by: Hard_Yakka
Question: Okay I have a part time land clearing business and have been hauling a lot of hardwoods back to the farm to split. Problem is it's spring and the second busiest time for us, slabbing and splitting out the firewood for the 2021-22 winter is not going to happen until fall unless gathered information says differently. I usually have the time to process but we hauled a lot of wood out this year....30-40 cords probably. The logs are set up off the ground on old treated fence posts so they shouldn't start rotting from ground contact too soon.
My question is how long would you leave the uncovered logs, most are 20-26' long, before cutting or would be be better to cut and store as rounds before spitting, again all wood is hardwood. White and black oak, madrone, ash, and maple. Thanks
Answer:
With the wood elevated, I think you will be just fine leaving the logs at 20-26' long until you have time to cut and split them in the fall.
It's amazing how much moisture stays inside the wood when you don't cut them into rounds so you might run into a little bit of moisture issues with the oak, but if you get the oak cut and split in the early fall when things slow down for you, you'll be fine.
By splitting them this fall you'll still have all of the 2021 summer to allow the sun and wind to dry out the wood.
Oak typically takes about 2 years to fully season, so when you cut and stack the oak I would stack it first (making it the last rows in your wood shed or wood rows) so you burn it last.
Stack the ash last (making it the first firewood you burn in the 2021 winter) since that will be plenty dry enough by then. You can fill the gap between the oak and ash with the other hardwoods you have.
I had my property logged 5 years ago and the red and white oak tops have been in the woods for 5 years. This year they are finally starting to get a little punky and rotten on the exterior but the heartwood is still good.
With that information I would think the oak trees would be fine for a couple of years even if you didn't get them cut up this fall before you would need to worry about the wood rotting.
I hope this helps,
Nick
www.firewood-for-life.com
