New use for old pig barn= Woodshed

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Littlespark

Member
Jan 29, 2010
21
S.E. Michigan
I'd like a bit of advice.

I have an old farm house with the standard empty sheds and one large barn. I have an old pig barn/shed that is about 30X15 and is one story. The roof is steel painted black. Plenty of ventilation. During the summer heat it easily gets to 120 + in this barn. Ive begun stacking my wood in this shed because . . . well. . . I dont have a real wood shed. Is there any reason I cannot use this for a wood shed? Will the hot temps in the shed do anything bad to the wood? Basically I think it will be like kiln drying the stuff. Maybe the wood will even be ready in 8 or 10 months instead of the year + that is normal. What am I missing?

Little Spark
 
If the temperature is over 120 degrees in your shed, the ventilation is probably not that great. Keep in mind a shed is not for seasoning wood, it is for storing it only. You still need to stack your wood out in the wind/open air to season it. Wind/Airflow is just as important if not more important than temperature for drying.
 
Even in solar wood drying kilns there's normally an electric fan because the air flow is so important. Studies on entirely passive solar drying systems show that they don't dry faster than a stack outdoors. This barn is not designed to dry wood- so I'd say it will slow the drying process. I would give wood extra time in there to make sure it's dry.

If you can find a way to improve air flow- leaving doors open and knocking boards out of the wall- it may be nearly as good as outdoors.
 
Littlespark said:
I'd like a bit of advice.

I have an old farm house with the standard empty sheds and one large barn. I have an old pig barn/shed that is about 30X15 and is one story. The roof is steel painted black. Plenty of ventilation. During the summer heat it easily gets to 120 + in this barn. Ive begun stacking my wood in this shed because . . . well. . . I dont have a real wood shed. Is there any reason I cannot use this for a wood shed? Will the hot temps in the shed do anything bad to the wood? Basically I think it will be like kiln drying the stuff. Maybe the wood will even be ready in 8 or 10 months instead of the year + that is normal. What am I missing?

Little Spark
Click to expand...

Should work great, Cut a few holes down low in the wall & up high at each end of the gable ends
, cover with screen or small mesh wire. This should create air circulation & dry the wood.
If green wood is going in right away, stack it loose & space between the rows for good air circulation.
120° temps won't hurt the wood but air circulation is need to dry it.
Since it already has ventilation, maybe a cheap box fan up high to pull the air up & out would accelerate drying.
 
I'm with spacecowboyIV.

Indeed the old pig barn can be a great place to store wood but a poor place to season it. Although it means more work for you it is still best to stack the wood out where the wind can do it's thing. Wind is your friend when it comes to drying wood. Sun is nice and warm temperatures are good but wind is still number 1.

In the barn where the temperature can get to 120 (certainly reasonable as many buildings can get this warm), just imagine what you have to have happen. The moisture has to evaporate. If it is in even a partially enclosed area, that moisture has to escape or else just cause lots of mold. All the high humidity also very well may draw lots of those big carpenter ants and I highly doubt you want those in your house next winter.

So I say stack it out where it will get lots of wind and move it into the barn maybe in September or October.
 
I'm going to disagree on this one. Sure the wood will dry faster if you stack it outside at first and move it inside at a certain point, but you have plenty of room inside that building to stack as much as you need to dry it for a year or two or three.

I'm guessing the building runs east west so you could stack just one row of six face cords up against the south wall, or the west wall if the building is north south. I'll bet that row will dry faster than outside. That heat will cause plenty of air movement to dissipate the moisture. I have an even smaller pig hut (circa 1940ish) that is a great example of passive solar design. Pigs are more sensitive to cold than other animals and can breed year round, so the old farmers knew how to keep them warm and dry.

edit: get a moisture meter and report back.
 
benjamin said:
I'm going to disagree on this one. Sure the wood will dry faster if you stack it outside at first and move it inside at a certain point, but you have plenty of room inside that building to stack as much as you need to dry it for a year or two or three.

I'm guessing the building runs east west so you could stack just one row of six face cords up against the south wall, or the west wall if the building is north south. I'll bet that row will dry faster than outside. That heat will cause plenty of air movement to dissipate the moisture. I have an even smaller pig hut (circa 1940ish) that is a great example of passive solar design. Pigs are more sensitive to cold than other animals and can breed year round, so the old farmers knew how to keep them warm and dry.

edit: get a moisture meter and report back.
Click to expand...

+1throw it one time!
 
Ok I'm taking some of the advice on more ventilation. I am going to put some gable vents in. Rig the two doors so they are open during most of the year (but secured from wind). I am going to have three or four solar roof vents installed and keep the windows in the barn open. The barn is E-W axis oriented, but located near other outbuildings that funnel air right into it.

As an experiment I am going to put a cord in the old corn shed (lots and lots of circulation) and then the rest into the pig shed/ woodshed wannabe. I will use a moisture meter and I will do a before and after. I will even knock it out of the park and do average moisture by randomly chosen group and by species. We will see how it goes. I will report back to everyone. The data I collect will of course only be useful to people in SE Michigan seasoning oak, ash, poplar, and hickory in similarly situated and oriented pig barns with black metal roofs and red paint (how is that for a disclaimer) . I'm sure the results of our experiment will go down in the annals of history. Little kids trolling this forum years from know will speak in awe of the audacity of us old codgers . . . . ok that's maybe a little much.

Thank you for your assistance.


Little Spark
 
Littlespark, this sounds like a great plan and the best part is you are experimenting. By experimenting sometimes great things happen. Will be watching for your reports.
 
I think the mice are gonna luv it.


I've used a chicken coop, but it had quite a bit of ventilation due to the birds needing it in Summer.



If I ever build a wood shed it will have removable chain link fence walls.
 
You get all those covered vented spaces full of wood. You'll be good for many years.
Nice to have that many options & that much access to that much wood.
Have fun. Well, have fun work. :)
 
For the past several years, I have been using old grain bins with concrete floors to store my wood. I leave the door open and it also has the vents around the top of the bin as well as vents. In the summer, it gets really hot in there. This winter the oak, hedge, locust and ash all came out under 15% moisture. My splits are not that large due to the type of top load stove that I have so I am guessing that helps out alot. I don't stack the wood, I just throw it in and get it as high as I can so there is air space between the pieces. So far, I haven't had any trouble with having unseasoned wood. For the most part, the wood is cut and split and in the bin about a year ahead of burning.
 
I've wondered about doing that but feared not enough air. You could also put up a center space like we used to do in the corn cribs to air gets in all the way down in the center. Might help but you have a bit drier and a lot hotter air out there than we do.
 
We use my late grandfather's old hay barn as processing and storage. But I always bring home the winter's wood in the spring to be put in the open shed here at home. The airflow makes all the difference in the world.

Storage:
barnfront1.jpg


leanto4.jpg


leanto2.jpg


Seasoning:
shed_front_2.jpg
 
Pagey, you've posted that before and I still like it.
 
Backwoods Savage said:
Pagey, you've posted that before and I still like it.
Click to expand...

It's a fine place to be, Dennis. I look forward to it every time.
 
Littlespark said:
I'd like a bit of advice.

I have an old farm house with the standard empty sheds and one large barn. I have an old pig barn/shed that is about 30X15 and is one story. The roof is steel painted black. Plenty of ventilation. During the summer heat it easily gets to 120 + in this barn. Ive begun stacking my wood in this shed because . . . well. . . I dont have a real wood shed. Is there any reason I cannot use this for a wood shed? Will the hot temps in the shed do anything bad to the wood? Basically I think it will be like kiln drying the stuff. Maybe the wood will even be ready in 8 or 10 months instead of the year + that is normal. What am I missing?

Little Spark
Click to expand...

None whatsover
 
Littlespark said:
The data I collect will of course only be useful to people in SE Michigan seasoning oak, ash, poplar, and hickory in similarly situated and oriented pig barns with black metal roofs and red paint (how is that for a disclaimer) . Little Spark
Click to expand...

Thats not a disclaimer, those are your testing conditions for later repeatablility and verifiction after your published! %-P
 
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