Logs - how long do they stay?

[woodjack]

Several months ago I had several large trees cut down that were hanging over my house, and now have many cords of wood, cut into small logs and stacked on pallets - but not split. I want to split it all by hand and it may take over a year or two at the rate I'm going. It's a mix of oak, hickory and maple.
Does anyone know how long the wood will stay good to burn if I keep it covered with a tarp?

 

[jtp10181]

Don't tarp it too tight and keep it off the ground. If you keep it dry it should last quite a while before rotting. Also plan on letting is season for at least 1 year AFTER splitting it before burning it. Wood wont season properly while still in rounds.

 

[eernest4]

Dear woodjack,

Dont make the mistake that I made, Thinking that I was going to split 5 cords of wood by hand before it rotted. I managed to split one cord by hand & the other 4 cords rotted & I had to take them to the dump.
Thats about $500.oo in the dump.

Better that you go to www.tractorsupply.com & buy a 22 ton huskey gas log splitter with a 6.6 hp B&S;engine & a 11 gal/min two stage pump. I comes completly assembled , ready to tow home with a 2 in ball hitch on your car or pickup & with 100.oo worth of hydralic oil already installed. $1,049.oo new

This ia a quality splitter that should last you 20 yrs if you properly maintain it & dont beat it. Either take it in at nite or have a rain proof for the engine as you cant let it get wet & expect it to run. Issues with water in the gas & the ignition from rain. But this is with any gas engine. They just won't abide rain. The other problem is theft, so the splitter needs to be at least in side a wood shed with a locking door & a motion detector alarm system.

You going to need a wood shed anyways, not only to store the log spliter but to keep all that nice firewood from rotting.

Wood will start to rot outside in 2 years, by the third year ,it needs to be burned up. If it still out there on the 4th yr its all mushrooms,fungas, mold,mildew,bacteria worms & germs & virus & punky soft.

I been there & the wood done that.

 

[backpack09]

Dear woodjack,

Dont make the mistake that I made, Thinking that I was going to split 5 cords of wood by hand before it rotted. I managed to split one cord by hand & the other 4 cords rotted & I had to take them to the dump.
Thats about $500.oo in the dump.

Better that you go to www.tractorsupply.com & buy a 22 ton huskey gas log splitter with a 6.6 hp B&S;engine & a 11 gal/min two stage pump. I comes completly assembled , ready to tow home with a 2 in ball hitch on your car or pickup & with 100.oo worth of hydralic oil already installed. $1,049.oo new

This ia a quality splitter that should last you 20 yrs if you properly maintain it & dont beat it. Either take it in at nite or have a rain proof for the engine as you cant let it get wet & expect it to run. Issues with water in the gas & the ignition from rain. But this is with any gas engine. They just won't abide rain. The other problem is theft, so the splitter needs to be at least in side a wood shed with a locking door & a motion detector alarm system.

You going to need a wood shed anyways, not only to store the log spliter but to keep all that nice firewood from rotting.

Wood will start to rot outside in 2 years, by the third year ,it needs to be burned up. If it still out there on the 4th yr its all mushrooms,fungas, mold,mildew,bacteria worms & germs & virus & punky soft.

I been there & the wood done that.

I disagree.

I have been pulling red oak logs 12" in diameter out of the swamp behind my house. The trees were cut and dumped by the previous owner 7 years ago. Most are still good as new, with at most 1" of rot on the outside of the logs.

I also disagree on the buying a log splitter. Go rent one for a day, see how much you can get done, then decide if its worth the high price for something you can get away with renting a couple times a year.

I also disagree on needing a woodshed, there are hundreds of us on this board who stack our piles outside and let them season in the sun for years to come.

My Opinion is that if you are dealing with good hardwood (oak, hickory) you can get away with about 5 years stacked on pallets off the ground in the sun. If you are dealing with lesser hardwoods (maple birch) then you will have less time closer to what ernest says.

Good luck with splitting (I burn about 2 cords a year and cut/split it all by hand also)
Dan

 

[woodjack]

My revised plan (now that I know my physical limitations) is too keep all my rounds on pallets and cover it with a tarp until mid/late spring. Unfortunately, it will not get very much sun.

Most of my wood was covered through the winter but some wasn't. The good hardwoods don't seem to have been effected at all. I would be able to tell, wouldn't I?

I realize I have a few years of splitting to do. I want to split it all by hand. I love the outdoor workout. But if it's going to rot, I'll rent a splitter and a helper and knock it out in a few weekends.

I'm wondering how much time I have before it rots with the set-up I described above. The last thing I want is for my beautiful wood to go bad.

eernest, was your wood stacked off the ground and covered, or just laying on the ground?

 

[Works4me]

I would split the Hichory first and burn it first, followed by the Maple and save the Oak for last.

 

[woodjack]

Is that because hickory and maple season faster, or because you think they will rot quicker?

 

[Works4me]

The Hickory will rot a lot faster than the oak, it will also season sooner.

 

[oldgrezmonke]

as an alternative to that $1200 splitter , consider a 10 ton hydraulic splitter as sold at NorthernTool for about $150 or at Harbor Freight for about $130 [where i got one on sale for less than $90 - though the instructions were wrong] . of course it is not as quick as a powered spltter ,but it is effective , quiet , compact and no gas to go stale , plus you still get some exercise.

 

[kalevi]

As long as you can keep the wood off the ground and dry, it will not rot. If it stays moist, it will rot for sure.

 

[jadm]

I, too, have a manual 10-ton hydraulic splitter ( I got mine at Sears) and it works very well on medium sized logs. We use it to split pine for kindling.

Tomorrow I am renting a gas splitter for 11.25 an hour to split some really big maple logs we have. The manual won't split them due to the lengths of some of them and the diameter on some of them.

I am anxious to see how a gas splitter works after hearing about them on this forum. We order wood already split so buying one is not necessary for us nor do we have the space to store one and I would be the one doing maintenance and I am booked. I love the fact that I can simply pick one up and return it when we are done. ;-)

I have no idea how long wood lasts. I live in a dry climate so moisture isn't a big problem for me unless wood is in contact with the ground. Mine usually gets burned within 2 years so I don't know what happens after that. %-P

 

[woodjack]

Will wood take on moisture and rot if it's off the ground and tarped - in a shaded forest?

 

[crazy_dan]

if you keep it dry and off the ground it will not rot.
how many people have 2x4 pine studs in the walls of their houses? of those how many do you know that have to replace them every couple of years from rotting?

 

[Backwoods Savage]

Woodjack, you asked how long the wood would last. I wouldn't plan on keeping it more than 20-30 years as long as it is up off the ground and covered. But cover only the top. So take your time splitting if you want and enjoy yourself.

 

[Superlite]

I read up higher in the thread that wood won't season properly in rounds. I have many rounds that are quite green yet, how long does anyone leave wood round before splitting, most of this wood is Locust, so for the sake of my shoulders and back I would like to let dry a while to split easier. If I plan on using this wood for next winter should I split it now/soon? Or maybe I should just halve it? The wood I am talking about has just fallen due to weather.

Also about splitting wood, I find that I can split faster by hand than with a splitter, the wood needs to be dry though, I also have help. Call me silly but I like the quiet of splitting wood rather than a few horsepower engine all day. It is much more satisfying too IMO. Also I think that keeping the wood separated (in the stack) by type and age is best rather than a hodge podge, JMO
Good Luck

 

[Backwoods Savage]

We don't have locust here but we split our wood usually in March or early April. Then it can be burned the next fall. But we do this by habit I guess because we have over 5 years supply on hand already.

Splitting a log in half will definitely help it season faster.

Some wood, yes, you can probably split as fast and maybe faster by hand. For instance I could definitely split soft maple with an ax, not a maul, by hand (no knots) quicker if I were able. Probably the same with white ash. I too like splitting by hand, however, sometimes life deals people a heavy blow and they can no longer do some things they used to. Then the hydraulic splitter has its place.

I don't understand why wood would season better keeping all of one type together. If it is split and stacked, it will dry. We only separate the oak here, but that is mostly because we don't have much of it so we want to be able to get at it quickly during those below zero days and nights. Also we leave the oak 2 years minimum before burning.

 

[jtp10181]

Superlite, the sooner you split and stack it the better it will burn in the fall. I would start working on it as soon as you can.

If you halve it now and then split it just before burning it wont be as dry as if you split it all now.

 

[Superlite]

Thanks for the reply. I guess an axe or a splitter what ever you like or is best for you. I was saying I like to keep the type and age together, not for drying reasons, but for burning reasons, that way I can pick all one type or I can go along the top of the row and grab a selection of all the types, I have a lot of different wood, Cherry, Black walnut, Locust, Maple, Oak, Ash etc.. I like to keep the different aged wood apart so i know what is dry and what isn't.
I was thinking of halving the wood for now and splitting it this summer, a little drier and easier to split.....the locust is a bear when they are green and these are big. I just got done dragging a big 30" diameter maple out of the woods, between the 3 locust trees a big red oak and some others I am starting to get buried....... Not only that my brother and I are about to cut down a couple wild cherry, and 2 black cherry, a dozen black walnuts, to mill, gonna be busy for a while here.

While I am on the subject of wood types, I just picked up a pick up load of logs and I am not sure what they are. The wood is really really white, and really really heavy, the bark is mostly smooth with patches or spots that look like young sweetgum. It was by the side of the road. It is useless with out pictures but, but any guesses?

 

[fugazi42]

Really heavy white wood- I would guess wet Cottonwood. The bark on cottonwood can vary considerably depending on the age and whether it's on the main trunk or a branch.. It has no smell, and you won't see any medullary rays when you split it..

 

[Superlite]

When you say wet cottonwood you mean "green" or like saturated with water, the tree is freshly felled for a construction project and is green but not "wet" it is some dense heavy stuff, I don't have much of it 12-18 logs 10-12" max no leaves around. If this thread is still alive I will "try" to post pictures tomorrow... Thanks

 

[fugazi42]

I meant "wet" as in "green" or "just recently felled and still saturated with water". "green" confuses me sometimes because it could designate a species, or the fact that the wood is wet.. There is no "green cottonwood" that I know of, but there is a black cottonwood, which doesn't grow out here. If it is cottonwood you have it's Eastern Cottonwood. Another identifying factor is that when you split cottonwood you can hardly make out any grain patterns. It's a very plain, unremarkable, white wood.

Oh, and 10-12" is really small for a cottonwood so the logs could be from immature trees that don't have the furrowed bark yet..