Thick Moss on Oak - Do You Remove?

[Oregon Bigfoot]

Most all of the Oregon Oak I have scrounged this year has thick carpets of moss on them. I took the extra time to scrape off the moss. I have another friend that scrounged from the same oak trees I was on, and he doesn't bother taking off the moss. He says it's a waste of time.

I have to admit, stopping and scraping each piece of wood that has moss on it, while cutting and splitting does take considerably more time. My thinking for scraping off the moss, is that I get less mess in the house and woodshed. Moss holds wood chips and dirt. Also, the moss would seem to hold moisture, and slow the seasoning time down a bit, and also holds more mold and mildew. Obviously, I can't scrape all of the moss off, but I get 80-90% of it off anyway.

What do you do?

Oregon Bigfoot

 

[Dune]

Wasting time and working against yourself. Dried moss is good fire starter.

 

[Backwoods Savage]

The moss should dry quite fast and pose no problem so long as you stack the wood off the ground and get air circulation. Hard to beat the wind for drying.

 

[billb3]

Unless you have a buyer for it removing it is a waste of time.

 

[trailmaker]

I tried removing moss from my Coast Live Oak but it just took too much time. I found that if it's left to season long enough, a lot of the bark will pop off on it's own, saving you all that work.

 

[WellSeasoned]

I cut up alot of wood today with moss on it and being a newbie, didn't think twice about removing it. My thought as well, with be plenty dry by next year, and makes good fire starting.

 

[bogydave]

With the many times I handle the wood before it come in the house, most of the larger chunks of moss dries & falls off.
If it makes it to the stove, it gets burned.
Cleaner to handle if it's knocked off though, lees dirt to make a mess when going into the house.
It's only on the north side anyway

 

[Thistle]

Guessing 98% of the wood I cut is standing dead or fallen.The only thing I remove that might be stuck to the wood is any vines,dead or otherwise.Poison Ivy rarely bothers me,but even in winter I remove it all.Even if its just Virginia Creeper,its a nuisance.Any moss I leave it alone,it either falls off or gets burned eventually.

 

[firefighterjake]

Guess I've never seen wood that had that much moss or lichens on it to bother scraping it off . . . and most of the time by the time I've cut the tree down, bucked it up, thrown it in my ATV trailer, thrown it into the truck, thrown it into a pile, split it and thrown the splits to the side, stack the splits, toss the splits into a wheelbarrow and stack the splits in the woodshed, move the splits to the stack on the covered porch after seasoning for two years (one year outside, one year in the woodshed) and then haul the wood inside . . . by then most of the moss and lichens have dried up and/or fallen off.

 

[Adabiviak]

Yeah, if the moss or lichen is still moist enough to be a problem, the wood is almost certainly not seasoned enough to be burning either.