My ash is very wet

[joefrompa]

Hey all,

My father in law gave me 4 huge slabs of ash. This stuff is an easy 24" round and about 16-18" thick, each.

The ash had been sitting 12' long log-style with it's bark on for about 1.5 years. He just chainsawed it into slabs recently and gave these to me to help me get through the season.

The rounds sat bark-side down on snow/ice for the past 2 weeks and we've had some warmer weather/light rain.

So yesterday and today I went out and split about half a round (one round is enough wood for 2 days burning 8am-10pm for me, to give you an impression of size).

I'm getting ALOT of pieces that seem to be fully saturated with water. These are not surface wet, feel quite heavy for ash, and do not dry quickly when sitting by the stove for 6-10 hours.

I need the wood to get through the season, but at the same time it's good quality ash and I don't want to waste it. Can ash get this water-logged?

Should I give it up for this year and save it for next?

I'm almost out of wood aside from this stuff....I have maybe another week left of decently seasoned stuff, then I get into recently felled pine. Or buying a cord from someone and hoping it's decent.

Joe

 

[firefighterjake]

My own opinion is that white ash -- assuming this is white ash and not another type of ash such as green ash which I find is quite a bit different than white ash -- really needs to be bucked up and split a year prior to use to really get the heat out of the wood . . . in my first year I had some ash that I had seasoned 5-6 months and it burned, but it didn't burn well . . . contrary to the old ditty about burning it green . . . I suspect if I had an old smoke dragon and didn't mind smoking up the neighborhood I would have been better.

In any case, in Year 2 with a year plus of seasoning the ash was nothing short of spectacular . . . and with a year of seasoning is one of my favorite go to woods to burn.

I suspect that even though the ash has been down for over a year, the fact that it was left in a log form -- unsplit -- that you will not be very happy with the end results. Me . . . I would hold it for next year.

 

[Jags]

A man has to do what a man has to do. If this is to keep you from freezing then burn it (if you can) with the understanding that you need to be very vigilante and attentive to your exhaust system. If you have other options - then I would look seriously at them. Your gonna fight ANY wood that ain't ready to be burned. It will become maddening.

Ash starts out on the lower end of the moisture spectrum compared to many other wood types, but that don't mean it can go from log to good firewood in the same day. Sometimes your the hammer and sometimes your the nail (some get lucky - others don't).

 

[Battenkiller]

Any wood can get waterlogged just sitting on the wet ground. Ash is fairly rot-prone, so you really want to keep it off the ground. 1 1/2 years sitting on the ground, now big slabs laying there in the wet, heavy as hell... sounds waterlogged to me, maybe a bit punky as well. It won't burn worth s*** if that's the case, even in a hot fire. Best to wait a year with it and try again then.

Locate some local wood dealers and nicely explain your situation. See if someone is cutting cherry. Tell him that's the wood you want, that or nothing at all. Cherry dries down really fast if you bring it in by the stove. You won't get it down to 20%, but it will burn. Waterlogged ash won't burn well at all.

How recently did you split that pine? Pine dries super fast, so if it was in a dry and windy location it may be burnable. The stove will answer the question for certain. If you can easily get a good hot fire going and maintain decent secondaries, the wood is ready to burn. If you have to coax it just to get it to stay lit... outside in a stack for next year.

 

[Wood Duck]

It sounds waterlogged. I agree with the previous posts that say any wood can get waterlogged. Logs laying around on the ground often seem wetter than freshly cut live trees - it all depends on where the wood was stored, how wet the soil was, etc.

I think you won't do any worse buying wood, and might do a lot better. Not great, but better.

 

[joefrompa]

The pine I was was split maybe 2 months ago. It's been sitting out in freezing weather, so it's had no "hot sun" exposure. It's also spent a decent amount of time covered in snow

Actually, I don't have ANY wood that hasn't been sitting in snow recently. A situation I will rectify for next year.

 

[Backwoods Savage]

Joe, that really doesn't sound like white ash but it could possibly be. We burned freshly cut white ash one whole winter. We got through okay but had to clean our chimney quite often and although we did not freeze, we would have liked it a bit warmer. The key was to always keep a really hot fire.

If you can get this wood stacked up off the ground and out in the wind it should be okay next year.

Perhaps I should add that if I had to burn green wood, ash would be my first choice.

 

[joefrompa]

I had a pile of wood in my garage that 2 weeks ago wouldn't burn. I threw it on a smoldering wet-ash fire tonight (225-250 stove top and the ash wouldn't really ignite at all). Worked it up to 300 with an open door with this new stuff from the garage stacked to the gills. Shut the door. Slowly rose to 350. Secondaries started coming on. Closed the air half way.

Now it's been like 30 minutes and the air is 80% closed, the firebox is one solid sheet of flame, stove tops are at 500 and rising with the fan on medium high

Whatever I'm burning right now wouldn't burn 2 weeks ago (was from my father) and now, after sitting in the garage for 2 weeks, is burning great.

Wood is weird.



Joe

 

[joefrompa]

Ahem, 625 stove top now and rising fast. Turned the blower up another notch and closed the air some more. Full secondaries in their glory.