moisture in birch rounds 3 years later...

[MissMac]

Well to prepare for the onslaught of minus 30*C weather that's supposed to move in overnight tonight, I've been bringing some of my stashed, 3 years CSS birch inside to help ward off the cold. When I processed this stuff 3.5 years ago, I left any pieces that were about 5" or less as whole rounds rather than putting a split in them. I knew that this would slow down the drying process, however after bringing a few of these inside 48 hours ago, and then putting a fresh cut down a few to check the MC, I was a little disappointed to observe that the MC of the whole rounds was still between 20.5-23%! Too wet for me to want to burn them.

So, I have lots that are split into nice chunks, and they are consistently coming in around 16% MC. So I'll be leaving all the whole rounds alone for now, but I'm wondering if they're going to come down below 20% with one more year in the shed, or if I'm going to have to pick them all out as I go through these stacks, and then split them and restack them for a year to get them down to where i want them.

I'd really love to leave them whole, cause I can just see the great burning potential in them, but I don't want to be 80 by the time i can burn them!

As an info item, once cut and split, all of my wood gets stacked in my wood shed which has ample ventilation and keeps the wood dry.

Anyone else have a similar experience with birch? Solutions to help speed up the drying of whole rounds? I'm thinking of maybe next time scoring a line down each tree through the bark to break the cambium layer to see if that helps.

 

[gzecc]

Birch bark in general keeps the moisture in better than other barks. Lucky it didnt rot. I split everything that goes on the stack.

 

[MissMac]

nope, not even a hint of rot.

 

[peakbagger]

You are lucky that you don't have rotten rounds surrounded by perfectly good bark. The trick with birch is before you start bucking the tree but after you have limbed it, run you chainsaw lengthwise down the length of the trunk and branches. You don't need to cut deep just make sure you get the inner and outer bark. If you hand split like me, score the entire tree including the areas you plan to split as cutting the outerbark makes it easier to make the initial split.across the round If you are using a splitter right away no need to score the larger diameter stuff.

Birch trees dies and rot standing up. Many folks cut them when they are showing signs of decline and inevitably the crown which is typically the place where most of the small diameter stuff is located is the first to dies off. If you see the end of the branches dead you may just want to leave the branches as the rot may extend back quite a bit down the branch.

Note scoring the bark of the tree extends the length of time that white birch can be left unbucked and unsplit. Depending on the time of the year leave unscored green white birch unsplit for any length of time risks the start of rot.

 

[Bad LP]

I split everything at least in half.

 

[Firewood Bandit]

Birch must be split immediately or it will rot.

A couple years back a buddy bought a vacation place in Northern WI and there was about 1.5 cord of unsplit birch rounds. The centers could be poured out and the bark remained like a cardboard tube. We chucked all of the unsplit wood on a fire and eventually got it burnt up.

 

[Sawset]

Below is a link to a study on best drying practices for various northern tree species under several different conditions. Drying unsplit birch below 20% didn't happen over the course of the study.

Wood Storage Best Practices in Fairbanks, Alaska
dec.alaska.gov/media/7558/wood-storage-best-practices-final-report.pdf

 

[MissMac]

You are lucky that you don't have rotten rounds surrounded by perfectly good bark. The trick with birch is before you start bucking the tree but after you have limbed it, run you chainsaw lengthwise down the length of the trunk and branches. You don't need to cut deep just make sure you get the inner and outer bark. If you hand split like me, score the entire tree including the areas you plan to split as cutting the outerbark makes it easier to make the initial split.across the round If you are using a splitter right away no need to score the larger diameter stuff.

Birch trees dies and rot standing up. Many folks cut them when they are showing signs of decline and inevitably the crown which is typically the place where most of the small diameter stuff is located is the first to dies off. If you see the end of the branches dead you may just want to leave the branches as the rot may extend back quite a bit down the branch.

Note scoring the bark of the tree extends the length of time that white birch can be left unbucked and unsplit. Depending on the time of the year leave unscored green white birch unsplit for any length of time risks the start of rot.

Yup all good points for sure. The trees that this wood came from weren't experiencing any crown die-back, so the boles were perfectly sound. And your idea of scoring through the cambium layer was exactly what i was thinking of trying too, in the future. I wonder if my ash rounds are going to also be an issue?

 

[jatoxico]

Branch wood can stay wet for a surprising amount of time. One suggestion I have seen for small rounds is to use a splitting ax or hatchet to simply peel a strip of bark off leaving the round whole. Prevents rot and facilitates drying. I've done my share, little bit of labor involved but goes quick with freshly cut wood.

 

[Eureka]

With birch I just crack the small rounds open at the end without splitting them in half; easy with a hydro splitter. Otherwise I have decent luck with most other woods being left in under 5" rounds. I have had birch get punky in 3" rounds but when I crack them open before stacking, they're under 20% in a year. I live on a sunny open hill.

 

[MissMac]

ya, i think moving forward i'm going to make sure that i break the bark, however i'm undecided what to do in the immediate future with the wood that I've already had CSS. I just went home at lunch to bring some more wood in, and actually looked at these stacks and holy man - i have a lot of whole birch rounds. i'd like to be burning this stuff now - any suggestions for how to drive a couple % of MC out of the wood quickly? i was thinking about throwing them on the splitter one bag at a time and then bringing them inside. any guesses as to how long they'd take inside to get below 20%? house is warm and dry, and they're around 23%.

not sure what i'll do in the spring with the rest of them though - they are all so neatly stacked, adn it would be quite the undertaking to pull that shed stall apart, split them all and then restack them. think for this stuff i want to deal with it as i pull it out of the shed.

 

[kborndale]

Pull the birch bark off and save it for fire starting, birch bark is natures fire starter, the oils in it will get freshly cut oak to light up!

 

[jatoxico]

Your can burn those rounds sparingly with the drier splits. 16+23/2=19%. Bring some into the stove room get a little more moisture out of them and you'll be good to go. Now that assumes that they are 23% and not something much higher. I found once I got into 25% and up I needed to make an accommodation like adding pallet wood or something.

 

[MissMac]

Pull the birch bark off and save it for fire starting, birch bark is natures fire starter, the oils in it will get freshly cut oak to light up!

oh i do. i have 7 garbage bags in my shed. that stuff is gold!

 

[SpaceBus]

I'm glad I came across this thread. I have several birch rounds about the same size and I noticed they aren't seasoning well or are even staining. I don't know if any of it is good since it all came from standing dead trees. We got a late start on our first wood burning winter, but a friend is coming through with some seasoned wood to help us out.

 

[BIGChrisNH]

I always split birch because that bark will usually cause rounds to hold moisture and rot. Birch needs to be split right away in my experience, or at least have part of the bark stripped off to let the water out. I don't mind birch but it is more time sensitive in terms of needing to get it processed.

 

[Eureka]

If it was me I'd mix a round or two in with the remainder being splits and you should be a-ok. 20-25% is a lot better than what most people are burning!

 

[firefighterjake]

Well to prepare for the onslaught of minus 30*C weather that's supposed to move in overnight tonight, I've been bringing some of my stashed, 3 years CSS birch inside to help ward off the cold. When I processed this stuff 3.5 years ago, I left any pieces that were about 5" or less as whole rounds rather than putting a split in them. I knew that this would slow down the drying process, however after bringing a few of these inside 48 hours ago, and then putting a fresh cut down a few to check the MC, I was a little disappointed to observe that the MC of the whole rounds was still between 20.5-23%! Too wet for me to want to burn them.

So, I have lots that are split into nice chunks, and they are consistently coming in around 16% MC. So I'll be leaving all the whole rounds alone for now, but I'm wondering if they're going to come down below 20% with one more year in the shed, or if I'm going to have to pick them all out as I go through these stacks, and then split them and restack them for a year to get them down to where i want them.

I'd really love to leave them whole, cause I can just see the great burning potential in them, but I don't want to be 80 by the time i can burn them!

As an info item, once cut and split, all of my wood gets stacked in my wood shed which has ample ventilation and keeps the wood dry.

Anyone else have a similar experience with birch? Solutions to help speed up the drying of whole rounds? I'm thinking of maybe next time scoring a line down each tree through the bark to break the cambium layer to see if that helps.

^ See bold print. This is what I do with rounds that are unsplit.

 

[MissMac]

^ See bold print. This is what I do with rounds that are unsplit.

ya, i'm just trying to figure out whether or not i'm going to pull my 2 packed stalls apart this summer and tune up all the whole rounds to ensure that they are as dry as i want them when their turn comes, or just chalk it up to lesson learned and do things differently moving forward. going to be a LOT of work to unpack, fix and restack those stalls if that's what it comes to

 

[gerry100]

there is a reason for the birch bark canoe.

 

[weatherguy]

You wont have that problem with ash, I burn ash seasoned after one year but the rounds I let season 2 and they're under 20%.

 

[johneh]

Birch Bark is water proof that's why they make canoes out of it
so it will not dry in the round just rot