Re: Firewood dry down

Posted by Billy NY on January 15, 2022 at 07:13:29 from (74.70.92.92):

In Reply to: Firewood dry down posted by SHALER on January 12, 2022 at 07:54:21:

From green, beginning of winter, you need some warmer temperatures to get it to dry out at a good pace, but if you split and stacked and just covered the top so air gets around it, depending on the species, you'll likely see some checking on the ends.
This weather we are having right now, hovering around 0 Deg F, cold dry air, seems to draw moisture out. Green, still has sap I assume, vs say you cut the logs and left in log length a year ago, which from my experience, is just moisture/H2O - I could be wrong LOL !

This year, I had no time to gather up the logs and process, so I ordered a 5 cord load from a sawmill we have dealt with for over 50n years at this point. They call it seasoned, air dried, and the logs are cut 1 year prior, then through their processor, which I have seen in operation when I used to haul sawdust from there. The processor leaves various sizes in split wood, even kindling, does a nice job. With that said, you could smell the fresh wood when it was delivered, none of it is checked on the ends etc. Mountain Ash, Hard Maple and another hardwood, I am not familiar with is in the mix. In that state, it does ignite, but there is some sizzle which dissipates after 15-20 min. So I use the Ash as kindling and or to start fires with, and surprisingly, it works well, albeit longer to good production heat fire, but it does get hot like it should to keep the flue temp up. Now I'll get some creosote towards the top of the clay tile 8x12 flue, but not enough to build up a thick layer that could take off once hot enough. What will happen is it will come off in sheets and plug the base of the flue where it transitions to horizontal and necks down to 7 round at the elbow. I monitor this anyways.

So this season, I play the game of bringing more wood inside, stacking in the area near the stove. The wood dries in days, and there is no sizzle, but it's still not like 1 year seasoned, but burns quite well. I would have paid double for kiln dried or full seasoned, and this load was exactly as described, very happy with it actually. I'll make the call in the spring as to whether I'll get mine done soon enough, order the same and stack then, good for next season. In the interim, I'll get what logs I can, and bolster my supply further. It's a racket burning wood for heat, but it is best to have it completely seasoned, however one can easily get by with less than that on dry time, just have to jockey the driest wood you have to get more dried down inside and repeat until heating season is over. it gets better as the winter drags on if stacked outside, black cherry will totally season in the cold if the top is kept covered and ash seems to burn immediately, better when seasoned.

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