Drying Firewood by Ringbarking

[Ferdinand]

Normal practice is to cut and stack firewood to season.

 

I recently ran across the technique of ring barking a firewood tree, and leaving it standing for 1-2 years.

 

Has anyone done this?

 

I can see the advantage for storage space. I also remember just how thoroughly dead elms dried out after being hit by Dutch Elm Disease.

 

Ferdinand

 

[Temp]

I guess ok if dead branches cant fall on anything. I've had two trees die and the main reason for cutting them down was because they shed branches.

Edited February 7, 2020 by Temp

[Stewpot]

1 hour ago, Ferdinand said:

I recently ran across the technique of ring barking a firewood tree, and leaving it standing for 1-2 years.

 

Has anyone done this?

 

If, by that, you mean cutting round the bark to kill the tree, then yes. But it didn't work out as I expected.

 

I went round the base of a problem willow with a wood cutting blade on an angle grinder. I thought that would be the end of the tree, and it wouldn't be able to live after that. But the following spring it lived as vigorously as ever. So I cut round it again, this time going an inch or more deep. The following year it lived again. And the next year.

 

In year four, it showed signs of being less vigorous.

 

In year five (last year) it managed a few leaves on a few branches, and then in the autumn winds it fell over.

 

It became firewood for a couple of friends, but I wouldn't say it was dry - maybe drier, and in the region that I'd cut, it was quite rotten.

Edited February 7, 2020 by Stewpot

[scottishjohn]

If it did work then cutting it into logs would be much harder when it was dry --

professioinals cut it down and block it at same time because of this ,

and more surface area ontheends of all the blocks make it dry quicker as well