does wood season in winter?

Wood seasons from being cut and split and exposed to wind and sun, in my opinion. So I vote yet for winter seasoning! May take longer to extract the liquid when it is froze but I am sure it is still seasoning.

Yes ... just not as fast as it would in warmer temps.

I think the action of freezing and unfreezing probably does quite a bit to squeeze the water out of the wood....and if it's freezing at night then getting a good bit of sun during the day I would imagine it dries quite well in winter considering the dryer air pushing at it and wind.

It does in my climate.

It seasons in all four.

The dew point in winter is usually lower. That it's why we get chapped lips in the winter more than summer. The air with a lower dew point can absorb more water. The cold dry wind will even absorb water from ice.

personally I think 'season' means it sits anywhere through any season....now dry is another thing.

Its hard to tell by judging furniture but in June I have trouble with a maple bedroom set. One dresser has drawers that expand so bad I cant pull drawers out. I have doors also that wont close in humid weather.
A lot of threads and arguments over wood reabsorbing water. Wooden boats are a classic example of expansion and contraction.
Winter has wood at its maximum in shrinkage. So Ive always been in the group who say winter dries wood equally if not more than in hotter humid months.
But what happens inside wood cells is complex and Im not sure the scientific community has quite sorted it out yet. From what Ive read on all the articles I can find.
Lots of environmental variables too. Freezing is an interesting one, how come trees dont die when exposed to below zero temps?
What Ive read is the water molecules are held in a suspension of seperated H- ions. Hydrogen atoms separate from the water molecule leaving HO.
Cool chit that I barely understand.

bioman said:

It does in my climate.

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Where are you located bioman?

nyny said:

it's already got deep cracks in it

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It will do this quite quickly at times and is a sign the wood is starting to dry but doesnt mean a lot in the grand scheme of things. I process wood as soon as it gets to my yard especially if time is not on my side. I believe wood does some drying in the winter and it seems that I might as well get the drying clock ticking sooner rather than later.

I agree with SeanM again, split it now, every little bit helps. There is some actual data with graphs and data and so on from the CCHRC (Cold Climate Housing Research Center) at UAF (University of Alaska Fairbanks).

Short version: [quote = UAFCCHRC]Firewood harvested in the fall didn’t cure by springtime no matter how it was cut or stored. While it dried out somewhat in a wood shed (to between 30 and 40 percent moisture content), some samples got wetter under a tarp during the winter.[/quote]

I should mention their "woodshed" was pallets on grass, with firewood on the pallets, then a sheet of plywood above.

above quote from: http://makinghouseswork.cchrc.org/tag/firewood/

There is a .pdf, about 20MB IIRC with a graph of how dry splits got over the winter on a page up int he high teens, 15, 18, something like that, clickable from this page: http://www.cchrc.org/snapshot-curing-firewood-interior-alaska

I figger whatever drying I do get over the winter puts me ahead of the game come summer.

Seanm said:

Where are you located bioman?

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Central missouri Seanm, Like you I like to split it as soon as possible& get the process started!

I don't know the science, but I put that stuff up off the ground as soon as I can. That way, even if it doesn't dry during the winter, it's starting to the minute spring begins...

Spring around here is pretty wet on the ground for a few weeks. Big difference between stuff that sits on the ground and stuff up in the wind.

nyny said:

does wood season in winter?

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Of course it does.
4 most important factors drying wood: heat, humidity, time, wind.
In Winter heat is not in abundance but it's not a zero sum either and temp is always rising and falling. Humidity is a buzz kill trying to get things to dry outside. Firewood, paint, a just washed car, clothes - awful on a hot steamy day in Summer, even worse with low temps in Winter. Throw in some still air and you're likely to give up and call it a day. Add a good stiff breeze and that will cancel out some humidity.
A freezing, humid, no wind day in the middle of Winter would not yield much progress - might even approach zero, but it wouldn't be zero.
A steaming hot, dripping wet humid windless dog day of Summer isn't doing much either.
Maximize (time) my dry days, maximize my windy days and I'll get by with the seasonal temps.
If only we got to pick and choose.

Unfortunately I live in a marine zone weather-wise so get a double whammy of humidity. The tempered temps really don't seem to help much, but I bet they help a little.

One reason your lips dry so much on a dry winter day is you are warm. Because you are warm your molecules are still in an energetic state which helps in getting the water molecules to exit your body. Cold wood has slow moving molecules that don't want to leave.

So it seems the answer is yes it does season in winter if it Is split, in the sun and wind especially single stacked....
BUT..... You can't get your hopes up that it will be ready to burn with the things that your seeing.....
TIME.... Is the missing ingredient In order to get that wood under 20% MC......

Typ0 said:

I think the action of freezing and unfreezing probably does quite a bit to squeeze the water out of the wood....and if it's freezing at night then getting a good bit of sun during the day I would imagine it dries quite well in winter considering the dryer air pushing at it and wind.

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Nope. Wood dries in freezing temperatures from sublimation, which is a much slower process than evaporation. Even with dry wind (which is better than moist air), the water in the middle doesn't make it out to where it would be liberated from the wood.

When in liquid form, it evaporates and equilibrates throughout the piece more slowly in cold weather.

Let me add one other bit of info- when I made bows, moisture was of serious importance in bend characteristics. The RH of the air determines the moisture content in the wood. The temperature and air movement determines how long it takes.

If I recall correctly, 30% RH equates to 6% moisture content, and 50% RH equates to something like 9% MC. Firewood rarely gets that dry, but we let it get dewy or rained on and the outside air is not a constant RH by any means.

The only real exception is if the wood heats up significantly in the sun, but a relatively small amount of the pile sees this- especially in the winter.

Before comparing winter vs. summer season and "Dryness" during winter I think it's important to have a basic understanding of absolute & relative humidity and how temperature plays a role.

First of all, air can hold varying amounts of moisture (water) depending on it's temperature. As air cools it's capacity to hold moisture decreases. This is what causes condensation on a cold window or glass of ice-water. As the air nears that cool spot it's temperature drops and it no longer has the ability to hold all the moisture so it starts to condense onto the cold surface.

Relative humidity is how much moisture is in the air RELATIVE to it's moisture carrying capacity. 100% Rel. Humidity means the air cannot carry anymore moisture. But a simple warm-up in air temp. will then allow it to pick more moisture up (or a drop will cause it to condense out).

Absolute humidity is the total amount of moisture in the air. This cannot change with a temperature change, it is always the same unless the air actually picks up or loses moisture in some way.

With that out of the way, let explain a little bit of the humidity indoors vs. outdoors, summer vs. winter. In the summer the relative humidity outdoors may be high even around 100% at times, and in our homes we are cooling that air. Cooling the air decreases the air's ability to hold moisture. The air has the same absolute humidity until it gains moisture or loses moisture so as the air cools when it comes into our home it still has all the moisture that it can hold at the warmer outside temperature. It's relative humidity goes up and the moisture often condense out in the air-conditioning unit. Depending on how your AC system works, you may still have somewhat high Rel. Hum. in your home during the summer. This often results in wood items expanding as mentioned above.

On the contrary, in the winter, it's still possible for the outside air to be near 100% rel. hum. But because 100% relative humidity corresponds to a MUCH lower absolute humidity at winter temps there is less overall water in the air. When that air comes in and is heated, it's rel. humidity drops like a rock, and you see very low humidity in your home. This would correspond to wood items drying and shrinking etc.

Lets get on to some "myths" regarding humidity in the home etc. When people hear that I burn wood they often make a comment about "oh, that really dries the air out" or some such. Wood heat doesn't dry the air anymore than any other form of heat, it simply has to do with what is happening to the moisture in your home. If you burn wood, with a stove that does not use outside combustion air, the air turn-over rate in your home is very high. Meaning a lot of low abs. hum. air is being drawn in from outside and then being expelled through the stove. As that air comes in your home, is heated up and it's rel. humidity drops, it picks up moisture from all your home's contents, and then it is shortly expelled out of the home. This acts to dry your home (and ultimately the air inside of it) out much more severely. So yes, it's true, but one way to mitigate that is to use an OAK to decrease the air turn-over rate. Another myth is that outdoor winter humidity is very low in the winter; it isn't. People just seem to think it is because the indoor rel. humidity is low in winter.

Ok, on the thread topic: Wood will definitely dry in winter, but it's not because of lower humidity etc. It's simply for the fact that the air very rarely is at 100% rel. hum. for any long period of time and therefore it is almost always able to "pick up" more moisture. Even if the moisture is frozen there is sublimation (same thing that happens when meat freezer burns) where-in the water turns directly from solid state to vapor state (completely skipping the liquid state).

Thanks for the post countryboy. Where are you in Indiana?

As to the op's posting, if it's ASH, you're fine and good to go.

I've cut live ash and burned it off the stump the same day this year. Burned better than some of my only one year seasoned oak. Moisture meter rang at 22% at the middle of the tree. The bottom 3 feet rang at 35%, but dried out in 3 days near the wood furnace to 18% to which it then joined it's buddies in the fire.

We have really humid summers here in NY. I can't prove it. But I would bet that the wood loses more water from Dec-Feb than from June-Aug.

I positioned my woodshed to get the maximum amount of wind all year round. Seems to be working well so far.

I get a chuckle when I hear people putting a stack of wood near the stove thinking that it will actually season in the time that it sits there and is waiting in a warm place to be put in the stove in the near future.....the main issue is getting ahead and allowing each type of species to let go of their own moisture. We help them out when we split it, stack it, put it in the sun, in a windy spot through summer, fall winter and spring..... And then repeat the process of keeping it stacked till the wood finally hits the under 20% MC......

Ram 1500 with an axe... said:

I get a chuckle when I hear people putting a stack of wood near the stove thinking that it will actually season in the time that it sits there and is waiting in a warm place to be put in the stove in the near future.....the main issue is getting ahead and allowing each type of species to let go of their own moisture. We help them out when we split it, stack it, put it in the sun, in a windy spot through summer, fall winter and spring..... And then repeat the process of keeping it stacked till the wood finally hits the under 20% MC......

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I've seasoned wood from 42% MC to 18% MC (split to be sure and checked on the inside) next to my wood furnace in my basement with a fan and dehumidifier running on it in under 2 weeks. The first few days, I literally had a pool of water in the basement under the wood pile. Running all 3 essentially made a kiln for the wood and it burned fantastic.

I wouldn't recommend it with green wood, but if you've got 1 year seasoned oak that's half way there and you need it soon, try it sometime.