Grr...lost some BTUs to decay!

[Steve NW WI]

I hauled Bubba out to the woods today to split up a bigger elm that I dropped and cut up this spring. I forget what I got occupied with before splitting it and hauling it home, but soon after, corn was planted and I lost access to that section of the woods for the summer. I got started splitting today to find that a bunch of the bigger stuff had gotten pretty punky. It's still useable, just not the prime firewood it could have been if I had finished the job when I should have. Laying on wet ground in the round out in the woods is no way to store firewood. I'd have been better off leaving it stand if I knew I wouldn't get back for it.

The small rounds were much better, still solid yet, as was the small ash and ironwood I dropped to make space to drop the big one, although they sure didn't dry out much if any out there.

Here's a couple pics, the first one shows the small rounds still laying where I cut them. This is as close to swamp as I have in my woods, stays wet for a while after a rain:

Here's what I split today, it'll be a full pickup load with the small stuff:

Tomorrow if it ain't raining too much, I'm gonna fire up the plow truck and go get it home. It needs to run anyway, been sitting since March. Time to evict the mice and see what needs fixing before the snow flies.

I'll throw it down in the basement and between nearly no humidity and high temps from the woodstove, it'll be nice and dry in a couple weeks, and I'll get the punky stuff burned before it gets cold enough to need good wood.

Maybe my tale of woe will get someone out to pick up some forgotten wood before it goes to heck...

On a side note, a quick tractor seat scouting revealed a couple big birch trees that need to go, bunches of small elms, a couple of good sized oaks, and a few ironwoods tipped over. Plenty to keep me busy once I get done with the couple of jobs I have cutting at other people's places.

 

[Whitespider]

It's amazing how fast some types of wood will "turn" laying on the ground, and dead elm seems to be one of the fastest to do that. You're right, storing it standing on the stump is the better option. I've done the same thing though (more than just once), left it laying, sure I'd get back to it in a day or so... and two-three months later... Grrrrrrr.

On the positive side... it splits a whole lot easier. :hmm3grin2orange:

You may be surprised, if'n it ain't too far gone, it burns, heats and coals-up better than you sometimes think it will.

 

[haveawoody]

It still looks pretty good after splitting so not to far gone.
Burn up the punky stuff first when it's only coolish and i think you will be fine.
I bet 90% of it is pretty solid and fit for even real cold days.

Got to love how fast nature wants it's wood back if it gets a chance.

 

[Jules083]

I have a good bit laying in the woods right now, I'm not losing sleep over it. I'll get around to it one of these days, I'm working too much overtime right now to even look at the saws. 6 days a week, 12 hour shifts. Sundays go quick like that.

Sent from my Desire HD using Tapatalk 2

 

[zogger]

Oh well..it'll burn. I have burned stuff that squished water out of it when I got it...lay it in the sun up and in the air, it dries to fluff wood..but she burns!

Sounds like you have a target rich environment like I have here.

 

[sdhershey]

Just had a similar find in the woods near me! Lots of good fallen oak that had been sitting on the ground to long. Split easy enough though so I loaded the dump trailer and took it home. I stacked it on the porch and tarped it, I plan on burning it ASAP before it gets to cold. "Everything burns" right??

 

[haveawoody]

sdhershey,

Even crappy oak is still usually still pretty good firewood.
Bet you find that the crappy stuff amounts to about 10% so the rest will be pretty darn good.
All depends on how crappy it is though, I've seen fallen trees that 90% is total crap but that takes a while to happen to hardwood trees.

 

[sdhershey]

I am sure I will get good BTU's out of most of it...its not to far gone yet!

 

[stihly dan]

Once cut and split. Does the punk stop? Or once theres punk it keeps on going. I haven't kept it long enough to find out.

 

[MN Ripper]

I've cut and split elm, silver maple, and red oak that was on the punky side in years past and it stored fine under a tin covered stack on pallets very well for almost a year and half until I burned it. Saw no noticeable degrade from when it was split.

 

[stihly dan]

Good to know, thanks.

 

[Steve NW WI]

I've cut and split elm, silver maple, and red oak that was on the punky side in years past and it stored fine under a tin covered stack on pallets very well for almost a year and half until I burned it. Saw no noticeable degrade from when it was split.

Kinda suspected that good firewood storage would slow it greatly if not stop it, but I've never tried it. If it's punky, it gets burned. If it's dry or close to it, into the basement and out the chimney, if it's real wet and spongy, on the bonfire stack.

 

[zogger]

Kinda suspected that good firewood storage would slow it greatly if not stop it, but I've never tried it. If it's punky, it gets burned. If it's dry or close to it, into the basement and out the chimney, if it's real wet and spongy, on the bonfire stack.

Even the dripping wet stuff will dry out and burn. I have pulled logs right out of the pond and the creek here and burned them eventually, as well as wet hardwood deadfalls from the woods that were laying in mud or even underwater for a time. Wood that starts out real wet and punky actually burns quite hot once dried. Won't burn as long as a similar chunk from non punky, but burns real hot, I guess the extra air spaces through it causes that.

 

[haveawoody]

I figure with hardwood if you can hit it with a hammer and it don't dissapear into the wood then when dry it will be ok.
If the hammer does go in then it's compost or bonfire worthy.

Semi punky makes great startup wood so it's no giant loss to have some of that dry semi punky around.

 

[Steve NW WI]

It's all loaded on the Chevy, waiting for me to get moving and haul it in. There's 3" to the bump stops yet, a load of solid oak that big would be hovering about an inch above the stops, so it's a little light.

ATTN SAFETY NAZIS: At no time did this load exceed 65 MPH. My old asthmatic 305 won't get it going any faster on my field roads LOL!

PS Note that this ain't the plow truck mentioned in the first post, the mice ignored the mothballs under the hood and made lunch out of my vacuum hoses, got some work to do on that one. Besides, it ain't got as heavy of springs as the 1/2 ton does. (The 1/2 ton has a set off a dually under it - wasn't me that did it, but they come in handy sometimes.)