I normally leave my logs piles for a year or two then cut wood off them, dry it for 4-6 months and burn it. I recently cut down and processed this Oak, it was standing live last week, will it be ready to burn this winter? I have a newer stove that requires pretty dry wood.

I like your setup with the IBC totes. I bet it makes moving them around a heck of lot easier. But no it won't be ready for this year. Two years cut, split, and stacked for oak. New stoves really depend on properly dried wood. If for burning this upcoming season, you might get away with ash, red maple, or cherry.

Oak takes 2-3 years to dry properly. I cut a standing dead oak last week with no bark and it was as wet as a green tree. I don't sell oak to my wood customers for this reason. You tell them 2-3 years to dry and they try to burn the wood in 6-8 months.

Correct ^^^^^^

Thanks guys. I have my choice of wood normally but with the wet spring I couldn't get to my wood lot to dump logs and I ended up dumping a ton of Oak on my lawn and the wife is tired of looking at it.

The IBC totes are awesome. My goal is to get 36 of them which should be 3 years worth of wood, only problem is I'm to cheap to buy them so it will take me awhile to scavenge that many.

Agree with the above. Do you have any dead elm or ash? Soft maple will dry faster but a lot less BTU’s and you might be pushing it anyway.

I have about 100 cords of logs in my Woodlot, much of it dry and I'll be bringing in more all summer, I just don't want to cut more until I have more totes to put it in.

Down here yes for a fireplace but just barely if stored dry with airflow. Don't know about stoves.

90+ days of 90+ temps does wonders but the struggle though is getting it dry enough for mill work with our ever present humidity.

get a moisture meter

if you have no way to test then time is the safety.

the modern air tight stoves you want to be sub 16% around 12-13% makes for some really good burning wood

it also helps to bring your wood inside 24 hours before burning it , the heat of the house is pulling moisture quick

If I were you I would try an experiment , put half those totes on 2-3 more pallets to get them off the ground

when you test them I find closer to the ground is less dry

I cut mostly standing dead wood and generally in the shed by Memorial day , good to burn by heating season

green wood a year would be better but it has a lot to do with kept dry and air movement and some with species

getting it split makes a big difference

I got some oak rounds from a friend they were 3 years old one march, not split just rounds that had been stored in a small barn , dirt floor but no leaks in the roof , those were still at 20% in the middle and they said it was dead when they cut it.
a standing dead oak I would have given a 9 months split and been fine , 3 years un-split and it wasn't good to just split and burn

Green pete gave some good advise.
Get the pallets more off the ground. Conside a airplane wing and how air travels around it...then think of the pile several pallets off the ground the the currents go over and under and --- draw through the pile , otherwise the wind just hits and goes over.

Oak seasoning is just like Scotch or Whiskey the more it ages the better it gets.
Rule of thumb is 1 inch/ year round drying and 1.5 inches/ year split. So your 5 inch chunks would take at least 3 years to get to the center.
Ironically the frost freeze cycles moves the water around inside the wood more that 90*f days

split wood dry's better in winter , air is much dryer.

Truly amazing how long a standing dead tree will hold water! BUT, I have been heating my house with wood since '72, and cut, split, stacked and covered wood, Oaks included, will be plenty dry in 6-8 months, in Mo anyway.

I have all my firewood racks on concrete blocks so air can flow under the stacks.

I've never heard that but it does make sense.

As far as getting it on pallets, my loader tires are $400 each, I don't bring nails into my Wood yard.

Yes, it will be ready to burn.

cinder blocks , rail road ties , poly pallets , cut rounds so that they get it a foot off the ground , anything to get them off the ground and let the air get under them also mow so that they aren't surrounded by waist high grass it keeps the moisture up also

90 degree days with high humidity may not do much for drying but if you have split wood on a south facing pile it sure cooks it dry as long as it also doesn't get rained on and have to keep drying out from that

winter varies if you hang out in the freeze thaw getting constant moisture week of 34 and rain followed by a heavy wet snow and back and forth it won't do much but if you are getting a dry wind with that cold in the teens or lower with sun it will suck the moisture out in a hurry.

Logs are like a wick or a sponge:

Lay it on the ground it will absorb water.

Get it off the ground and it will slowly evaporate to the ambient air.

I have hundreds of cords of block firewood in my stash. It is all dumped, not stacked or piled; just dumped. That pile has been more than an acre and varies from three to more than six feet high. It comprises any and all wood that grows in the area, hardwoods, softwoods. It ranges in age from over ten years to fresh cut.

In practice, I can take off the top of the pile, cut and split it and it and it burns great. The bottom, on the other hand is wet, punky, rotten, or even mulch.

So, what you are doing is fine, But anything to get it off the ground will work, and arranging it in any way to get some air to pass through is a bonus.

In my opinion cut and split oak, off the ground and oriented as in your photo, will be plenty good for next year's fire.

It sounds like your problem is capacity and timing.

Those totes look, and should work great, but, are expensive, and hard to come by. While I have never used them, they appear to be cumbersome to load and unload.

A nice good looking technique is the "holz hausen", a round domed stack. It is a bit more time consuming than a conventional linear stack, but, can't be as bad as those totes. The real beauty is they are effective, good looking, free, and available now.

I have cut, split, and sold hundreds of cords Live Oak. Cut in winter, split by early June. I never had a complaint, or a problem burning it myself the following winter.

I get a tote a month for free so as long as I'm patient ill get there eventually. The bottom of the tote is a bit of a pain to load but it's worth it, as far as unloading when it gets near the bottom and hard to reach I just dump it. I like the totes because I don't need to have my wood near the house until I need it and it's easy to throw the tops on when a storms coming.