The old "cover" vs. "don't cover" debate...

McKeznak said:

I've read a lot of reasons on the positive aspects of covering but I've never really read any negatives? Are there any that you've all discovered?

Surely not financial, as it seems to me tarps can be bought at Dollarama for well... a dollar, and used tin roofing can be found near any derelict barn.

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The negatives of tarps are they blow away, the ice freezes on top of them, the tarps rip. I have had good luck with the rubber roofing cut to size, but amazingly the wind can still lift them even with heavy splits on top, but are a lot better than tarps. I think the most important thing is keeping the wood off the ground on pallets or saplings. I cover about 10 cords with rubber roofing, the rest is uncovered. A woodshed is in my future, but it has not been too bad with the rubber roofing material.

1750 said:

Backwoods -- what's your thought on why this uncovered wood would be "lighter" and provide less heat when burned?

I would think if you took two comparable splits from the same tree, but stored in different environments (covered vs not), and one was lighter... that the lighter wood would be the drier wood. And that the drier wood would provide more btus when burned (because it wouldn't be spending them to burn off the moisture).

Thanks in advance for your thoughts.

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I agree with your thinking, wood left uncovered in theory would be heavier because of more moisture. BS are you burning the same type of wood(Ash). My Oak seasoned about 4 years is sure burning great and much of it was left uncovered for a long time.

I like to let my wood season for about 3 months uncovered. Doing that seems to help the bark fall off the wood later on.
The bark seems to never fall off if I split it and stack it in the shed right away, unless I cut it from dead standing.
I don't want to handle the wood more times than necessary, so I rarely get a chance to stack it uncovered.

bsruther said:

I like to let my wood season for about 3 months uncovered. Doing that seems to help the bark fall off the wood later on.
The bark seems to never fall off if I split it and stack it in the shed right away, unless I cut it from dead standing.
I don't want to handle the wood more times than necessary, so I rarely get a chance to stack it uncovered.

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For the me bark can stay on, I'll burn it too.

There can be. For example, if the top covering gets some holes in it or something shifts and over time it allows a lot of water to pool there and run down into the wood. That wood will burn poorly even if left for another couple years.

As for the tarps, that is the poorest type of covering and most usually look pretty bad within a year; that is, it makes the yard or property look a bit trashy. The tin roofing or galvanized roofing we have found to work the best but you do have to do something to hold it down. You can screw it down to the wood and also it works good to throw some uglies on top for weight.