Help identifying wood

[Paul in the woods]

Personally as someone who lives on the edge of a woodland I wouldn't worry about all wildlife. If the logs came from a local farmer the beetles are about anyway. If you dry off the wood and keep the rain off that should stop the logs from being eaten any more.

 

The orange log looks more like alder to me, if it is dry and feels light it's likely to be alder, if it's heavy then oak is more likely.

[scbk]

Nature will sort itself out.

 

Just keep an eye out for big spiders in your bananas, they could be foreign buggers

[Steven P]

Wikipedia suggest that this beetle likes rotting and wet wood (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wharf_borer) so if your wood is drying it should be OK - the photos don't show rotting wood (it would be damp, and squashy). As such I reckon your house timbers should be safe as should the living wood in the trees. You wouldn't be seeing thousands and if you did the wood would be full of beetle tunnels, 

 

For the farmer selling you large rounds of wood as seasoned, I guess he is technically correct they have been seasoned just not to a level of dryness recommended by the stove manufacturers - getting them split and stacked to dry is the best thing to do here. If they are reading 20% now try splitting one and take a reading from the freshly split side, since wood dries from the outside in, the outside edge doesn't show the true moisture content, you need to split one and measure from what was inside to get that

 

[Dan Maynard]

Rings don't dry well, and in a way 6 months isn't a good measure - obviously 6 months of winter doesn't dry the wood as much as 6 months of summer. If it's all split now and has the summer sun I'd say will be ok next winter.

 

Other thing, wildlife tends to find niches so any bugs enjoying dryish dead wood are unlikely to like fresh trees. I really wouldn't worry about things spreading around like that, the niche in the trees is already being exploited and fought over by other bugs.

[dumper]

If you go to the local nature reserve they pile up logs just like you have and call them hibernacula, home for all sorts of bugs grubs etc, if you are really worried about these bugs and grubs maybe you should be using gas, oil or electricity rotate your log pile keep it dry, personally I enjoy finding what’s taken residence in my stack be they beetle butterfly’s, moths, spiders etc.

[Peasgood]

I saw something nasty in the woodshed.

[Stere]

Some of that wood looks abit rotten i reckon esp this one:

 

 

 

It would be annoying to be paying for half rotten logs as they have lost some of the firewoods calorific value.

 

Wouldn't worry about what beetle lives in them as it won't harm live trees.

 

Edited May 29, 2023 by Stere

[Steven P]

However like I said before, if the total fuel bill is smaller next winter after using logs then it doesn't really matter if on or 2 logs a showing a bit of rot. If the fuel bill has gone up and the fire isn't just for aesthetic purposes then I would be upset too.

 

 

 

[Craigb]