Wood not drying indoors on stone hearth

brooktrout said:

I bring my wood inside and rotate from one side of the stove to the other, storing it in two cubbies. I burn one side, while attempting to let the other dry out, then rotate and bring in a fresh load. The cubbies are made of stone, on an outside wall. The wood, although seasoned, is sometimes wet from snow, rain, etc. that may sneak under the covers. Once inside, it never seems to dry out. Is the stonework the culprit? Should I build a rack of some sort to keep it up off the stone floor? Anyone alse have this problem? The floor, hearth, walls (three sides) are all stone. Pic included. Thanks.

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Your problem is your expecting miracle's. When was your wood split? Give it twelve month's then you can call it seasoned. Theres no way it would be seasoned wood as you say if it is requiring this much attention to re dry.
You would be better off pulling it away from the wall with air space behind it it with a fan on blowing air towards it. Dont take this personal but any thing requiring this much attention is a waste of energy & should wait till next season. Just my opinion. :red:
Beautiful masonry by the way. :cheese:

It would not dry as good in the house I don't think.

Everyone says air circulation is the key to drying wood well.

Robbie

I routinely dry wood in front of my stove from the bottom two or three courses of my rows. They really don't burn as well as the rest of the stack even though they are off the ground.

From my experience, if you want to dry it quick, and YOU WILL BE PRESENT, put it right in front of the heat source. By stacking it off to the sides like you have it should be dry by spring ;-P but if it's "sorta seasoned" or you just have dampness from snow then put it verticle right in front of your insert. If i'm running my stove at 450-500f stove top temp and i've got some big splits from the bottom rows...it takes 2 or 3 hours before they are void of moisture (you will see/feel the moisture coming out of the wood on the side that is down). I would say I place them approx 12 inches from the stove. If it gets too hot you'll smell it and you can move it away. Smaller splits take less time and if the moisture is only from snow and your wood is good and seasoned i'd say it'd take 10 minutes before that moisture is cooked off.

Hope this helps (but remember, DO NOT DO THIS IF YOU ARE NOT PRESENT and DO NOT FORGET YOU PUT IT THERE...you would have to put in an Olympic effort to start the wood on fire but it's possible).

Oh, nice stone work btw. I like those octagon windows too.

Thanks for your responses, guys. The wood was claimed to be seasoned, by a local guy who supplies damn near half the county w/ firewood. I'm not impressed at all.

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Lesson learned. It is rare that a "wood guy" has properly seasoned wood. They usually split it and pile it in monster piles....which looks impressive but the wood on the inside of the pile doesn't dry. GOTTA be stacked in rows or those fancy circle piles.

but it's the only wood I've got. At least I still have a furnace, though.

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DON'T GO THERE WITH THE FURNACE COP OUT. You can dry it in front of your insert. You've got an ideal setup for stacking inside once it's dry. It takes a little tending but it's more than doable....and wood cookin' in front of the stove/insert smells good!. Now, surround the front of that insert and get to dryin'.

I've found that stacking near the stove and then blowing a high speed fan on it for at least 24 hours really helps get some of the surface moisture off faster. My fan broke the other day and I've since noticed a difference in the dryness. (I also happen to like my stove room in the mid 80's, though, so I'm sure that dries it as well.)

Looks like the stacks are fairly tight, too. You may try stacking the pieces bark side down so they form a little triangle, then stack up the next row over those spaces. When you have two pieces of wood flat against each other, I imagine it would take quite a while to dry out - regardless of any blowing fan.

Seriously, when you have that thing crankin'...stack some wood on end right in front of it and it'll be dry in no time. Try it and I think you'll be surprised.

Just make sure you watch your clearance to combustibles

wxman said:

Just make sure you watch your clearance to combustibles

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Like I said above, it'd take a whale of an effort to set a split ablaze. You can scorch is and get a wee bit of smoke...but then you flip it or turn it and go about your business. JUST DON'T FORGET IT there and run some errands or something.

Lately, i've been drying every night and have yet to have a flame out.

I got a good portion of wood soaked, really soaked, like icicle soaked I have whined in a couple other posts about it.
Anyhow, this has been working like a charm for me~
I bring it in & stack it tic-tac-toe style, put a fan on it (learned the fan thing from this forum) for a couple days, I have the wood stacked in front of my stove at a safe distance & leave it there for a week.
I split the bigger pieces & I move it to the other side of my stove (the drying side) stack it tic-tac-toe style again & leave it for a another week, during that week I check what can be pulled out & moved to the dry pile side or throw it in the stove.
Then I bring in another wheel barrow & start all over again.
Whenever it is a sunny or windy day I pull the tarp back on the portion that got soaked which has helped a lot.
I have a freestanding stove so I do put some smaller pieces (supervised!) under it.
I am giving it a week minimum to 2 weeks time to dry out thicker pieces a little more.
This has become my Saturday AM ritual & it doesn't take much time away from my Saturday at all.
Once in a while I might have one hiss a little, but that is pretty rare.

I have often thought about if I had a spare room how stacking loosely with the dehumidifier running would work.