drying firewood?

[woodworkingboy]

I like to have wood than isn't so completely seasoned to add to the mix. The slower burn it produces is nice sometimes, and maybe when you don't need a lot of heat.

 

[stig]

That is the difference between burning wood in a stove and a furnace.
I only burn wood that has been seasoned 2 years, like Burnham, and when I don't want so much heat, I turn the thermostate on the radiator down.
Less creosote build up that way.

 

[Mick!]

Always dry, I hate cleaning my flues.
I just split mine, stick it on some pallets in the wind and rain for a couple of years, load it in the shed a few months/years before it's needed.

 

[brendonv]

I split the year of. Never had a problem, though I rarely close the damper. Let it burn baby.

 

[flushcut]

I split and sell the same year, 18 years doing it with no chimney fires, but I usually split the bulk of my wood in spring just piled up not stacked.

 

[CurSedVoyce]

We are very dry here. Wood dries pretty dang quick

 

[Cobleskill]

I read if you drop a tree and let the leaves dry out before you cut it up they remove a lot of water. Haven't tried it yet.

 

[pigwot]

Have you heard of a "West Virginia Kiln"?
You find an old school bus , remove all the seats, just barely crack the windows and paint the thing black.
Set it full of wood in the direct sun and give it a few weeks time...

 

[MasterBlaster]

It seems like it'd be better with the windows up, a fan exhausting at the back door, and the front door open.

Cool idea! Low cost!

 

[pigwot]

Well, with the windows cracked, the airs gonna heat up and that heated, moisture-laden air will head up and out, pulling fresh cooler air up from all the rust holes in the floorboards... no fan to run, no expensive electricity... just thermodynamics at its best.

 

[Thor's Hammer]

doesn't work quite as well as that. Dryer efficiency is directly related to airflow.

Better to put a couple of electric roof fan vents hooked up to a solar PV panel to keep airflow moving.

 

[Tucker943]

I split and sell the same year, 18 years doing it with no chimney fires, but I usually split the bulk of my wood in spring just piled up not stacked.

I do the same. Cold fires clog chimneys.

 

[Altissimus]

...after six months of sun and wind , Dry...yes the trick of felling leafed trees leaving them whole to dry does work.

 

[woodworkingboy]

I suspect that air flow much better serves when you have drier air pushing the wetter air, like in a dehumidifier type kiln. If the wood is losing water, like in the bus, it is creating a higher humidity air environment. Best to replace that with drier air as much as is possible. If you come to parts of Asia during the hot and wet time of year, like currently, not much is drying and mold will thrive if you let it get started. Air flow helps, but the ambient air is also high humidity. I made a Dutch front door for someone, and though it gets air passage over it, the thing has swelled up and now they can't open it. They have a back door. Still, I have to go fix it. A frame and panel door with a solid finish on it, but it still swelled up. What fits perfectly now will have too big a gap after the drier air season starts. Dry moving air is best for wood, and if you want to use the wood for something other than firewood, the slower that process is the best for preventing warp, cracks, or affecting the color of the material. Black Walnut loses so much of it's character, the way the commercial enterprises cook it so fast to dry it out. They can do it in a better way, but they don't want to afford the extra time involved. There can be a world of difference it the appearance of kiln dried Walnut and that which has been naturally air dried over a couple years.

 

[stig]

Not to mention when they do it too fast and get honeycombing.
I bought a bunch of kiln dried oak for a turning project, and while it looked fine on the outside, once I got into it, most of it was honeycombed.
The exchanged it for another batch after I drove down and showed them a turned piece.

 

[Cobleskill]

...after six months of sun and wind , Dry...yes the trick of felling leafed trees leaving them whole to dry does work.

Good to know. I burned a lot of my reserve firewood last winter and didn't get a lot cut. A lot of snow and no frost. I need to get a jump on EAB trees. It is around but the trees have not started dying yet.

I need to get out and drop some now so they start drying for this winter. Always too much to do and too little time.

 

[stig]

We used to do that when we summer felled beech back in the 70es. The mills would pay a higher price for trees felled like that, because it keeps the wood from discoloring and keeps the color light.
Some of that extra price tricled down to the fallers, I recall something like a 14% bonus.
Of course, felling the trees with leaves on and then returning 3 weeks later to buck them was a lot of extra work.

 

[Burnham]

More than 14% more work, I'd guess.

 

[BlackSmith]

Have you heard of a "West Virginia Kiln"?
You find an old school bus , remove all the seats, just barely crack the windows and paint the thing black.
Set it full of wood in the direct sun and give it a few weeks time...

That's all fine and dandy but where am I gonna live till the wood is dry..?

 

[Al Smith]

Mountains out of mole hills .If you just rack it up on pallets or something it'll dry just fine .Now you gotta spit it especially oak or it will never dry completely .Maple if you dilly dally around and don't split it the damned stuff will grow mushrooms .The west coast stuff I haven't a clue .

 

[Burnham]

The prime softwood out here for fuel is probably Doug fir, western larch is a near match. Both need to dry and be stored out of the wet to keep best. But neither will rot out like maple or alder if left to the weather.

 

[squisher]

Funny, up here larch would be considered the superior firewood to fir.

 

[woodworkingboy]

I've heard that firewood that was left out in the rain for a period, then stacked under cover and dried as usual, will smoke less. Not a clue if there is any truth to it.

 

[stig]

They say that about oak around here.That you should leave it in the rain for a season.
I always split my firewood in spring, have the neighbour's daughter stack it outside and leave the stack uncovered till next spring when the neighbour's daughter brings it into the wood shack.

 

[woodworkingboy]

It is true that wood left out in the rain will leach out some of what was inside. That is the way you dry Paulonia wood, a material often used in cabinets for it's fire and bug resistant qualities, left in the rain or put into a pond, after it is sawn. If you don't do that, the normally white wood wood gets an undesirable gray or purple splotching coming out. Probably with Oak, what is in the wood that causes a lot of smoke, gets leached out in the rain.