Strong Winds...But Fridgid...Seasoning Taking Place?

Low humidity as well. But .....I think it might be difficult for water frozen in a split to escape.

KenLockett said:

As we all know, wind and sun is the key to seasoning firewood. But was thinking, in the northeast this weekend we have very strong wind, and some sun at least now, but VERY cold. What is your opinion on whether any appreciable seasoning action of the stacks is taking place?

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I suspect those conditions are good for surface drying but not for in-depth seasoning. Exposed ice will sublime (evaporate without melting first) when it's cold, dry, and windy. However, if the water inside the wood is frozen, it can't migrate to the surface so it's probably locked in place until the next thaw. If the wood was wet enough to begin with, the freezing action might also burst or split the wood and allow for faster seasoning when the weather warms up.

Weather like this does help just in other ways, hasufel hit it on the head. The cold wind plays it part.

I was thinking the same thing, that these strong winds have to be doing something positive, i mean, it cant be hurting

https://www.hearth.com/talk/threads...-4-29-16-versus-4-29-16-thru-10-29-16.148470/

Although seasoning is probably not taking place, the benefit from extreme cold temperatures will come in the spring and summer. As moisture is frozen in the splits, its acting like mini crow bars busting up all sorts of area's, hence expanding the splits. When the warm temperatures come back...seasoning will resume in the area's opened up by the frigid blasts...

The transition from cold to real cold probably does some indirect drying as there is wood that is bound up in the cell walls of the wood and further bound up a compounds that have lower freezing point. If the water and those compounds freeze it breaks up the cell walls and the moisture can then escape at a later date.

I have some actual data from the past several days (and longer).

First piece is Ash, it is partially seasoned has shown zero change between Friday and now. Harvested on 10/15/15, tree was living but in serious decline. Split sitting on my deck on the grill side arm, fully exposed. Its weight was unchanged between Friday evening and Sunday morning at 9:00 am. This piece did lose 15g between Wed evening and Thurs evening and 10g more by Friday evening so it does show action. This piece has lost 9.5% of its weight since split on 10/31. Its sister piece that is inside the house has dropped 21% of its initial weight for comparison, so we can assume there is still water to squeeze out of it.

Second set of pieces are Oak that was harvested recently and split yesterday morning (Chart below). They show loss. I tagged 4 pieces, left 2 pieces outside and brought 2 smaller pieces inside. Outside pieces showed a weight loss of about .5% (or if assuming an initial MC of 80% they are now at about 79%). Inside pieces showed a loss of 8.5% by weight which equates to 15% in moisture content, making them 65% assuming the same original of 80.

My interpretation as to what is happening here is that the ash is partially dried and its surface had little moisture to give up and the extreme cold didn't help any water to migrate within the wood, hence there was no action. The Oak on the other hand is very (and uniformly wet). It has water at or near the surface of the fresh split that wanted out. So it gave off moisture. Keep in mind that the outside pieces loss was no where near what the inside pieces lost. My past observations are that if it were summer the loss for the outside pieces could have been 10x as much with a stronger sun for more hours.

You can also note that the inside pieces dropped 8% of their weight which is nearly 1/4 of what they need to lose to get to 20% moisture content. (Again assuming 80 to start which has proved to be reasonable in the past and if 80 is high the current moisture content is even less.) We certainly can't season oak in 4 days though. The initial weight loss/drying is exceptionally fast, then it slows way down as the last moisture works it way out.

So if you have a saturated piece of wood its going to show some drying, albeit much less that would happen on a summer day. And if you have a partially seasoned piece it was likely to be stagnant on a cold winters day.

paul bunion said:

My interpretation as to what is happening here is that the ash is partially dried and its surface had little moisture to give up and the extreme cold didn't help any water to migrate within the wood, hence there was no action. The Oak on the other hand is very (and uniformly wet). It has water at or near the surface of the fresh split that wanted out. So it gave off moisture. Keep in mind that the outside pieces loss was no where near what the inside pieces lost. My past observations are that if it were summer the loss for the outside pieces could have been 10x as much with a stronger sun for more hours.

You can also note that the inside pieces dropped 8% of their weight which is nearly 1/4 of what they need to lose to get to 20% moisture content. (Again assuming 80 to start which has proved to be reasonable in the past and if 80 is high the current moisture content is even less.) We certainly can't season oak in 4 days though. The initial weight loss/drying is exceptionally fast, then it slows way down as the last moisture works it way out.

So if you have a saturated piece of wood its going to show some drying, albeit much less that would happen on a summer day. And if you have a partially seasoned piece it was likely to be stagnant on a cold winters day.

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Funny, I started tracking drying rates last week and thought I might be the only one here with enough OCD to do that. Nice to know I have company!

I'll hold off posting my results until I have more data but I started with freshly split, uniformly wet oak. I'm actually testing different locations/conditions for seasoning: 1) inside the house, 2) unheated garage, 3) covered stack outside, and 4) uncovered stack outside. The inside stuff has been drying super fast, much like what you found. What surprised me was that the samples in my garage (which get no sun or wind) are drying more quickly that the ones that are outside. It could be that the garage is staying just above freezing--I'll have to stick a thermometer out there to see. I deliberately chose small chunks to speed the process but I tried to make the different samples as uniform as possible. I'll be curious to see if the same relative drying rates continue as the weather changes and as the wood loses its surface moisture. Stay tuned!

First, try to define "seasoning". Clue: I prefer pepper, thyne, garlic. Meaning- it's really undefined here, or in contradictory ways.

In forest products industry, the process of interest is "drying", and specifically here, "air-drying". Lots mention 20% MC like it's a goal. IMO it's a waypoint on the way to the low teens outdoors, then lower once it's indoors near the stove for a bit. Then, it lights quick and burns clean. IOW, indoor drying is where it's happening in NE winter.

Except way down south, or with solar kilns (in WI even) this is not prime-time for drying wood outdoors. I focus on the protection of the stacks for the out-years from spring rains and planning stack reorganization/housekeeping for summer southwesterlies. How is watching wood dry different from watching grass grow? (It's slower.)