Punky and good wood stored together

[Vg3200p]

Is it ok to store punky wood and good wood together? Or does the fungus from punky wood spread and ruin other wood in the pile?

 

[stoveliker]

If both are dry and kept dry it should be fine.

 

[Vg3200p]

Ok thanks. Split some ash today that had a strong mushroom smell. Real punky and I threw it in my heap with everything else

 

[RamMasterFlash]

Had the same issue while prepping wood for this coming season. I got some oak logs for free from a neighbor who had chopped down a tree a year or so ago but just left the rounds on the wet ground. When I split open the rounds I got a very strong fungus smell and noted that the wood was quite porous, though not wet. Since it was not actually wet ( about 25% water content) I went ahead and chopped it into smaller pieces and I have it drying/seasoning with the rest of my wood.

My guess was that once seasoned it would just burn quickly since its so porous. But I am now wondering if it might cause any other issues during the seasoning process, or when i do burn it.

How did it turn out with you?

 

[Garbanzo62]

In the process of splitting a bunch. I have some Ash from dead standing trees that snapped in half and were on the ground. They are a bit punky (The part from the standing trunk is real nice though) and I have a large limb from some other tree, that snapped off a few years ago, but the limb was held above ground by some rocks. That limb is hard as a rock in the middle, but the outer 3/4 inch is spongy and has fungus on it. I have used a hatchet to remove most of the spongy part, but had help this weekend and some of that spongy stuff made it into the stack. Questioning if I should pull those out and cut off that part. The item being split in the pic is what I am talking about and the pieces with the white stuff behind it is what is being cut off

 

[stoveliker]

I would just burn it with the punky stuff when it's dry. Easy splits for cold starts; splits with their own kindling attached 😁

 

[Simonkenton]

I throw punky, also called half rotten wood, into the forest and it becomes good mulch. Why take up space in the woodshed with low quality wood?

 

[Ashful]

I throw punky, also called half rotten wood, into the forest and it becomes good mulch. Why take up space in the woodshed with low quality wood?

Agreed. I used to play optimistic, and stack the punky stuff, thinking it'd somehow be useful. Then I find myself just throwing it away 3 years later, when it's time to use that stack. Waste of space.

 

[stoveliker]

The point here is that the man hours have already gone into it. It's already stacked.

I would not take it out now. Space is cheap. Adding man hours to something you throw away is just a waste.

If you have more of it, not yet cut, split, stacked, then letting it feed nature is not a bad idea, depending on how much wood you have (and need).

 

[patrickk222]

to me it is a majority of times a yes answer and the only tomes i wont store them together is when the punky stuff is to far gone

 

[Ashful]

The point here is that the man hours have already gone into it. It's already stacked.

I would not take it out now. Space is cheap. Adding man hours to something you throw away is just a waste.

If you have more of it, not yet cut, split, stacked, then letting it feed nature is not a bad idea, depending on how much wood you have (and need).

Perhaps that is true for your workflow, but it really depends on where the bottleneck in your process is.

If time is your only or primary obstacle, and if you're not one of those folks who will be moving that bad wood a second time from outside storage to shed, then you make a convincing argument. But for anyone with limited shed space, I'd argue you get more bang for your buck by only consuming that space with the most primo wood you can obtain, and not wasting any of it on punky wood. Likewise, for anyone who is going to later move that wood a second time, perhaps from outside storage into a shed before use, then you can't really say all of the labor has already gone into it.

Not every scenario is the same.

 

[stoveliker]

Yes, hence "I would".
Also, the question was (presumably, given the thread) whether fungus/rot would spread to good wood.
Not really if stored out of the rain. So the fungus is not a reason to ditch the wood even if other reasons may exist in particular situations.