When to uncover wood pile?

Mine has been uncovered since early March.....but I am a newbie and have been doing what I have learned by reading posts here. I plan to leave mine uncovered until a month before I plan to burn. Hope that helps.

I've been uncovered since about the begining of April. I have a wood rack down in the basement that I filled before I uncovered the pile outside.....just for insurance. The rain shouldn't affect any potential burning that you need to do between now and next season. I wouldn't try to burn it soaking wet, but within a day or so, you shouldn't have any problems if you needed to burn some.

Excuse me (and already in the "Fire Honor Society"): why would one ever uncover the wood pile. I understood the idea was to keep the top covered to keep rain from soaking the pile to the "bone", while letting air pass through the stack from the sides.

If "drying" wood in the open air/rain is fine, I'll do it too, the clear plastic I use lasts only a few months anyway.

Excuse me (and already in the "Fire Honor Society"): why would one ever uncover the wood pile.

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To dry it.

I understood the idea was to keep the top covered to keep rain from soaking the pile to the "bone"

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As long as the wood isn't in standing water it won't get soaked to the bone.

If "drying" wood in the open air/rain is fine, I'll do it too, the clear plastic I use lasts only a few months anyway.

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It's fine. Go for maximum sun/wind for the best drying (and for my $.02, sun dries it better/quicker than wind) and don't worry about the rain. Cover the pile in the late fall pre-snow and you'll be good to go.

The wood we cut over the winter has yet to be covered. I won't cover it until late fall or when the fall rains come, if they come at all. But I'll cover it no later than late October.

Jerry asked why to cover the wood at all:

The idea of leaving the wood uncovered is that the moisture in the wood can and will evaporate much better left uncovered. The rain will not hurt as it will run off. If any soaks into the wood, it will only be in the outer layer and will not take very long at all to dry. Around here after a rain we typically get a windy and very dry day. That by itself will dry off all the moisture from the rainfall.

So, leave the wood uncovered until fall and then cover it only just before or when the fall rains hit. If it is a dry fall, I won't cover before the winter snow hits and have been known to leave a wood pile completely uncovered for a full year with no adverse effects. However, I usually do cover the wood in October.

BB, great sense of humor, love it!!

But, seems the consensus, minus 1, and one "don't know" (me), is leave the pile uncovered. I've cut some Eastern Red Cedar, that needed to come down for cosmetic reasons, and I'd like it to be dry enough to use his coming winter. So, maximum drying is important. I also have some other softwoods, White Pine, that I may use this winter, it has been drying for two years. Not a lot of soft wood, maybe 1/2 cord, maybe less. For the real wood burners around this forum, that much wood isn't more than kindling. I burn only a cord and a bit, heat often, but not as my regular heat. I have the opinion (hope) that when it gets real cold, here that's in the teens, it is good to heat with wood for a few hours to give my geothermal heat pump ground loop a chance to recover to ground temperatures. When I drive the closed-loop hard its internal temperature gets down to below freezing, just a little belor, 30 degrees or so. If I stop pumping for a few hours it comes back to the 50-something of the water-table.

OK, I have the recently split wood (recently, like within the last month) uncovered and stacked and they won't be covered til late fall as I should have enough wood to last to probably January 2009 as I have leftover wood from this past winter. The wood I split and stacked last spring (aka this winter's leftovers) I've left covered as this is now nicely seasoned. I would guess that seasoned wood can be left covered or is this a problem?

Jay

that's no problem if the wood is pretty dry.

If you cover fresh/green split wood, the water condensates under the tarp and it never fully dries over the summer.
if you can cover the pile to shed water away, like a wood shed...you will be better off.
Otherwise just leave it uncovered to season in the open air/sun.
And like the others are suggesting, cover in early fall.
Even then, I will cover only when i hear rain is in the forecast. Since I don't have the room to store 10 cords of wood to stay a seaon ahead, I try to keep the pile as dry as possible.
But not to the point where i'm trapping evaporated water under the tarp.

Seems to me it really depends on where you live and what your local weather patterns are like. When we lived in Virginia, we'd get some hellatious spring thunderstorms that would absolutely soak a wood pile in no time. Out here in the high desert of Central Oregon, the climate's much more dry. Most of my wood's under roof, with good air circulation, but I've some just under eaves and some stacked out in the open. I won't cover any of that until the winter snows threaten, and only then because it's a pain to keep knocking the snow off. If it gets an Oregon summer shower on it, it isn't gonna have the same effect as a Virginia spring deluge. I don't think there's any magic date...and I think the more time the wood spends neatly stacked and exposed to the weather the better. When I do cover it, I cover only the top, with a bit down the sides to secure the tarp. Rick

Well, as I'm a casual wood burner, don't depend on it for heat, I'll continue with the extra wisdom learned here. As NJ has weather much llike Virginia, including a lot of humidity in the summer, I'll leave the cover off of "fresh" wood, and cover on some two year old hardwood, which I'll try to burn next winter before it oxidizes in the open air. Also, given the small amount of wood I have, never much over 1 cord, putting a cover when heavy rain (e.g., tomorrow) is forecast is a possibility.

NEVER

KEEP IT COVERED ! (while shouting with capitol letters.....smile....)

Walmart or Home depot sells rolls of black plastic about 3 ft wide and 50 long. Double it and it will last forever and the black gets very hot on the top so it will dry wood really well and the wood is so much dryer.

Leave the sides exposed to air all summer and if you do this you will have many nights of pleasant warmth next winter whlle sipping hot chocolate in front of your wood stove.........while burning your extra dry wood that you did not leave exposed to the water all summer and the ants and termites (who love water, but hate dry wood) will never go near because the temps under the top layer of black plastic reach almost 1/3 more in temps than clear.

I have used the above method for 3 years and my wood stays super dry.

I also use a staple gun to staple it down to the wood so it never blows off and it's easy to uncover and the staples won't hurt a thing and soften up when roasted in the fire anyway.

And you can reuse the plastic after taking it off to get more wood.



Robbie

No, don't keep it covered. The cover traps moisture and/or will build moisture. That's how to make drinking water in the desert! I don't cover farm equipment left outside for this reason. Cover it and it'll rust out in no time.

Jerry_NJ said:

Well, as I'm a casual wood burner, don't depend on it for heat, I'll continue with the extra wisdom learned here. As NJ has weather much llike Virginia, including a lot of humidity in the summer, I'll leave the cover off of "fresh" wood, and cover on some two year old hardwood, which I'll try to burn next winter before it oxidizes in the open air. Also, given the small amount of wood I have, never much over 1 cord, putting a cover when heavy rain (e.g., tomorrow) is forecast is a possibility.

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Hey Jerry, I've got about 2+ cords stacks and more to split up here and as a bike commuter, I don't know how many times the forecasters cast doom and gloom only to have a couple of passing showers.. We'll see about tomorrow and then saturday morning I am splitting some more monster rounds before I have to head to south jersey for Mother's day...

I have taken to ignoring forecasts for the most part and just checking the radar image via wunderground.com and just looking at which way the clouds/rain are rolling in.

jay

Jay H.

Hum, see you're in NJ, and splitting "rounds"...

I hit another subject thread on this forum this evening with a question about mill ends (rounds?) in NJ and got one pointer to a mill in Allentown, NJ, near exit 7A NJ Turnpike. That's a bit far for me. Do you have any advice on firewood for less if one picks it up, and splits it too if needed? The guy with my chimney service suggested going to a mill and buying mill ends, which I understand this to be the ends of tree trunks (hardwood I hope here in NJ) that the mill doesn't include in their rip operation for some reason.

I have a Chevy Colorado and small trailer that I can use to pick up if they don't weigh too much for me to pickup by hand.

I didn't associated "mill ends" with dimensional lumber scraps. While I have no idea what might be in the wood that would make it so troublesome, what I am looking for is undried "raw wood". I have a neighbor I'll try to catch at home who I have seen driving home in his pickup with a load of (what I'll describe) as slices of a tree trunks, I suppose a couple of feet or less in length and a couple of feet in diameter. I assumed he was buying these as byproducts of some process, assumed by me to to be milling.

Thanks.

Hey Jerry, yeah, I pm'ed you awhile ago because I saw your username as Jerry_NJ.

Sounds like you are looking for a grapple load of logs. I don't know specifically of a person that does such but I will send you the email address of the tree service guy who i got my grapple load from. However, these aren't your 20" logs and some of them can be monster sized. If you are still interested and have a chainsaw with a 20" or more bar, might be fun. A gas splitter would also be handy. I'll email him to see if he still has more wood, he seemed like he has an endless supply as he said if I wanted more, I can have em. I'm still working on the pile he gave me free, in fact, I've stacked about 3 cords total and I'm sure I have another 3 cords in the form of logs left....

My first year in my house, I didn't have the time to split or time for unseasoned wood to season so I bought 2 cords from a guy in Jefferson at a reasonably $155 delivered (unstacked) per cord. Wood was good but since I had an odd place to store it, I can't vouch for quantity.

I found this site when I was looking:

http://www.logsplitters.com/NJ.htm

the person in Jefferson is Jim Molnar and he has a website:

http://www.geocities.com/yosemite/forest/8984/

As far as grapple loads, I'll ask the guy I got it from but you can also probably ask any tree service guy as they probably cut and remove a bunch of trees all the time...

Jay

Thanks Jay,

Yea, I now remember, you're north of me.

I'd be in big trouble with my wife if I ended up with several cords of wood on logs. I have big trouble keeping "things" in order in the garage/shed and around the house, not to mention the basement. I'll take a look at your helpful web sites.

I do have several chain saws, the largest being a 20", but having to deal with large logs is more challenging than I seek. I do get a large tree down on my property, that's why I have a 20" saw. I have been able to harvest much of those few blow-downs, but I leave some of the larger (and best) stuff to rot when it lies on uneven ground.

I think we talked about Quadrafire too, at the time, still shopping, I was serious about a Quadrafire 3100-I (Insert). My wife has taken a liking to the next model up, the 4100-I. In any case if I upgrade/replace my old insert, I'll surely want more fire wood for a year or two. We do enjoy the comfort of a warm fire on a cold winter night, and if the cost of the wood is low, the economics are great.

Bro said:

It is in my will that the family can uncover the tops of my woodpiles anytime after the funeral is over.

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Have to agree with "BB". I always cover just the top and orientate it North & South to catch the west wind. I also pile the top row with the bark up to shed any moisture that the wind can't handle. Works for me.
Ed