Drying Wood

bholler said:

I agree get a moisture meter. I generally have no problem getting my hardwood to 20% or less in a year I know many people here claim it is not possible but I do it every year

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Depends on a lot of factors.. size of split, sun/ wind exposure, rainfall, average temperature, humidity, etc.. it's absolutely possible.

bholler, you are in central Pennsylvania. It is pretty humid up there. How do you store your wood in order to dry in one year?

I am in the NC mountains, very humid and rainy. I am working on the same goal, I have an enclosed woodshed, just a little shack with no windows and wood walls and I believe I can dry firewood in there in 6 months. Metal roof. Solar heat, so to speak.
I am 2 months into the experiment so will give results this fall.

begreen, we shall see. I am going with heat instead of ventilation to dry the wood. My little woodshed picks up extra degrees due to solar heating and it has no ventilation.

I loaded it up in May with fresh cut and split green wood. Black walnut mostly, one pickup load of red oak.
I did an interesting test a few weeks ago on a hot sunny day, tested the moisture content of the wooden walls. On the outside, 8 percent. On the inside, 14 percent.
This was encouraging to me, the walls are really dry and that water vapor is going right through them.

Well, I have a big stack of wood that is stacked according to the hearth.com ideal. This is also walnut, it is up on pt 4x4s so it is off the ground, it gets lots of sunshine and wind, and it is beneath the carport roof so gets very little rain or snow.

This stack went into place on Sept. 12 last year.
The wood in the shed went in the last week in May this year. So the stuff under the carport has an 8 month head start, identical wood. I will find out in November which is drier.

Very interesting bholler.
Here in the NC mountains, it rains a lot. We get a 3 day rainy spell, there is 100 percent humidity and the firewood will not dry any. I wonder if, perhaps, the semi dry wood might absorb moisture during those 3 days.
Even worse, for me, even though I am on top of a mountain I am near the French Broad River. About every other night fog rolls in from the river and envelopes the house for 8 or 10 hours. Here again, river fog is 100 percent humidity.

My firewood in the woodshed is protected from this humid air, so I think it will dry much faster than an exposed stack of wood.

I have $1,700 invested in my super duper woodshed and a lot of labor.
If it doesn't work out it would be easy enough to ventilate it. Number one, open the door and you have a 3x8 foot opening on one side. Would be easy to put some vent/windows on the other 3 sides.
Anyway I have my Lowes moisture meter so I will give results at Thanksgiving.






Here is my high-tech woodshed. It looks tiny but it holds a lot of wood. It holds 9 Nissan pickup loads of wood, more than a one year supply, and I burn a lot of wood. Not only do I have a Jotul F500, but also have a nice wood burning fireplace that we burn quite a bit.

Simonkenton said:

Very interesting bholler.
Here in the NC mountains, it rains a lot. We get a 3 day rainy spell, there is 100 percent humidity and the firewood will not dry any. I wonder if, perhaps, the semi dry wood might absorb moisture during those 3 days.
Even worse, for me, even though I am on top of a mountain I am near the French Broad River. About every other night fog rolls in from the river and envelopes the house for 8 or 10 hours. Here again, river fog is 100 percent humidity.

My firewood in the woodshed is protected from this humid air, so I think it will dry much faster than an exposed stack of wood.

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You'd have to have a pretty unique conditions for an enclosed shed to work better than an open shed with a roof. Reason being, wood absorbs or releases moisture according to a density x humidity product, and the density of firewood being at least 800x greater than that of air, it's not absorbing much moisture even with 100% RH air. This is why the equilibrium moisture content of firewood only changes 8% for a 40% change in constant relative humidity, at a given temperature.

In NC, the equilibrium moisture content of firewood stored under a roof in open air is 11.4% (Charlotte, in May) to 15.9% (Ashville, in August). During your burning season (Dec - Mar), it's pretty much always in the 12%'s. Hard to beat that, so why fiddle with an enclosed shed, which is only going to hinder moisture escape and increase RH% within the structure? Remember, there is 800x more water in your wood than in the "humid" air you're trying to keep out.

Anyone remember the Hogenhuis (spelling?) that was all the rage for about a season?

begreen said:

Do you mean the Holzhausen? For info on wood sheds, drying times, id, piles, stacking and holzhausens go to the wood shed forums here. Here's a recently completed stack:
https://www.hearth.com/talk/threads/my-first-b-hausen.155180/page-2#post-2086703

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Yeah, that's it. Been a while, I couldn't remember the name. I think several people tried it and found the wood in the center to be higher in moisture than fresh cut and even molded.

Before I built my woodshed I researched various types of wood drying on the woodshed forum. I didn't see anybody who had built a woodshed like the type I wanted to build.
So, in the interests of science, I went ahead and built my little shed.
I am open minded, I have a moisture meter. I believe that heat will dry wood better than ventilation. The key thing is to have unpainted wood walls and floors. As the walls and floor dry out, the water vapor from the wood will go through the walls and floor. In theory.
I will report here at Thanksgiving and give the results of my "high tech" solar powered woodshed.

If it doesn't work it would be a simple matter to ventilate the shed. Take out the fiberglass insulation that I blocked the ridge vent with, cut holes in the sides and install 1/4 inch mesh hardware cloth, and open the door.
Big time ventilation, would take about an hour.

Simonkenton said:

Before I built my woodshed I researched various types of wood drying on the woodshed forum. I didn't see anybody who had built a woodshed like the type I wanted to build.
So, in the interests of science, I went ahead and built my little shed.
I am open minded, I have a moisture meter. I believe that heat will dry wood better than ventilation. The key thing is to have unpainted wood walls and floors. As the walls and floor dry out, the water vapor from the wood will go through the walls and floor. In theory.
I will report here at Thanksgiving and give the results of my high tech solar powered woodshed.

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Heat will indeed dry wood faster, if you can keep the RH% within the shed at a reasonable level. Unfortunately, without ventilation and drainage, you're likely going to have trouble doing that. This is why homebuilt solar kilns always balance ventilation against solar heating. I foresee moldy wood in your future, unless you provide some ventilation.

Simonkenton said:

Before I built my woodshed I researched various types of wood drying on the woodshed forum. I didn't see anybody who had built a woodshed like the type I wanted to build.
So, in the interests of science, I went ahead and built my little shed.
I am open minded, I have a moisture meter. I believe that heat will dry wood better than ventilation. The key thing is to have unpainted wood walls and floors. As the walls and floor dry out, the water vapor from the wood will go through the walls and floor. In theory.
I will report here at Thanksgiving and give the results of my "high tech" solar powered woodshed.

If it doesn't work it would be a simple matter to ventilate the shed. Take out the fiberglass insulation that I blocked the ridge vent with, cut holes in the sides and install 1/4 inch mesh hardware cloth, and open the door.
Big time ventilation, would take about an hour.

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Will be very interested hear how it works out...

Nein!! No mold in the woodshed, so far. It is very warm and very dry in there, the sawdust on the floor is dry and crumbly. If you don't have mold in the first 6 weeks after the wood was put in there, you won't get mold in the next 6 weeks either.
As I said above, to my astonishment, when I tested the walls several weeks ago, exterior wall was 8 percent moisture content!
The interior wall was 14 percent as I recall. Couldn't believe how low those figures were. With walls that dry, water vapor is going to pass through big time. I hope.

I have a nice masonry fireplace, pictured at left. This thing will burn any wood no matter how green.
Once I get the fire burning, I can take fresh-cut oak, green as can be, split it small, 3 inch diameter,and it burns great in the fireplace. It puts out steam from the ends but it burns right up.

So, in the 20 years I have lived here, it may be a cool April day, and I will bring in several arm loads of firewood for the fireplace, some of which is fresh cut oak.
But, don't burn it all. The next day turns warm, and it winds up that that firewood remains inside the house all spring, summer, and fall.
I noticed, over the years, that when winter rolled around, that firewood felt really dry. Light weight.
So that, over 6 months inside the house the wood dried out.
In my house, the temp never exceeds 75 degrees. Yes I have A/C but seldom use it.
At night I run fans, blowing out from upstairs windows. I am running cool outside air into my house but it is humid air. and every other night, when the river fog rolls in, I am drawing very humid air into the house.
Nevertheless that wood dries out at temps of 65 to 75 degrees.
This is what gave me the inspiration for the wood shed.
I figured if I could store wood at temps of 95 degrees daytime, and minimum of 75 degrees at night, and never expose it to river fog, it would dry out in 6 months.

That is the theory, we shall see what happens by Thanksgiving.

tarzan said:

Yeah, that's it. Been a while, I couldn't remember the name. I think several people tried it and found the wood in the center to be higher in moisture than fresh cut and even molded.

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My Great Uncle did a variation of the holzhausen that allowed for drying and shed water. He had at least 3 piles approximately 10' across and 7' high. They looked like the dome shaped bee skep. Splits were on end bark side out with interior ones leaning on each other and progressively moved out and up. Pulled wood off those piles for over 10 years after he passed away without issue. Mind you he built them on flat rock outcrops ... good Canadian shield near Apsley, Ontario at Jack Lake. They brought hydro lines in at the back of his property and he cut, hauled by wheelbarrow to lakeside cabin, split and stacked. Tough old guy who passed away at 83. He wore the lumberman look with ease and could back it up. He built the cabin w/o power tools ... no electrical hook-up until after he passed away.

Edit: Found something closer but still different. His splits were shorter ... never did make it to the very inside of any of those stacks so not sure how he did the interiors.
http://www.myheimat.de/wunstorf/freizeit/eine-kleine-holzmiete-fuer-besucher-m636042,116058.html

Good thread and I too wanna see the end result.

Last winter was my first on wood. (Wood only.) With a crawlspace the firebox is in the main room
where we live, love and hang out,

For you "basement cookers" the wife and I have been tossing around the idea of a floor fan as opposed
to a ceiling fan. A grated hole in the floor/ basement ceiling with a fan in it will bring up some hot air
during a burn, and in summer it's free air cooling for the rest of the house. That was at the last house, a
two story with full basement. Made a summer family room down there which gave me the idea.

My wood shed is 8 fully exposed stacks 5' high by 18" deep, and nothing more than tarps. With almost
6 cords split, we're ready for fall and winter. Starting into next season currently. With no real basement
using mama's shed is outta the question. I'm making a pallet-built woodshed so ventilation will be max.
This won't involve solar as it's in a shaded area anyway.

Something interesting about splitting deads......it really angers ants and earwigs. LOL ("Hey, that guy just
took out our condo walls!", and why is the place tipped over?

Burn 'em if ya got 'em,
CheapMark

Simonkenton said:

Nein!! No mold in the woodshed, so far. It is very warm and very dry in there, the sawdust on the floor is dry and crumbly. If you don't have mold in the first 6 weeks after the wood was put in there, you won't get mold in the next 6 weeks either.
As I said above, to my astonishment, when I tested the walls several weeks ago, exterior wall was 8 percent moisture content!
The interior wall was 14 percent as I recall. Couldn't believe how low those figures were. With walls that dry, water vapor is going to pass through big time. I hope.
...
That is the theory, we shall see what happens by Thanksgiving.

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Is that all your wood for the coming winter or do you have a stack outside that's been drying? Back-up plan? Would be interesting if you had some of the same wood that's inside the shed stacked outside for comparison....

I stacked mine using green oak this past fall, I'll let u know 2 seasons from now if the center dried out.
From what I can tell the outside ring is already very dry with deep checks