Rot and woodworm

[oasispta]

Hey there,

 

A couple of queries here, I've only recently got into buying unsplit logs for my fire, as a bit of a hobby and to save a bit of cash.

 

However I have had loads off two different people in my area one of whom was great and the other has kindly provided me with some rotting cherrywood (not spotted due to it being dark on delivery) as well as what appears to be woodworm.

 

I've taken them out of the garage now, but I was wondering:

 

Can you stack split logs with inner rot with your normal logs or is the rot still 'live?' And therefore likely to infect the rest. And also:

 

What is it best to do with the woodworm logs? Should I still cut them into rounds and split for it to season. And again if outside will the woodworm thrive or die off?

 

Cheers

[dig-dug-dan]

From experience, rot needs moisture to thrive, so if the logs are stored dry, the rot should in theory dry out. It wont spread. Woodworm shows that the timber is old, and I would just split and stack as normal.

[hawk eye]

Stack and split as normal, wood is an orgainc material and as such does rot when old. aslong as its not crumbling into bits you shouldnt have a problem

[oasispta]

Cheers guys, the centre of one of the larger pieces of cherry does appear to be a softer crumbly rot. Should I tackle this any differently? I.e scrape out the crumbly rot and split what's left.

My main concern was ruining the first batch of well seasoned dry logs, by mixing them with much greener and some rotting logs as I mentioned earlier. Last time I use that particular individual :-(

[Pat Ferrett]

My favorite wood to burn is Elm and its always got wood worm in it if it was standing dead wood, the decayed wood is very common in cord wood from tree surgery, I just split the sound wood and include it in the load and burn the softer stuff on the stove at home.