A cautionary tale of storing wood in your basement

[PerryBurton]

My father (cut and burned wood all his life) this year packed 5 cord of semi dry (poorly dried) split birch in his basement because the summer rains just never ended. literally within days large mold spores formed on the concrete walls and you could feel the humidity when you go down stairs. He has a completely enclosed but unfinished basement with the wood furnace in it. Normally the wood furnace would help dry things some but the fact that it was summer and no fire in just made this problem worse. Cursing his impatience for not waiting until later to pack the wood in, he brought down a dehumidifier and got it to work. As it dried the air the walls were washed down and dried. The basement windows were opened along with the door when the winds and weather permitted (dehumidifier not running). A good lesson learned.. your never too old to make a mistake, or learn from one. He could have easily ruined the upper part of the house.
A tale for those who are thinking of drying their wood in the basement only. Have a drying plan.

 

[Backwoods Savage]

Hermit, thanks for posting that as many folks do stack wood in the basement. I've seen this same thing happen to several folks; mostly with those who cut the wood in the fall to burn that winter; a sad state of affairs.

But having the mold in the house is not good for sure.

 

[bogydave]

It is amazing how much moisture is in wood.
Trees are water pumps, water up from the soil thru the bark & evaporate from the leaves.

Good post to remind everyone how important ventilation is for drying wood.

He probably brought in several types of mold spores on the wood & they loved the warm, dark, moist conditions.
Birch burns best ii my stove if it's been seasoned 2 years. (outside of course)

 

[runandjump]

I wonder how much that dehumidifier was pulling out of the air/wood? I bet that thing was working overtime........

 

[ValentineHill]

Think of the energy bill that he racked up running that dehumidifier. Could have bought a lot of green wood, or even a bit of properly seasoned stuff. More fun to burn stuff than to plug it in!

 

[weatherguy]

Maybe a good idea to blow a fan on the pile too. I have a neighbor that puts 5-6 cords of green wood in his basement every year, he says it dries faster in the basement than outside :roll:

 

[onetracker]

i bring 2-3 seasoned cords into the basement at thanksgiving. the week before, i fire up the downstairs stove and drive as much miosture as practical out of the basement. works so far.

OT

 

[hankjrfan]

Good point. Another good reason to not bring wood into the basement, in these parts you'll infest your house with all kinds of pests, the worst being the Brown Recluse spider. They'll leave a hole.

 

[maplewood]

I've got 9 cord in the basement now, and will put 3.5 more in before long.
We wait until the wood is surface dry, of course, before putting it in, any time from July on.
(It is seasoned 1+ years, mostly maple.)
Once in a while I have put in a slightly damp load, but I've got a dehumidifier dripping into a floor drain for about 2 months.
And like others, I put on a fire ASAP to help dry off the excess moisture, if any.
My wood room is 20' x 9' by 9' tall, with a little jog in it for my water heater and electrical panel. Concrete walls on 3 sides, unfinished cedar boards on the 4th side, and a concrete floor with in-floor-heating. (Gotta love that in-floor! Now that'll dry wood out in a hurry!)
I have sinned in the past, and put in some damp wood and caused a little black mould in the corner of the concrete. Bleached it away easily.
And I have had a few bugs come in with my wood, but now, if I suspect any unwanted critters on the wood, I lightly spray it down a day or two before with a 50/50 bleach water mixture, and they run for cover before I put it into the basement. And I leave one light on in the wood room for a month or so, with a sticky fly catcher hanging next to it to collect a few hundred little flies.
We've been doing it like this for 100 years up here. I don't know anybody with an indoor burner that doesn't store at least a months supply, if not the whole winter's supply, inside in the basement.
My two cents worth.
(BTW, it's 6 AM and I just put 5 pieces in my Econoburn, taking off the night chill and making it toasty in the basement.)
Happy burning!