Rotten wood in second delivery - can/should I return it?

[yuryk]

Dear Community!

I started ordering and stacking wood for my fireplace insert (Lopi Large Flush Wood). The first delivery was fairly good. Wood had some insects inside, but it was mostly heavy nice looking wood, where bark was present on almost all logs. See how it looked back then:

The second cord which they just delivered looks way worse:

About 70% of it is rotten from the outside - very soft, sponge-like half way to the inner part of the trunks. And most of the logs don't have bark at all, only rotten outer part of the wood... In the last vertical photo you can see that white layer of outer wood - this is like a sponge, very soft. And you can see most of them are like that.

Frankly, I'm afraid to both burn it or put it to the first cord. From your experience, what should I do in this case? Should I demand a return of it? Or should I just ask for a price cut, but still stack and burn it? Won't it spread its insects/fungus etc to my first cord in the shed?

Thank you very much in advance!

 

[Heart Rot]

I'm guessing that's some oak with the white spongy sapwood.

Sapwood absorbs water and feels spongy, but will eventually dry out with a top cover and good air circulation. When it dries out, fungus growing on it will die or become dormant, and bugs will leave because they're there for the moisture in the first place.

Any tree felled and split is going to have sapwood. The thickness of the sapwood will depend on the species and how much sun it had access to while growing, trunk vs limb wood etc. Oak certainly tends to have a softer outer sapwood like you see once it's been sitting a while in the elements, and the sapwood portion doesn't have as high of BTU's as the nicer looking heartwood... but unless you requested/paid a bit for more wood specifically without sapwood, I wouldn't be surprised to have some present in any mixed hardwood load. It'll still burn. You could possibly request a discount. I don't buy much wood so maybe others who regularly purchase firewood can chime in. It would be extra processing for a firewood seller to process/split everything in such a way that you only received heartwood, so it would likely cost more.

The wood with the punky sapwood may actually be more seasoned than the nicer looking wood with the bark still attached. Bark often falls off during the seasoning process, and if the tree was standing dead for a long time (possibly the case with the sapwood-heavy oak). I would get it all stacked with a top cover and good air circulation and all of it will eventually burn well once it's seasoned enough.

 

[stoveliker]

As said, it'll burn fine when dry.
It does have significantly less BTU as the soft spongy stuff has started deteriorating (sapwood of a fresh green tree is hard).

I do think the fraction of punky sapwood here is relatively large (many splits with 1/3 or more of that).
I would complain a bit and leave it at that. No feedback means no improvement. Feedback, politely given,.may result in improvement next time. And they may conclude you know wood and they may be more careful next time.

 

[qwee]

Ya, bright colored and barky is not a good thing, especially in oak. Better gray, sun damaged, and with the bark gone. Why? Because oak takes 3 years to dry. Don't worry, the inside will still be good. The older grubby looking wood is probably drier. So better to burn.

 

[ScottLewis]

Sei nicht Bose. The first haul is pristine. The second load, you are exaggerating the extent of the rot. I would call it ten percent rot. Keep it and burn it.

The only way to get 100 percent pristine wood is to get a chain saw and cut your own firewood. And, get a Fiskars and split it. Your seller knew your second load was a little sub standard, but that's how it goes in the firewood business.

 

[Eman85]

I'm afraid to ask what a load of wood cost you. I cut and burn wood that looks a lot worse that that all of the time but all I have in it is labor and my equipment. The only wood I won't burn is wood that doesn't fit in my stove.
If you aren't satisfied with the value of the wood tell the seller. Sounds like you were satisfied with them when the first load came so do it so you can do business in the future if you are dependent on buying wood.

 

[yuryk]

Thank you everyone for your replies. The seller was super friendly and agreed to replace the load. Although, I understand that there won't be always ideal wood, so I took about half of it where the wood looked relatively okay and left the worst for replacement. There also was a huge pile of dust/debris that came with the load... But I really liked seller's attitude - this is very rare and I value it a lot.

 

[stoveliker]

Sounds like a keeper.

 

[Eman85]

Dust? Debris? That's free mulch.

 

[stoveliker]

I'd call it expensive mulch, not free given that it is taking up volume that was supposed to be filled with firewood -and that one pays a significant price for that volume when buying firewood.

 

[Prof]

Wow! I can cut and split 2 years of wood in my wood yard and only have a fraction of whatever you want to call that!

 

[qwee]

I sell some wood. This is what I see. The ideal is for him to have all properly seasoned (3 year) oak to sell to customers. This is not going to happen, usually. In his first load he brought you fresher looking wood that hasn't been seasoned 3 years. He is a wood seller after all, and if customers call he isn't waiting 3 years to season the wood and then sell it.

He ran out of all the 1-yr, 2-yr, and freshly cut oak (it was probably all 1-year, last year oak). Now what? He scrounged wood out the wood cutting area to make a load - the scraps and such (it needed cleaning anyway). He used a loader to scoop up the firewood (and scrap) to load his trailer. Now he is ready to start processing next year's oak. If I'm a buyer, I might look for 'non-oak' wood for sale - it will be drier. Or plan ahead - that is, you buy the oak and season it yourself. After a few years you'll have a dry stack of wood.

 

[Woodsplitter67]

That pinky wood on the outside is from it sitting in log lenth or rounds to long and when this happens you lose alot of BTUs. Happy to see the seller take that back. When your purchasing wood.. Especially all hardwoods Vs mixed you should expect a certain amount of BTUs per cord.. Rotting wood doesn't deliver that. Im a big believer in getting what your paying for. Keep your supplier, hes reputable.

 

[E_Z_Wind]

Glad you got it remedied! I no longer buy processed firewood. When I did I would stack it and put what I thought was substandard to the side. If what was stacked was not close to a cord I would take a picture of it all, send to seller and ask if they could drop off a similar amount that was of better quality next time they were in the neighborhood. First one never replied after I sent the picture so I used a different supplier the next time. He did reply when he delivered a substandard cord so I stayed with him. Seemed like
a lot of deliveries would include junk like you showed, most would still stack out to nearly a cord, I would dry out the junk and burn it first. ( Have now moved to buying a triaxle of logs every two years, costs about 1/3 compared to processed, about 80 hrs to process bc I split with a maul, about an hour a week on average.