Half rotten firewood

[dirthawger]

This might been a very dumb question for most of you,  and im pretty sure i know the answer but im hoping im wrong. I cut down a dead oak tree and when i cut into it some of it is half rotten, im assuming thats a no go for firewood?  I did have to throw away another oak as it was infested with termites. It seems a lot of my oak trees on my property are dying,  like half a side of it looks rotten and has big holes in it

[dirthawger]

my bad after i posted this i saw it was already discussed

[breederman]

If i didn't burn half rotten wood I would freeze to death ! Dry it an burn it.

[thecfarm]

I don't know what kind of oak you have. I only have red oak on my land. Not much of it dies,but when I find something on the ground that is still nice and hard,I know it's an oak. Even the white pine that lays on the ground can be on the hard side. I use to burn all of that dead stuff when I was home. Makes heat!! I work my tractor in the woods,going across a dead tree a foot across is hard on equipment and that is without a full twitch on the 3 point winch. I use to push that stuff a side. A person can only burn so much dead wood. Than it would be in the way again. I bought a OWB and now I can burn all that dead wood all the time.
I say burn whatever makes heat. Why walk by a dead tree on the ground and cut a live one?  Just be home when you burning it.
I do not have the termite problem either. Maybe keep the top of the pile covered in the woods until you need it?

[TimRB]

I have a lot of standing dead oaks, killed by sudden oak death.  I cut it up and sort it out when I'm splitting it.  If a piece is heavy and solid, it goes in the regular firewood pile.  If it's lightweight with rot, it goes into the firepit wood pile.

Tim

[TKehl]

I burn lots of half rotten firewood.  If it will hold together as a stick, I burn it.  It just burns faster and I'll mix it with better stuff or use it to restart coals.

I have an outdoor furnace.  I would not bring termite or ant infested wood inside the house, but I burn it all the time in the outdoor unit. 

On the flip side, I would not sell any that wasn't solid, but set it aside for family or myself.

[Corley5]

I burn it myself.  When a stick comes up on the machine I'll process it and throw it off to the side for our own use.

[Klunker]

I never cut wood thats down or dead stuff thats standing.
I leave it for the bugs and woodpeckers.
dead stuff thats standing gets beat up by the woodpeckers and most of the time it ends up as a den tree.
lots of wildlife depends upon it.

I have lots of standing trees that I can cut to thin for more desirable species.

rotten wood is not worth the effort for me, I want good quality dense hardwood, hickory, sugar maple and iron wood. most heat with least amount of work in the smallest package.

I have cut large aspen to clear for other species and I leave it lie.

If you can't be as selective or don't want to be thats fine. just one old mans .02

[Al_Smith]

If it's real rotten I just mound it up on my brush pile .It will burn for days .
Then comes oak .If it's white oak it can lay chunked up on the ground for some time before the rot gets it .However red oak will turn into a sponge in just a few years .It's not worth the time to sort it out and only get about half of what you split into to good wood .
Some species,white oak,osage orange,ash,black locust can take a lot of weather .Some like maple,red oak,hickory cannot .

[thecfarm]

Klunker,Yes,wildlife trees are important. I don't cut the ones that animals are living in. I don't have many that I leave standing. Maybe they don't like white pine? That is what mostly dies standing on my land,of any size. I let the bugs and wood peckers go at for years. Than when no new wood is exposed I cut it down. This way it is drying too.

Al,the red oak I have,the sap wood will rot off and the other wood will be nice and hard.Most times it is up in the air too. I have a friend that laughs at my wood pile. But he knows it works.

[hedgerow]

Klunker
I am with you half rotten trees are not worth the time and energy that it takes to make them into firewood for the heat I will get out of them, but I have a lot of hedge and locust on one of our farms so making good btu firewood is no problem. 

[Al_Smith]

Well now that red oak.If it's up in the dry it will last longer than flat on the ground I will say .Red is open grained .Soaks up water like a sponge .White is closed grain,makes a darn good whiskey barrel or what every else a person wants to fill it with short of gasoline .< not a good idea .Then again it probably wouldn't be a good idea to store whiskey in a steel oil drum either .

[Randy88]

I guess I have another opinion, it depends on how much wood you have to choose from, it doesn't make much sense to use rotten wood, and let good wood rot because you can't get it all used up in time, if that makes sense, but if your short and always looking for wood, before I'd cut down a good live tree, even firewood quality, I'd burn the half rotten wood first, live tree's can live for years, why cut them down for firewood when you have something to burn already laying on the ground.  As for termite infected wood, I'd pile that up right away and burn it in the woods to get rid of it, might even spray it first to try to kill the termites before burning it, but that's my way of doing it.     

As for the wildlife, seeing how I've fed thousands of deer over the years from my corn fields, this might sound harsh to some, but the wildlife can go fend for themselves elsewhere and someone else can feed them for a while out of their back pocket, and that opinion will stand until the DNR comes to repay me for all the years I've fed their deer, put up with their skunks, possum's and dealt with their raccoons, even the one that went after one of my son's when he was younger resulting in him at the time having to undergo rabies shots while myself and my wife had to drag him to the doctor, and literally hold him down to have the series of shots done to him for his own health, while the DNR did nothing about their rabid raccoon, deer, and skunk issue at the time, but they did come and tell me, they were very sorry about the attack, but nothing they could do about it just the same and they were not at fault in way shape or form, just for the record.           

[bluthum]

For the record there is no need to fear bringing termite infested wood indoors. They have to be able to return to the colony [nest] or perish. Wood has to be in contact with the nest. Typically termites eating up a structure go home daily [I think] to the nest underground. Even a termite needs a little moisture. 

[Al_Smith]

Everybody has an opinion on things .I for one will not cut a live tree unless it's either a nuisance or a hazard especially just for firewood .Standing dead or wind blown there isn't anything wrong with them for firewood or salvaged lumber .Besides that it's usually  pretty dry .There's enough dropped limbs and decaying leaves to sustain the woods top soil without leaving all the dead and wind blown to litter up every thing .Besides why would you want to feed the carpenter ants ? Sometimes I think I need a pet aardvark .

[Don P]

bluthum is right about termites. You can release subterranean termites in your house and they will die within a day. They need a pathway back to earth and they can't build mud tunnels from this side. There is an invasive formosan drywood termite in the very deep south and HI that can hit the side of a building and begin eating it but for most of us this guy isn't in the neighborhood. Carpenter ants need wet wood. That wood isn't firewood, it isn't dry enough to burn properly.

One thought, all wood has roughly the same btu's per pound, rotten wood weighs less but if dry produces the same heat per pound as dense wood. I'f I were buying by volume, the cord, I would want the densest wood available but since I don't buy firewood it just takes more of it if the wood is a little doty.

[chevytaHOE5674]

Half of what I burn in the OWB is rotten wood, all of the junk that is dying, dead or laying on the ground that I would otherwise have to trip/walk over gets cut up and used for heat. The cattle are hard on trees so every year they seem to strip the bark off of something which ends up blowing over and thus get burned up. Sure I burn more of it and sure it takes more effort to make it but I figure burn up the junk and let the "good" trees live to heat the house some other year.

If I leave the dead stuff to rot and harvest all the good trees for firewood now then in a few years I won't have nothing as the dead trees got wasted and the good trees are now all gone.

[Randy88]

On years we're short on firewood, we've done extensive culling of tree's, meaning anything that will never make a good quality saw log got cut down and cut up for firewood.     

We burn roughly 50 cords of wood a year and only own 20 acres of timber, so we pull material from many sources to burn and from many timbers.     

We also cull by species, and cut out and eliminate what many call junk tree species in our area, starting with anything you can't give away, like for example box elder's and the several million elm's nobody wants.     Then move onto lesser value tree's, that have a history of not much value in hopes of more valuable tree's replacing them in the timber.

Why leave a tie log tree or low value or no value tree stand when a smaller more valuable tree species is nearby waiting for some sunlight so it can grow??   Why leave any boxelder stand taking up space when basically anything could grow in its place??    Why leave any elm stand when it'll never make it large enough to ever make any log before it dies?? 

 



     

[Logging logginglogging]

i sometimes get wood rotten in the middle pretty bad, when its split ill basically slam it down and let all the wet stuff and mush fall out... they stack whats solid. once its dry it burns..

also in the past i have burned dead standing rotten punky wood as long as its is dry and burns....

[Magicman]

Of course my volume of firewood is low and my source is high but I have no memory recollection of the last live healthy tree that I felled for firewood.  And yes, I will sometimes burn firewood with some dote.