Can wood be too dry to burn

[Burd]

I was out in the woods yesturday and I came accross a lot of dead trees.Thiers one tree that is close to the road and I think its and oak and It looks like its been dead for a long time. Its not laying on the ground and when it fell it landed in a Y of another tree. Now I reallize that it will burn but can wood be to dry?.
Will I have control of the heat in my insert?
If wood is to dry do I have to watch that I dont over fire?.
Will it burn faster then normal?
Our did I find some really good wood just like a pot of gold :bug:
Should I get all that I can of the dead wood our am I wasting my time? Our should I just keep on seasoning all the green tree in the area.

 

[billb3]

If it's oak it can't possibly be too dry until you cut , split and stack it.
(in Iraq)

It will be dust and you will need a dust pan and broom to get it into your stove.

 

[Burd]

[quote author="billb3" date="1212196472"]If it's oak it can't possibly be too dry until you cut , split and stack it.
(in Iraq)

It will be dust and you will need a dust pan and broom to get it into your stove.

I can take a four inch round and snap it with my leg. The tree looks like drift wood it is dry to the bone I under stand that it needs to be split but ttheirs alot of little stuff like 4 to 5 inch rounds that can go in can it be to dry

 

[BrotherBart]

If the trunk is intact it will need splitting and some drying time. Oak can be too dry, I am here to tell ya. But where it got me was using some from a tree that had shattered and stood drying for a few years. The big shards from that sucker took off and, shut all the way down, the 30 had six inch blue flames blasting from every hole in all four burn tubes.

I had to block off secondary air to get it back down.

 

[Burd]

Thank Bro. Do you think that its inportant to have a moister meter to pre vent some thing like that from happening.Our is this some thing that all new wood burner need to learn for them selfs Basicly learn your wood on your owen and in do time youll get to now what peacies to put in to get hotter temps

 

[BrotherBart]

If you can snap oak in two it isn't just dry it is "punky". Stuff probably has the weight of paper. Really not good for anything.

It has rotted away the good heartwood.

Yeah you will learn over time when it is good to go and when it isn't.

 

[savageactor7]

Burd imo.... no hardwood can be too dry to burn. So yeah...take all you can get and then some. Now some fir trees have sap in them that's almost like an accellerant use them for outdoor campfires only...imo.

In my new EPA stove my best prime and driest (emergency use only / indoor wood shed ) wood burns hotter at a slower burn...and that makes me very happy, at least that what I think. And I've been burning since '77.

 

[grizzly2]

Behold! BrotherBart doth telleth thee the truth. 8-/

 

[fossil]

I'd have to say that if you can just snap a 4" round with little effort, that wood's way beyond dry...it's rotted. The trunk of the tree may well be worth the effort to process for firewood, but any of it that's as you described probably is not. Wood seasons when it's protected from moisture. If it sits long enough out in the elements it just rots. Rick

 

[RedRanger]

Behold! BrotherBart doth telleth thee the truth. 8-/

Some of the times :cheese:

 

[Burd]

I under stand the concept of wood and the process it go through.The topic is can it be to dry to burn.Will I be abile to control my HEAT OUT PUT.Can it ruin the insert if I allway burn really dry wood. Let just say if I had a moister meter and all the wood was reading really low like 2percent is It possible to be to dry.
Maybe the round was 2" that I broke I was just try to say that this stuff look really dry.I found this tree along the gas pipe line and the tree lays in the sun all day and its not touching the ground the bark is no wear to be found the color is really grey and when I broke the round it had a redish color to it.(oak)
all the wood is petty solid.So will I be abile to control my heat out put if I loaded the insert for aand over night burn?

 

[RonB]

Sounds like you have dried punky oak. It is not worth your time to process it. Ask me how I know?--I have a 12" diameter by 12' long straight section that I just bucked up yesterday. Split one open and it was balsa wood. Now I have to haul the rounds back to the forest to finish decomposing. Fossil had it right. The weather, moisture, will take its toll on wood even if off the ground. One of the few exceptions is black locust. I have had some logs on the ground for 6-7 years and they are good as gold.

Your actual post was "Some wood too dry to Burn?" We should answer that one. Probably. I am thinking about kiln dried, processed wood like at the lumber yard (2X4's and the likes). Anyone have experience with wood being too dry that is normally processed like we all split and stack it?

 

[Jerry_NJ]

Related, but White Pine. This may help with the original question, then maybe it will not... I post in the spirit of the original question.

I took down a small White Pine this afternoon. It was about 8" in diameter and about 25' tall. It was/is solid inside, the bark is mostly off, or comes off if still on trunk. The wood looks good, but it is real light in weight. I don't see any rot. The chain saw took nick chips out during cutting, so the wood is not mush. I guess my basic question is White Pine that is real light weight too dry?

Perhaps the question of weight is also relevant to Oak too.

 

[fossil]

Gee whiz, burd, take some home and burn it. Your stove's not gonna run away and explode if you try some of it to see how it burns. Nobody can tell you on the Internet whether or not it's good firewood...especially without pictures. Even if the branches and twigs are beyond hope, the trunk may be good wood. Can't really tell until you buck it. Cut some and burn it, and then you can tell all of us if it's good or not. Rick

 

[Jerry_NJ]

Thanks, I've added the old Pine "rounds" (from 2" to about 8") to my seasoned firewood stack. I'll give it a try next November, a little bit at at time. The 16" x 8" diameter round must weigh 3-5 pounds.

 

[billb3]

I don't quite understand "wood too dry to burn".
Maybe my definition of wood is too extreme.

I don't consider rotten wood that is dry : wood.
I'm not even sure I would consider it mulch.
Not if you can wet it, put a seed in it and have a healthy plant growing.

When my father died, (4 years ago) I had to clean up his 'unfinished projects'.

In a falling down wood shed (roof still good) was kindling from boards from barns that my grand-father and great-grandfather cut down the pines and had milled and built chicken barns with. Roughly 100 years ago. They still burned fine. (just kindling, but good kindling).
We recycled some of it into a garage, but when we tore those barns down there was just too many boards. The stuff stacked outside in the weather rotted, the stuff that got cut up and saved for kindling was eventually burned. These barns were torn down 1969-1972. The last of the kindling was burned 2 years ago.

He also had a long stack of wood on (rotten) pallets under a open shed (just a roof). The cherry on the bottom was rotten and full of undesirables, but everything above that was fine. He had stopped burning when they took the chimney down to put a big bay window in , in 1992.

 

[Jerry_NJ]

Thanks, I think I understand. The specific wood I have is from a tree that died, due to being surrounded by larger pines, I think, and that stood dead for a few years, I don't know how many, but enough for the bark to start dropping off. When cut, it looks solid all the way through.

One reference I have says seasoned (dry) pine weighs from 30 to 50% less than seasoned hardwood, that may be enough to account for what I considered to be too light.

 

[billb3]

I'm losing red oaks to some kind of fungus / disease (plus all the other streeses like caterpillars, drought and maybe even acid rain) Some are dead, some are barely alive.
While out tagging last Winter I found four that had no bark at all. The first two The roots were rotten and I was able to rock them and push them right over by hand. One came down yanking on a rope tied about 30 feet up and 1 is still standing with a big yellow rope attached to it. About 80 years old. Hard to tell, the growth rings were so close it was obvious these guys struggled for light in an old growth forest since they day they sprouted. What little they had left for branches were rotten. "pungy" but dry I could snap them over my knee. The trunk of the tree(s) are hard a s a rock. By the time I cut through, smoke and steam was coming out of the cut. These are the only trees I've cut that I had to sharpen my Stihl chain by noontime.
This may be some of the best wood I've got. It is stacked in with the Apple trees from 2006.
If I get my chimney replaced this Summer it's gonna be hot at my house for a change.