Hello everyone. Gabriel is my name ,I'm from Romania ,been burning various wood species for some years now.But I want to try some quality oak wood this year and if someone with more experience can answer my dilemas here,please do so.
So far I've burned only birch, hornbeam and some tilia wood for starting the fire. I buy wood by bulk in cubic meters m3 logs, cut them myself in 30-35cm long slices, split them myself the coming week or if weather is bad(too cold or rainy) in the coming 2 weeks.
I dry/season them for at least 1 year in a airy metal shed painted dark brown ,but would like to paint fully black for an even higher temperature inside(should help with drying). Haven't measured temperature inside it in summer sun/heat but around here ,Buzau county ,plain area summers are hot ,35-40 celcius in shade(wouldn't want to be wearing black and stay in sun all day...). Anyway, how long do you folks that have burned oak ,recommend to season oak? It will be freshly cut(green) will be split in small pieces 35 cm long 7x7 cm wide(aproximately) in the coming 2 weeks. Problem is ,my metal shed is still full to the brim because I also bought and burned out of curiosity about 2 tons of wood briquettes ,so I barely burned half of a 2 year "leftover" wood(birch and hornbeam) wich was in the shed ,I took it out of the shed to make room for the next load of wood. Stored it outside around the metal shed, covered it very good with plastic foil, been outside like this in full sun until last fall when I began burning it along with those wood briquettes. Due to too warm winter ,I will have no room place to store this fresh oak but outside covered with plastic foil(with some room for water vapours to go their own way ,not to mould the wood.
My question is: will 18 months(more or less 2-3 months) be enough to dry fresh oak in summer heat 35-40 celcius weather low humidity in air(maybe 60-70% or less when drought hits these places). Of course split small and no water/rain will ever get to that oak. As a note ,that tillia tormentosa was a 70 year old tree wich a neighbour wanted me to cut it and since it grew so well that damaged his concrete fence and almost his freshly bought house, he never wanted to ever see it around his yard again. So he even load it in his truck and took it to my home(1-2 km away). I burned it after about 1 year of seasoning split small and besides leaving about twice as much ash (burned in ceramic tile stove ) it was surprisingly good ,so good I still have about 1 cubic meter more or less from that tree. Combined with wood briquettes really left me with a lot of unburned wood (the whole shed full of birch and hornbeam ,now seasoning for the second year,ready for the next 2024-2025 winter...) .
Not complaining but I ran out of space to store split wood now...
This is my chainsaw, think I have some photos from when I finnished cutting the tillia made by the guy who asked me to help him. As for my wood in logs, I have no pictures... Don't have time for that... Maybe I'll go make some with those stored split in the shed...
Thank you everyone!