Storing logs for later sawing

[tree.farmer86]

Hi All, glad to finally be a part of the forum. I've found myself ending up here for years when searching the internet for all sorts of things.

Anyway I haven't bought a saw mill and whether I should or not will likely be the topic of a later post. For today, I am wondering about log storage. I have several trees down that I have sawed into 16ft logs and need to store them somewhere safe where they won't rot. It's a mix of bigtooth aspen, maple, and white ash. There is also a pretty big shellbark hickory we lost in the last storm that I need to haul out of the woods. How do you store yours before sawing?

[Magicman]

In a pond would be the best option.  Commercial sawmills here use a sprinkler system to keep them wet.

If neither of those options are available, off of the ground and covered if possible but you will encounter some insect damage.

[YellowHammer]

Storing logs is like storing any other plant or vegetable at room temperature.  They don't do real well.  Every month there will be more and more noticeable degrade. They will crack deeply at the end.  They will rot and attract bugs.  They will lose volume, quality and value.  

Ponds are probably the best option, I have some cherry logs that have been in mine as a experiment for several years, but are now so far gone they are only useful for turtles to sun bath on.  

A year, maybe a little longer, and they will only be fit for firewood.  You can't mill a board from a log that has end splits like a pizza.  

[thecfarm]

Welcome to the forum.
What kind of mill did you buy?
How are you getting yours logs out of the woods? Tractor? what kind?   ;D
Have fun sawing!!

[TW]

The only alternative to a pond is under snow. Down in a hole on a north facing slope covered by enogh snow that it doesn't melt for the whole summer. The snow in turn covered by sawdust or straw and a tarpaulin on top.
Not very practical but it has been done in emergency if for instance the sawmill broke down or a storm took down more trees than anyone could saw. Of cause only in places where the summer is short enough. Like the highlands of Northern Sweden.

[NE Woodburner]

So you have a few logs and are pondering a sawmill purchase at some point. Why not hire a mobile sawyer to mill the logs you have and get some lumber out of your logs while they are still in good shape and get a bit of experience to help decide whether a mill purchase makes sense for you?

[caveman]

We store some logs in the pond.  It does a good job of keeping them in a condition where they are easy to saw and they don't rot very fast and the bugs don't get to them if they stay submerged.  The bark will also sluff off of the logs which adds to blade life if you can keep the sand off of them.

The drawbacks to putting them in the pond are several:
They drift around until they sink, so they sometimes can be tough to locate when needed.
It takes time to put them in the water and it is often an ordeal to get them out.  I got the telehandler stuck a few months ago trying to retrieve a hickory log.
In a few months, the water will get cold and wading around feeling for bark types barefooted becomes more unpleasant.
The wood will smell sour until it dries and your hands will smell sour after handling it.
The day after you put logs in the pond, someone will call and want boards out of the species and lengths of the logs you just deposited into the pond. 
Some logs just get lost in the water. 

I told JMoore yesterday afternoon that we need to put a pile of cypress logs in the pond this weekend.  Last night, I got a text order for a bunch of cypress boards.  Maybe we got lucky on this one.

[AndyVT]

I had a pile of white pine logs that sat for 2 years unstickered and uncovered. Beetles and bugs had run rampant and they looked altogether rotten. Other than the smaller diameter ones, after sawing off the outer rotten slab wood, the inside wood was solid and completely usable. There was a bit of staining and disfiguring but I was very surprised at the good condition of the majority of the boards sawn. Maybe hardwood is less durable when poorly stored.
I sold all that wood at a discounted price and the buyer was very pleased.

[tawilson]

I had a pile of white pine logs that sat for 2 years unstickered and uncovered. Beetles and bugs had run rampant and they looked altogether rotten. Other than the smaller diameter ones, after sawing off the outer rotten slab wood, the inside wood was solid and completely usable. There was a bit of staining and disfiguring but I was very surprised at the good condition of the majority of the boards sawn. Maybe hardwood is less durable when poorly stored.
I sold all that wood at a discounted price and the buyer was very pleased.

And I bet most of the bark was off before they got to the mill. I give my pine logs that have sat a couple bounces, cleans them up nice.

[tree.farmer86]

Welcome to the forum.
What kind of mill did you buy?
How are you getting yours logs out of the woods? Tractor? what kind?   ;D
Have fun sawing!!

I haven't bought one just yet. For the past year I have been hauling logs to a local Amish mill. They charge around .30/bf which adds up plus the fuel to get there and back. I would like to buy a mill in the future but I would have to figure out how to make it pay for itself. I'm managing about 40 acres of hardwood forest, the vast majority is hard maple, but there are quite a few hickory, ash, poplar, cherry, and oak. As these trees fall it feels wasteful to let them sit and rot, so some day I dream of hauling them back to the mill to saw, stack, and sticker them.

Depending where the trees fall I am either using the loader on a 1978 john deere 2240 or a bobcat e45. I prefer the bobcat with a grapple because it makes short work of brush and debris.

[tree.farmer86]

I had a pile of white pine logs that sat for 2 years unstickered and uncovered. Beetles and bugs had run rampant and they looked altogether rotten. Other than the smaller diameter ones, after sawing off the outer rotten slab wood, the inside wood was solid and completely usable. There was a bit of staining and disfiguring but I was very surprised at the good condition of the majority of the boards sawn. Maybe hardwood is less durable when poorly stored.
I sold all that wood at a discounted price and the buyer was very pleased.

When I moved to my house there was a walnut tree out front that had been cut some years before. It was laying atop of two other logs about 1ft off the ground. I hadn't paid it much attention because I was still getting settled into the new house, until one day my neighbor stopped over and told me it was walnut and not to use it for firewood. He told me they had sawed it just after he moved in 15 years ago.

This spring I cut the log into 2 16ft sections and hauled to to the Amish mill. They cut it in 8/4's and 4/4's for about $100 and much to everyone's surprise, there was little to no rot. I have it stacked and stickered now and painted the ends with grain sealer. There is some checking on some of the pieces but I'm hoping that stops and one day I can make something nice with it. There are a few really big 8/4 slabs, probably 3' wide by 16' long.

[woodman52]

Walnut, white oak and to some extent cherry are different from most other hardwood. They are more rot resistant. Don't expect your aspen or maple to hold up like that 

[Brad_bb]

I know the Ash won't keep.  Do you have a place to put the sawn lumber?  IF so, I'd have someone else mill them now.  It may be cheaper for you if you can haul them to someone's mill.  Or hire a portable sawyer.  If you are wanting to keep some at 16 ft, a mobile sawyer might not have an extension to bring, whereas a stationary mill will likely have extensions already.

[tree.farmer86]

I know the Ash won't keep.  Do you have a place to put the sawn lumber?  IF so, I'd have someone else mill them now.  It may be cheaper for you if you can haul them to someone's mill.  Or hire a portable sawyer.  If you are wanting to keep some at 16 ft, a mobile sawyer might not have an extension to bring, whereas a stationary mill will likely have extensions already.

Not really - I am in the process of building a barn. Hoping to have that done by spring next year. I am doing wood siding on it so part of my sawmill motivation was being able to make the siding. That would save me around $3000.

The ash is of questionable quality as it is. The tree had recently died (ash borer), but what I sawed through looks solid. It will probably end up being firewood

[AndyVT]

I had a pile of white pine logs that sat for 2 years unstickered and uncovered. Beetles and bugs had run rampant and they looked altogether rotten. Other than the smaller diameter ones, after sawing off the outer rotten slab wood, the inside wood was solid and completely usable. There was a bit of staining and disfiguring but I was very surprised at the good condition of the majority of the boards sawn. Maybe hardwood is less durable when poorly stored.
I sold all that wood at a discounted price and the buyer was very pleased.

And I bet most of the bark was off before they got to the mill. I give my pine logs that have sat a couple bounces, cleans them up nice.
Yes, the bark pretty much just fell off when the logs were moved

[SawyerTed]

You are paying $300/1,000 bdft to have your logs cut into lumber?   Add in fuel and $400/1,000?  (Don't count your time because you'll spend time handling logs, hauling lumber and stacking cut lumber either way.)

That's really not a bad price.  Until you get a mill, you will do ok cost-wise using your existing Amish mill.

Don't store the logs, lumber will store better.  Stack it, use stickers every 12-16" and cover the top with tin.  It will be much better as lumber than logs when you get around to building the barn.

[tree.farmer86]

You are paying $300/1,000 bdft to have your logs cut into lumber?   Add in fuel and $400/1,000?  (Don't count your time because you'll spend time handling logs, hauling lumber and stacking cut lumber either way.)

That's really not a bad price.  Until you get a mill, you will do ok cost-wise using your existing Amish mill.

Don't store the logs, lumber will store better.  Stack it, use stickers every 12-16" and cover the top with tin.  It will be much better as lumber than logs when you get around to building the barn.

Cover with tin instead of a tarp? I have some white pine stacked outside on a pallet covered with a tarp. I didn't sticker them though.

[Resonator]

Fresh cut lumber is wet, and needs air circulation to dry. Completely enclosing it with a tarp is an invitation for stain and mold.

[SawyerTed]

Tin lasts longer.  A tarp will last a season maybe and they tend to tear and leak.   Tin not so much.  A tarp can trap moisture underneath as well. 

Some put tin on top and one layer of landscape fabric around the stack to keep blowing rain or snow off the sides.  Landscape fabric breathes. 

Green lumber stacked without stickers (dead stacked) traps moisture between the boards.  Mold starts, then other fungal grow starts and finally rot.  Insects also prefer moisture in the wood. 

[tree.farmer86]

I'll work on finding some tin. I'm guessing it's going to be a lot cheaper than tarps also. There is a place down the road from me that has free pallets so no problem there. Is there a time limit on outside storage or can it be stored that way indefinitely?

[SawyerTed]

No real time limit.  Think about all the barns and other structures made of wood, water is dry wood's worst enemy.    Keep it dry and as long as insects don't find it, a year or two isn't a stretch at all.

Hardwoods do get significantly harder and some get brittle as they dry.   Softwood not as much.

I have a stack of lumber here that my FIL had cut in the 1960's.   Much of it is still sound lumber.  All has been stored outside under tin.  It gets used to do barn repairs.

[tree.farmer86]

Won't it gain and lose humidity with the air? Would it still need kiln dried before building anything indoors with or would leaving it stickered outside for a couple years air dry it enough?

[SawyerTed]

Yes wood does gain and lose moisture.

Air drying will get 12% more or less moisture content.  

For interior use 8% or so is ideal. 

[Ianab]

For furniture / flooring etc you want the wood dried down to match the average moisture content of your home. That's around 8% for most of the US. You can of course kiln dry your 12% outside wood down to 8 % quite quickly, even in a makeshift kiln. General construction isn't so important as a little wood movement is expected.

Basically to store wood long term you want its moisture to be under 20%. Once it gets dried to that level fungus can't grow.

[beenthere]

Still talking logs, or has the topic switched to lumber? I'd vote for storing lumber as a better option than logs. 

For covering, there are places to find used rubber roofing EDPM material that makes great covering for lumber, split firewood, and also equipment.