Slab Wood expectations vs. reality

[RH52]

I recently received a load of "slab" firewood from a local sawmill. I was not what i was expecting and my opinion is that I got sub par quality for what I paid. The seller is admit that he was present when the wood was loaded and that he gave me a quality typical load in his opinion.

could someone describe to me the typical characteristics of slab or sawmill slab firewood. What is typical in what is delivered by size of pieces etc.

I have sorted thru the pile and have about a pickup bed load of left over scrap and debris. Also many of the pieces were soft rotted or just pieces of bark. half the load was barely substantial enough to be considered kindling.

 

[jwfirebird]

slab wood is what the mill doesnt want. so essentially that. the bark and punky wood will burn better than most think but I wouldn't pay much because you don't get much. so really depends on price vs your areas normal cost

 

[RH52]

i understand i wasn't going to get split oak. However most of what I got looks like scrap that was scooped up wih a machine and dumped.

 

[firefighterjake]

Depends on the mill and what they're cutting . . . around here most of the local sawmills are Mom and Pop operations and are cutting softwood lumber. Depending on the operator you may get a fair chunk of "meat" or mostly bark . . . the goal of course of most sawmill operators is to slab off the bark and keep most of the good wood. There is a good chance many of the slabs would be more like kindling.

Since some of the slabs typically are tossed in one big pile, there is always a chance it will be a bit punky or rotted.

Me . . . I would not pay for slabwood personally . . . or if did it would only be hardwood slabs and it would have to be pretty cheap. I know a few guys at work for example who have bought some slabs from Peavey Manufacturing which are all ash. It was OK, but I wouldn't want to run an entire winter with the slabs.

 

[Toomb]

Do you have any pics? I have purchased slab wood in the past when i was in a bind and needed wood in a hurry. It is cheap, dries fast, and stacks compactly. The down side is you go thru it fast. Most of it is a couple of inches thick. Some pieces would be 4-5 inches thick.

 

[SeanBB]

Wood with thin bark such as sycamore, beech, holly and birch would be ok I guess, but oak and ash have thick bark and you may get more bark than solid wood.

 

[peakbagger]

Sounds like you got the bottom of the pile that they employees didnt want .

Over the years I have seen good slab wood and junk slab wood. It the mill is making high grade wood like furniture stock or dowels the slabs can be real good, if they are making pallets, watch out as they are going to try to get every inch of the slab into a pallet. A now out of business Ethan Allen sawmill in Maine used to cull figured hardwood,( like curly and tiger) as their production process didnt deal well with figured wood. The figured stuff went right into their boiler. I have a few rejects that one of their sawyers brought home, great figure wood if I hit with the right tool (carbide insert jointer), hit it with a regular jointer blade and its tear out city.

Ideally depending on log size, you should not expect the slab to be flat on both sides unless there is defect. Thus you are probably getting a chord off a circle with a radius that varies depending on the log size. Most places have plenty of demand during cold weather so its best to buy it during the summer when there is less demand. They would much rather sell it to biomass plant or a commercial pellet supplier than deal with landowners but in many areas that market has collapsed.

 

[RH52]

i will try to snap a pic of what i was delivered

 

[Lloyd the redneck]

Slab wood expectation ; sweet super cheep wood and I don't have to split it. Slab wood reality. Sweet super cheep wood I don't have to split, but lots of screwing around. I get a few bundles every year and sometimes I can cut a bundle with one chain sometimes the bark is so full of dirt I just light the whole bundle on fire in the yard. Overall tho, slab wood has been good to me and kept me warm. A packed tight stove of cottonwood/ash slab wood (locally avaliable ) lasts me 3-4 hours. A arm full of split ash lasts me 6-7 hours.

 

[FaithfulWoodsman]

The only slab wood ive got was from the only local sawmill around. $20/as much as you could fit in a 6' bed. They havent had that for years, but it was good stuff. Sounds like yours may be a bottom scratch batch. Lotta people hunting wood this cold winter.

 

[billb3]

I've gotten oak slabs for free.
Not lately though.
They were 8 to 10 feet long and I had to cut them to length using a table saw and there were not any that were too big for the table saw.
Burning slabs is like burning boards.

Has to be cheap or free to be worth all the effort. I had a pretty big pile of bark in the woods too.