Fungus on firewood stacks

[MartinD]

I have lots of sycamore, which I have stacked, off the ground, within the woodland, intending to use it as firewood. Most of the stacked wood is now about 12-18 months old. I have noticed that over the last couple of months a fungus has developed on some of the wood, the outward indicator of which is lots of bright orange dots, about 5mm across. There are smaller quantities of other wood, such as oak, ash and elm, but these do not appear to affected by the fungus.

My questions are 1) is this wood going to be any good as firewood; and 2) should I separate the affected sycamore from 'good' sycamore.

[jillybean]

The shady woodland is a perfect environment for fungus as the humidity is high. it should be covered on the top and south facing to maximize wind drying and minimize rainfall. Still, it will burn fine as long as its not totally soft and rotten. I wouldn't worry about separating the wood, but spend my energy on keeping it all dry.

[MartinD]

I'm in the process (of thinking about!) building a long, low, log store along the line of one of our garden fences, which will be in the sunshine for most of the year. It will be about 1.5m tall by (up to) 50m long, so I should be able to keep a lot of it dry. Might even have some space to sell some! I have two major piles in the wood at the moment, one of which is on the north side of a clearing (so gets the sun over the trees), and there is no sign of fungus, and another which is in the shade of some beech trees, which seem to keep most of the rain off, but the shade and humidity have created the problem, I think.

[Rich]

Hi Martin,

I've just done exactly that, we were given an old poly tunnel from a freecycler, I braced it and added extra roof supports with hazel, much like you would a bender. I've used pallets on the ground and lent them together to form a funnel down the middle for extra ventilation. I think if you had too big a log pile the ones at the bottom would stay damp and get fungi and the problems you mentioned.

Pics posted here

http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/greencaveman/FirewoodShelter?feat=directlink

All it's costed was about £50 for the tarps, we'll see how long they last in this wind!

If you are making one of these bender type shelters, don't be tempted to space the supports too wide to save work. I tried to and found the water sat in puddles on the top stretching the tarp, I think about 2 feet spacings is about right.