Firewood question

[Lance]

Hey, Guys - Need some opinions/advice about laying in some wood.

I'm just finishing up a new woodshed outside the sugarhouse, it's about 16'x33', with a metal roof, wood will be stacked on pallets. The sides are 8" boards that are 10" apart vertically. (First board is about4" off the floor, next board is 10" higher, etc.) across the If I stack green wood in the shed in May or June, will the wood be cured enough to use next season?

What I'm doing now is bucking the wood up, splitting it (18") and stacking it on pallets a foot and a half apart right in the landing where I'm skidding the logs to. (Gets a lot of sunshine and lots of air circulation). Then, sometime later in the fall, I throw it in the truck, haul it to the woodshed, unload it and restack it in the shed. I'd like to eliminate those extra steps and haul the wood right off the splitter to the woodshed but obviously not if the wood isn't gonna season/cure enough to be good for the next season.

Anybody had any experience with how well (or not) wood cures in a big woodshed? Appreciate any info!!

[Pete33Vt]

With your shed being all closed in it might not cure as good as it should be. I know a few people around here that installed windows in there wood shed. They put them in with the latches on the outside so that when the wood is in there and stacked they can open the windows and allow for air to move through the wood. Or you could build some trap doors that can be opened and closed form outside. Just a thought.

[hookhill]

Lots of variables to consider. How shady is it where the woodshed is, how much wind, how open is the woodshed. Most important is how small is your wood split up. If you split the wood no bigger than your wrist then it seems like it wouldnt take long to dry. We split green popple this spring and split it up to kindling size wood and then put it in the woodshed. The woodshed is on top of a hill where it gets plenty of wind and we took off every other board on the sides. Most of that wood is dry already and should be good to go in March. Best.

Jim

[H. Walker]

A "old timer" told me that the best sugar wood he ever had was cut and put in the wood shed as soon as sugar making was over and let it bake under the tin roof for the summer.

[Lance]

Guys - I guess I wasn't very clear about the siding on the 'shed so I've edited my question. The siding boards are 10" apart vertically so there should be a fair amount of circulation. The shed is down in a hollow so there's generally not a lot of wind and it doesn't get a lot of direct sunlight. Wood is split relatively fine, most of it around 4".

[mountainvan]

I laid wood in my woodshed last sept., it was in the evaporator in Jan. and burnt fine. I do have blowers so the temp in the firebox gets up there. I would say you would be ok with the wood drying.

[royalmaple]

my wood shed is set up similar as yours with gaps in the vertical boards, about 10 or 12 inches is what I was shooting for and still have 1/2 of them to put up. But one main thing is just getting your wood out of the elements and off the ground. being up on pallets will help air get under the wood, and you should get good circulation through the wood with 10 inch spaces between the boards.

I've had pretty good luck with cutting small pole size trees, no need to split stuff, aka "peck-ah" poles, keep it pg 13. and even stuff cut in the summer that was able to get into stove length and put something over it like a piece of tin roofing and in a stacked pile and burnt just fine.

You could always try to strategically put some of your greener wood in the back and save some of the dryer stuff for the final pieces since you'll be into that first and you may be putting up way more wood than you need in a season so it could be a year or two before you get to the back.

[ontario guy]

if you are behind in cutting firewood once the leaves are on, cut the tree and let is sit for a week or two and let the leaves suck most of the moisture out of the tree. This enables you to burn that wood in the same year.. It works, try one of two trees.

Mark.

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

I have a gravel floor under my wood and it works great and allows it to be stacked on the ground and not have to deal with pallets. I allowed any moisture to drain off into the gravels and dries almost immediately in the event you put it in wet. I have the two 24' sides on my woodshed completely closed off and the two 8' ends completely open for good air flow and draft and this works really good.

[royalmaple]

I agree with ontario guy, I've done the same thing many times and it does work or seems to help at least. When I can I'll let the trees set until the leaves fall off dead on the ground then twitch the whole tree out to cut up.

[TapME]

I use to do that a lot when I did firewood. It also makes locating the trees a lot easier.

[Lance]

Thanks, Guys, I appreciate the feedback and suggestions. Matt, I like your idea of putting some green wood toward the back of the 'shed to see how it's gonna burn next season. I've heard of leaving the leaves on downed trees but have never tried it. Sounds like it should work.

I got whacked by a spring pole yesterday so I'm walking with a serious gimp for a while. When I can get around a little better, I'm gonna try some of these ideas. Thanks again.

[maplecrest]

lance, your best drying time is in the winter. i do not know why but if you get a week of 10 below zero weather it dries wood that is under cover very well.i never got my sugar wood up untill fall, and it burned like match sticks in the spring of a very cold jan. jeff

[Lance]

Jeff - Ya know, I never thought about it but that makes sense. When it's that cold out, the air is usually real dry. It prolly just sucks the moisture right out of the wood. Thanks!!

[brookledge]

It's probably like freeze drying
Keith

[MaplePancakeMan]

its just like when dryng beef jerky. You are not supposed to use heat so that means no ovens or smokers or dehydrators. Yes you can use them but the jerky becomes much more brittle and has a great chance of spoiling. Thus they say to use a box fan and those large synthetic air filters for your house and dry it that way for 10 hrs. I did it once the jerky is far far better. If you put a box fan facing out on the side of the shed it will force air through, and since the hair is moving it is respectively colder. Just a thought, it can be a temporary thing.

[Brent]

you need 2 things to dry wood .... sort of like boiling sap

Energy is the only thing that will cause evaporation. Warmer is better. Sunny is cheap warm.

Then you got to get rid of the moisture. Wind works great. It's also cheap like sunshine.

Reduce the energy or air flow and your wood will not get as dry.

Any moisture left in the wood will get boiled off in your arch. That is energy that will not boil sap.
Pretty simple equation.

Looking to upgrade from Half Pint(flat bottom) to 6' with flues and preheater. Expecting lots more sap with the same amount of wood.

[ibby458]

One thing about piling wood on pallets - It makes rat runways. It's nice having it off the ground, but the rodents love that space that the cats can't get into. :(

We pile ours directly on the ground under the exteneded overhang behind the sugarhouse. Sun & wind pour in, but most of the rain don't. We leave any damp chunks on the ground, then restack those on top of the pile after the season.

One neat thing is how much it shrinks. Our pile was 8' high (About evenly divided between popple, birch, elm and hard maple thinnings) We even tucked wood up between the exposed rafters. Now it's only 7' tall! The "backup" piles under tin also shrunk that much. I have wires between the posts it's piled against. The tin roofing was tight to the wires, now I can slide a cement block under them.

[Brent]

As Ibby mentioned, any wood touching soil will not dry enough to burn worth a darn.

Northern Tool has some light cheap tarps designed for firewood stacks.
4 feet wide and available in different lengths. I've used them for 3 years and they keep 90% of the snow and rain off, and allow good sun and wind exposure.
Three years appears to be about the life expectancy.

http://www.northerntool.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/product_6970_200316925_200316925

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

A few inches of gravel underneath the wood takes care of this problem forever if you have your wood pile above any water runnoff. If you put wood in wet or with snow on it, it drips down into the gravel and dries quickly and the wood on the gravel is as drier or drier than the wood on top. The gravel packs down and you can level it out and make a nice floor. I use 57's, I wouldn't use crusher due to it holding moisture.