50%, but typically was 15-25%.Evening humidities over 60% were a bonus. Except when we got rain that one day. Yes, that one day.
Just a stab in the dark, and am cringing in anticipation of how BS's responds. But i'm thinking we can season in less time because of this.
This doesn't deter me from the mission of three plus years supply and then some, however, Sav.

Good point "ditch"
Location & ,weather play a big part in how fast & well wood seasons.
I know it dries well thru our dry winters here.
Just think how fast it would dry with a summer in Phoenix

Not quite THAT hot here. But we had a record number of 90 plus temps.
Very hot, extremely arid, low precip. Hence, canals and reservoirs if you want to eat.

bogy, would you venture a guess you can season wood in two years up there?

The mysterious "They"
say one year for birch to be below 25%, some say 25% or less is good, some say 20% or less.
I don't have a MM, but I notice a significant difference when I burn 2 or 3 year old seasoned birch over 1 year seasoned.
I think 15% or less for the newer EPA stove is even better (if your area allows wood to get that dry)

Answer: Yes, 2 years, I'm sure it's below 20%.

my wood this year is over 2 years .
Now working on 15/16 wood so I'll have some 3+ year wood then.

I must be "they", because I cut dead trees (lodgepole pine) and burn them right away all the time. But like ditch, I live in a very different climate than you guys out East. Hot dry summers are the norm here, and trees like maple and ash couldn't survive here on the rain we get alone, you'd either have to irrigate them or they'd have to be rooted along a body of water or spring.
However, I would never advocate burning any kind of freshly cut live tree.

Not much wood value in a "dead standing " birch. Rots from the inside out & top down.
Dangerous to even try to fell them.

Yea, all my birch is from live trees. 2 years CSS & it burns well.
I do get some dead standing & down spruce now & then. Have burned it within a few weeks & it worked well.

Funny thing is, if the same lodgepole pine, that dries so nicely here, falls over and lays on the ground instead of standing upright, it will start to rot after just one year. It reabsorbs moisture again when it's laying on the ground.

I bit into a cottonwood yesterday. I've had it cut to length at least three years, probably about five. But it was about 40 inches in diameter. The wedge on that splitter just went squish even on the first bite. That big of diameter you dont have too many choices to piece off the side and get something flat going. I got lucky and was able to finally chunk out the outer, drier stuff. But the inner 20 inches of diameter was just impossible. I made ten or so attempts to get another split out, but that stringy crap just wouldn't let go of one another. Now I have a giant wad of scrap. Kind of a bummer. I've got quite a few of those and I'm not going to complete the mission this month.

So far the elm, though stringy at times, all came apart.

So I'll step on board with the talk about unethical dealers claiming "seasoned" wood having been just split that year. But next november I'm going to check out what I did this year.

The top half or third of a long dead tree (no twigs or bark) can be dry as a bone.

Yup.
http://www.hearth.com/talk/threads/excellent-small-score.91139/