Hardwood Firewood storage..

[realzed]

If hard Maple is bucked into 16" lengths and piled and stacked in a manner that promotes good drying in a protected outdoor situation, is there a timeframe that the wood will or could degrade or eventually become unusable as decent and quality firewood?
In essence could I buck and store wood and expect it to be good for 5 years, a decade, or ? - as good potential wood for productive burning - or will it always break down and rot or deteriorate at some point, ultimately becoming basically worthless as decent efficient heat producing firewood?
I expect that splitting up probably promotes a longer lasting product to a point depending on size - but would it actually make that much of a difference if the wood is just in rounds of 6" to 10" diameter pieces?
Interested in opinions.. 
Randy   

[ButchC]

Hard maple in good storage will last a very longtime. It used to be used for agricultural bearings,. As a child I remember  straw walker bearings and disk harrow bearings that hung in the barn for many years without deteriorating. I am guessing you will be OK if the storage is good and you can keep the bugs out of it. Now soft Maple or sugar Maple  is another story. We have a lot of it and a saying, Year 1=wet, year 2= dry, year 3= punk.

[Corley5]

Sugar maple and hard maple are the same tree.  Powder post beetles would be an issue with long term dry storage.

[mike_belben]

With the bark on i think you have little chance of getting past 3 yrs.  

Bark off, up on pallets, out in a sunny yard with tin screwed down to the top and sun hitting both sides is probably best chance at going that sort of time frame.  Bugs feed under the bark.  Fungus feeds on moist wood.  

[John Mc]

I think Mike's numbers are pretty good on this.  The key is getting the wood appropriately dry, and assuring that it stays dry (or at least if it gets wet, that it dries back out in a timely manner). It does depend on species and on your local climate and storage conditions.

Years ago I split up a couple cords of mixed Sugar Maple, Black Birch and Beech as a "baby shower" gift for some friends. They let it dry stacked on pallets outdoors, then realized that they were too busy between work and taking care of the baby to deal with loading the wood stove, so they used their fuel oil boiler instead. They moved it into their bone-dry barn where it sat for 5 years before they used it. It was still in perfect shape at that point. It probably would have gone years longer without a problem, but that was in ideal storage conditions (dried relatively completely outdoors, then moved into dry storage). I suspect if it had been outside all that time, at least some of the wood might have started to show some issues if they had kept it much longer.

[Corley5]

My Grandfather put a bunch of wood in the barn many years ago.  We figured it had been there 30 years when we took it out about 10 years ago.  It was a mix of sugar maple, ironwood, elm, and some beech.  It was absolutely dry and rock hard except when you picked a piece up frass from the powder post beetles would run out.  It created more creosote in my OWB than any other wood I've burned.

[ButchC]

In my reply above I meant to say soft Maple but should not have included sugar, sorry for that.

[32vld]

I have maple no bark, split and stacked 3' tall cross stacked sort of like building a 
Lincoln Long house. So plenty of sun and air, for three years. My son only burns oak
with his business and both sons and I do not camp as much any more.

Still in great shape. How much longer, who knows.

[Ianab]

If wood is under 20% moisture it won't rot no matter the species. In ground contact or getting rain on it? Eventually rot is going to get to it.  Powder post beetles are likely the main risk if the wood is vulnerable to them. Eventually you will have a shell around a lump of sawdust.

[Pulphook]

Paper/white Birch will rot fast easily within a year if you don't saw score through the bark before splitting.
Usually done on the ground before bucking. This is our shoulder season firewood with some Soft/Red Maple.
That's why the indians used Birch bark for canoes: waterproof.

[DeerMeadowFarm]

Paper/white Birch will rot fast easily within a year if you don't saw score through the bark before splitting.

Can you explain what you mean by this statement?

[barbender]

DeerMeadow, white birch will season in the round if the bark is scored, the bark will peel open. In fact, I have seen standing dead birch that was fire killed season rock hard. The fire made the bark peel, and then the exposed wood dried. If the bark is intact, standing dead birch will turn to powder in a summer. 

[DeerMeadowFarm]

Thanks for the explanation!

[John Mc]

DeerMeadow, white birch will season in the round if the bark is scored, the bark will peel open. In fact, I have seen standing dead birch that was fire killed season rock hard. The fire made the bark peel, and then the exposed wood dried. If the bark is intact, standing dead birch will turn to powder in a summer.

My standard approach if I have some white birch that I won't get around to splitting for a while is to run the chainsaw down the length of it, just cutting maybe 1/4 to 1/2" deep. The logs will go a lot longer without rotting than if I leave the bark whole.

[realzed]

Thanks all for the responses.. 
I have a large load of Maple logs in 10 foot lengths awaiting my attention. 
Unfortunately I am also right now having fairly serious issues with a hand which prevents me from working the wood as much as I would like normally, and at best I may only be able to get some of it bucked into stove sized rounds and stacked up and covered prior to this Winter.
This got me wondering that if it was just left stored and protected that way and I never got back to take it down and split it at some point - instead just splitting it as used, just what good 'firewood life expectancy' I could expect from it - or lose doing it this way.. thus my post initially..
The wood is mainly fairly small diameter logs as I mentioned initially of 6 - 12" in diameter and much of it appears already fairly dry from being stacked up in the woods since cutting, this time last year.
I don't know if the beetles mentioned are even prevalent in this area - hopefully not as we get some pretty cold Winters and maybe that prevents them from surviving up here!
I guess the best I can do this Fall is to cover the wood bucked as well as I possibly can with any bark that is on the wood and easily removed (much of it already has loosened and a lot of it falls off quite readily at this point anyway) pulled off as I go through what I can..
Thanks again!     
  

[John Mc]

If you can't get it split, at least try to get it cut to stove length. Long logs don't dry out very quickly, so are less likely to be ready to burn, and more likely to rot due to the moisture they still contain.

[Pulphook]

White/Paper Birch is common up north. For many it's the only hardwood growing since it's a "pioneer tree" after clearings.
Scoring the bark is the usual job if the birch is going to be stored for firewood; done just after felling along the trunk here.
Locals say that White Birch will "pooch" or rot fast if the bark is not scored; I didn't know it long ago and lost a couple of cords of Birch within months of bucking and storing without splitting and scoring. Dumb.
Practice for me is to fell, buck,and pile in the winter then split/stack later in early Spring. No covering stacks except in the woodshed until mid fall.

[KEC]

I'm a big believer in scoring the bark to promote drying and it will (not always) help to cause the bark to come off. The attached photos show a piece of mulberry scored lengthwise and the deep check crack it caused. Also a piece of cherry which I de-barked which is full of check cracks.