Need a little firewood advice

[Amy Jo]

I think we may be in trouble this year. We got a late start and have about 2 months worth of dry wood. The balance we obtained from a neighbor that had his property logged last summer. We were given as many tops as we wanted to cut for firewood. Most of it is white oak, some red oak, a little maple. We've been cutting and splitting for about a month (weekends only).

Are we going to be dealing with a lot of problems due to the greenness of this wood? We burn about 8 - 9 cords per winter - from late October through April.

[cfabe]

It depends what you burn it in and how you burn it. I use an outside wood boiler so green wood is not a problem per se, it burns it fine, just get less heat out of it so I go through more wood. In a wood stove I would think you'd want to at least mix the green in with the dry wood and make sure that you don't burn green wood damped down much because that will lead to creosote build up. You should probably also inspect/clean your chimney more often than you usually would this year. You may want to try to set up a wood rack inside near the stove to help the wood dry out a little before using it. If you can keep it inside a week with direct radiant heat from the stove on it I bet it would help somewhat.

[Amy Jo]

Thank you. We have an inside woodburner with an afterburner setup which is supposed to help cut down on creosote, but we thought we'd still have the chimney cleaned in November, then again in February. We do have a rack close to the woodburner, and I think I'll pick up an extra one at wal-mart to store more wood at a time inside.

[haypoint]

Split everything, even the 2 inch diam. pieces. Split it into smaller pieces than you normally would. Store inside (as earlier advised). Start cutting for next year.
I think everyone started out behind the eightball as you are. Just don't let the struggle continue or become a habit. Once you get a year or so ahead, stick with it, stay ahead. You get more heat from your wood and far less danger of cresote fueled chimney fire.

[mpillow]

Oak -- we dry min. of 2 years
Maple ---one year

Try to get some ash....its safe but less btu value green

[Amy Jo]

Thank you. As soon as we finish splitting for this year, we're taking down trees for next year and cutting it up. The last couple years we've had enough standing dead trees and leftovers from logging on our own property to do us - but this year our farm truck (i.e. oversized wheelbarrel) cost us a bunch of money and then died just in time to mess up our previous plans...

I'm just not a strong enough helper to haul those chunks of wood out to the clearing - the farm truck was wonderful at wiggling through the woods. So, we're carefully hauling the wood from the neighbors property in my husband's company truck - and it's a supercab dodge pickup. It doesn't wiggle well at all.

[ET1 SS]

So many variables.

We burn green wood. We rarely split any of it. We only clean our stove pipe in the summer.

In 3 winters we have not seen any creosote.

Our stove has a secondary combustion chamber.

Our stove pipe is about 10 feet tall inside our house, single walled, straight vertical and it drafts real strong. Then it has maybe 2 feet outside above the house.

For whatever reason we just do not see any creosote.

So just because you burn green wood, does not guarantee that you will get creosote.

[anniew]

I have two 90 degree turns in my chimney with most of the chimney on the outside, sooooo
the chimney cools the smoke/gases/etc. fast and causes creosote buildup fast even with dry wood...so I clean it every three weeks. Learn to do it yourself and do it often, especially with the greener wood.
For the future if you have a vehicle problem, if you split your wood by hand, you could split it right in the woods so you can then get it out then or later and not have to deal with large unsplit pieces. Splitting it is the key to good drying, and in my area most drying is accomplished in JUly and August, due to the warm temps, sun, air movement.

[Farmerwilly2]

If I read correctly these things were cut last summer, so they've been laying for over a year already. I'd start by burning the branches on those tops, they're more than likely dry already. Save the bigger stuff and give it more dry time ifn it's still green. You'll have to stoke your fire more but them dry branches burn just fine and you'll have your bigger stuff for that late winter cold. I don't like to leave a stick when I cut wood. Sure and it will take a little bit of time, but the sticks off the branches, old pallets, the ends off of boards when I tear down old barns....I haul it all home. Cut it up on a chop saw, bundle it together with old hay twine and store it away for kindlin or stove wood. If it burns a little faster than the bigger pieces, well, it probably burns a lot hotter. Let it heat the stove pipe. Use it in your bake oven. Ifn your short wood just don't let it go to waste.

[Cascade Failure]

Burn hot and clean the chimney more often if it needs it...